Reflections on the Irreproducibility of Scientific Papers

This is the first of two back-to-back editorials1 in which I discuss two different, but related, topics: the irreproducibility of research work and the importance of the test of time, respectively. These topics are related because, as we will see, only with time can one tell whether a scientific study is reproducible, and because reproducibility would increase dramatically if the value of research work were gauged on the basis of the test of time rather than its short-term impact.The lack of reproducibility of scientific papers is an enormous problem that plagues biomedical research and seems to be getting worse. It undermines the entire research enterprise, for reproducibility is the very essence of science; without reproducibility, there is no science.Because of the importance and magnitude of this problem, the News and Views article in the current issue of the journal2 is devoted to a discussion of the causes of, and potential remedies for, irreproducibility. The article, written by Ruth Williams, distils her discussions with several editors of Circulation Research and other scientific leaders. I hope the readers will find this article thought-provoking and conducive to a constructive discussion of how to improve the situation.Irreproducibility is devastating because it paralyzes scientific progress, causes fictitious “controversies,” and undermines the very credibility of science. A good example is in the field of myocardial infarct size limitation (a.k.a. cardioprotection). Although >20 000 papers have claimed to have found a therapy that reduces infarct size, rarely have these results been reproducible from one laboratory to another. This has been the major reason why the field of cardioprotection has not been translated into any clinical therapy despite 40 years of intense work and billions of taxpayer dollars spent by the NIH and other bodies to find a drug that limits myocardial infarct size. …