Scientific American - February 2019

4 Scientific American, February 2019

LETTERS

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SHAPING UP SCIENCE
As a professor emeritus of genetics who
spent many long hours writing grant pro-
posals, I agree with “Rethink Funding,” by
John P.  A. Ioannidis [State of the World’s
Science 2018]. The system is biased in fa-
vor of “politically savvy managers.”
Yet Ioannidis does not address the over-
head funds that line the coffers of univer-
sities. With state funding constantly dwin-
dling, they rely on overhead more than
ever. This is why academia favors big
grant getters over innovative research. Re-
ducing bloated academic administrations
would be one modest way to solve the co-
nundrum, but who is going to do  that?
PAUL F. LURQUIN
Washington State University

There is a danger that new ideas will be

held back if attention is directed too nar-

rowly on the precision of scientific meth-

ods. Such ideas often arise from the use of

imprecise approaches. For example, single

case studies in medicine, surveys showing

correlations in my own field of consumer

behavior, and odd observations in astrono-

my can all lead to major advances because

they pick up serendipitous findings that

are hard to anticipate. The new ideas that

are generated are usually tested by experi-

ments, but such tests often provide limited

stimulus for new thinking.

ROBERT EAST Emeritus professor,

Kingston University London

IOANNIDIS REPLIES: Lurquin points out

the problem of large overheads, which

have grown. Eliminating them is not easy,

because one needs to find other sources

for sustaining the infrastructure of re-

search institutions. Unnecessary bureau-

cracy could be trimmed, of course.

East advocates the support of imprecise

exploratory methods when they fuel new,

exciting ideas. Such research is justifiable

and necessary when we have no other bet-

ter tools for initial discovery. But it needs

to be recognized explicitly as being explor-

atory and thus often likely to be wrong

and in need of careful subsequent valida-

tion with better methods.

REPLICATION TROUBLE

As an academic researcher, I was not too

surprised to learn that a large fraction of

results in even the best journals cannot

be reproduced in “Make Research Repro-

ducible,” by Shannon Palus [State of the

World’s Science 2018]. As reported in both

Palus’s and Ioannidis’s articles, research-

ers have many institutional pressures and

personal motivations to publish flashy re-

sults and none to replicate those of others.

We must explicitly acknowledge, fund

and motivate reproduction. It would help

if journals had a section or associated pub-

lication accepting studies by independent

authors seeking to reproduce works previ-

ously published by those journals. Their

referees would not judge originality or in-

terest but would value methodological rig-

or, clarity and, possibly, improvement or

extension of the results.

JOSE M. SOLER

Autonomous University of Madrid

I think Palus’s note that the original work

discussed “appeared in a topflight jour-

nal,” whereas “the replication effort can be

found in a comparatively smaller one” is

perhaps her most important observation.

What struck me was the high-handed

way that some of these journals don’t

stand by their product. That cheapens the

worth of the publication. If you publish a

paper, the reputation of the publication is

behind that study from a marketing POV.

If the paper is later refuted by, or can’t be

replicated in, another study, you have a

duty to publish the latter paper as well.

This could be encouraged by an indepen-

dent organization that simply records the

number of times a counter paper was

published in a different journal because

the original publication refused it.

NEIL ROBERTSON El Cerrito, Calif.

LIMITED DECISIONS

It was fascinating to learn in “The Unsolv-

able Problem,” by Toby  S. Cubitt, David

Pérez-García and Michael Wolf, that cer-

tain important questions in theoretical

physics are undecidable by computation.

In discussing the primary example of

such a question, the authors assert that de-

termining the existence, or not, of an ener-

gy gap between the lowest energy state of

a material and the next state up would de-

pend on the material extending to infinity.

Yet in that case, presumably the material

itself will be forever unable to decide

whether it is gapped or gapless because

any causal influence between distant re-

gions can travel only at the speed of light.

TONY DURHAM Brighton, England

THE AUTHORS REPLY: Strictly speaking,

any undecidable problem must have an

infinity somewhere. If you impose any

limit, even the lifetime of the universe,

then it is decidable, although in practice,

that is not much better than if it were not.

In the case of the spectral gap problem,

for any reasonably large, finite lattice size,

the systems we construct will either be

gapped or have an energy spectrum that

is so dense, it becomes indistinguishable

from gapless. In principle, if you limit

how large the lattice can get (say, it needs

to fit in your lab!), then the problem is de-

cidable. But the undecidability of an ide-

alized infinite lattice implies there is no

better way to figure it out than taking a

sample of material the size of your lab;

a smaller sample will tell you nothing

October 2018

“We must explicitly

acknowledge, fund

and motivate

reproduction of

study results.”

JOSE M. SOLER

AUTONOMOUS UNIVERSITY OF MADRID

© 2019 Scientific American