(Essay found in Nesselroade & Grimm, 2019; pg. 115) Throughout the text a series of several “Boxes” are asking whether the scientific method is broken in light of the non-reproducibility problem currently plaguing the social, behavioral, and medical sciences. In Box 1.1 we looked at the “Wallpaper Effect” and the difficulty in identifying and controlling all extraneous variables. In Box 2.3 we looked at, among other things, different ways the collection of data may be biased through wording effects and order effects. In this box, let us explore some of the problems that occur in the data gathering process. Sometimes

(Essay found in Nesselroade & Grimm, 2019; pgs. 57 – 58) In Box 1.1 we started a series asking whether the scientific method is broken. Public polling suggests most Americans do not possess a ‘great deal of confidence’ in the scientific community (Confidence in Institutions: Trends in Americans’ Attitudes toward Government, Media, and Business, 2016). Part of the problem might be the misrepresentation of scientific data and findings. Data misrepresentation can occur in a number of different ways. One way concerns how science writers interpret scientific findings for the general public. Since most people get their scientific information from the

(Essay found in Nesselroade & Grimm, 2019; pg. 17) The public has recently been informed about a troubling discovery in the world of social and medical science investigation; the non-reproducibility of many scientific findings. Titles like, ‘Scientific Regress,” (Wilson, 2016) “Does Social Science Have a Replication Problem?” (Tucker, 2016) and “Over Half of Psychology Studies Fail Reproducibility Test” (Baker, 2015) seem to be popping-up all over the place. The titles are unnerving and the issues that are raised are both real and serious. Briefly stated, an alarming amount of published research does not produce, when attempts at replication of the