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Incentivizing Replication Is Insufficient to Safeguard Default Trust

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Hugh Desmond
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Abstract

Philosophers of science and metascientists alike typically model scientists’ behavior as driven by credit maximization. In this article I argue that this modeling assumption cannot account for how scientists have a default level of trust in each other’s assertions. The normative implication of this is that science policy should not focus solely on incentive reform.

Information

Type
Social Epistemology and Science Policy
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 88 , Issue 5 , December 2021 , pp. 906 - 917
Copyright
Copyright 2021 by the Philosophy of Science Association. All rights reserved.

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Footnotes

†

The author would like to acknowledge the audience of an online workshop on the replicability crisis organized by Olivier Leclerc and Stéphanie Ruphy, as well as Stijn Conix, Remco Heesen, and Liam Kofi Bright for their helpful comments.

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