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Repeat after Me: Accountability and Replicability across Epistemic Cultures

Fri, September 6, 1:00 to 2:30pm, Sheraton New Orleans Hotel, Floor: Eight, Orpheus

Abstract

Replication is positioned in the natural and some of the social sciences as a moral imperative: scientists are obligated to ensure the accuracy of their collective claims and to diagnose and minimise bias. Increasingly, however, some are extending this moral imperative across all epistemic domains.

We will present an account of the coproduction of conventions, the politics of bias and the valuation or replication across a variety of epistemic cultures to help understand the diverse and fragmented understanding of quality and ‘good science’ as they populate the sciences and humanities. Introspectively, for STS, accountability may involve revisiting classic STS analyses and the study of well-known cases (historically or otherwise), while still aiming for plurality in perspectives and contributions offered.

We argue that extending replication as a moral imperative, risks damaging the plural epistemologies the sciences and humanities contain and call for epistemic containment and situational operationalisation of replication. Situated understandings of research value, research quality, and research integrity prescribe multiple conceptualisations, institutionalisations and materialisations of replication. Many of these alternatives suggest modest or humble ambitions in terms of accounting for good science. Therefore, when it comes to good science and repetition, the multiplicity of connections between replication and accountability are the explanandum, rather than the explanans.

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