Don't hate the replicator, hate the game

The podcast explores the replication crisis in science, focusing on economist Abel Brodeur's efforts to address the issue. Brodeur's initial experience of manipulating data to achieve statistically significant results in his smoking ban research led him to investigate the prevalence of p-hacking in academic publishing. He created the Institute for Replication and the Replication Games, events where social scientists attempt to reproduce the results of published papers. The Montreal Replication Game revealed issues such as missing variables and results dependent on a single data point, highlighting systemic failures in the peer-review process. Despite these challenges, the games are seen as a step towards changing research norms by increasing the perceived likelihood of data scrutiny.