social

Nullius in Verba—take nobody’s word for it—is the Royal Society’s great motto. Proof, not prestige, should be the true persuader. So when a group of academic research psychologists decided to take it seriously, the entire discipline was shaken by the results. The Reproducibility Project found it could substantively replicate the results of fewer than 40% of 100 high-profile experiments published in peer-reviewed journals.