# With regard to sample size, small sample sizes in studies that are taken at
face value is an issue.

My understanding of the replication crisis, however, comes from people like
Goldacre & Neuroskeptic who write frequently about the subject…

* * *

With regard to sample size, small sample sizes in studies that are taken at
face value is an issue. Your example of small sample sizes in the context of
less-serious exploratory research would not be the kind of thing that would
get press, unless someone then treated that exploratory research as canon.

My understanding of the replication crisis, however, comes from people like
Goldacre & Neuroskeptic who write frequently about the subject; their coverage
focuses on systematic distortions in scientific literature related to perverse
incentives. Your post here is the first one I’ve seen that situates it as a
problem related to specific studies misleading primarily other scientists in
the field. I’d be interested in knowing what articles in particular you’re
complaining about, because the suggestion that any single exploratory study in
isolation is a problem (outside of the tendency for the science press to hype
low-quality studies) tends to be dismissed early in the coverage I’ve read.
(In other words, I’ve only seen this framed as a systematic incentive problem,
where scientists are discouraged from performing certain forms of vital tasks,
such as large-scale replications with large samples.)

Thanks to your response, I’m more willing to treat the article in good faith,
but my alarm bells started going off specifically because the model you
present of the reasons behind the replication crisis is one that is explicitly
rejected in the pro-replication-movement pieces I thought were seminal.

By [John Ohno](https://medium.com/@enkiv2) on [December 5,
2016](https://medium.com/p/12c0b237d9a6).

[Canonical link](https://medium.com/@enkiv2/with-regard-to-sample-size-small-
sample-sizes-in-studies-that-are-taken-at-face-value-is-an-issue-12c0b237d9a6)

Exported from [Medium](https://medium.com) on September 18, 2020.