Question

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Answer (Detailed Solution Below)

Option 3 : The incentive structure of science rewards novel positive results over verification, thereby distorting the published literature.

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Detailed Solution

सही उत्तर The incentive structure of science rewards novel positive results over verification, thereby distorting the published literature. है।

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Question:

Read the following passage and answer the question that follows. Passage: "Science is supposed to be self-correcting, yet its reward system quietly punishes the very act of correction. A researcher who replicates another laboratory's experiment and finds nothing gains no new theory, no headline and, usually, no publication in a prestigious journal; the same months spent producing a startling — if fragile — positive result can secure a grant, a keynote invitation and tenure. This asymmetry does not require fraud to do its damage. It needs only thousands of rational scientists responding to incentives, each nudged toward novelty and away from verification. The result is a literature crowded with exciting claims that wilt on re-examination. Reformers have proposed registered reports, in which journals accept a study's design before any data are collected, so that the publication decision cannot hinge on how dramatic the outcome turns out to be. Early evidence suggests this blunts the bias toward positive results, though it cannot by itself manufacture professional curiosity about replication. A deeper remedy would change what hiring committees count: rewarding datasets shared, replications attempted and errors admitted, rather than citation tallies alone. Until that happens, the system will keep minting discoveries faster than it can check them, and the self-correction that textbooks celebrate will remain a promise deferred." What is the central argument advanced in the passage?

1.
Scientists routinely fabricate data in order to win grants and tenure.
2.
Replication studies are technically impossible in most scientific fields.
3.
The incentive structure of science rewards novel positive results over verification, thereby distorting the published literature.
4.
Journals should stop publishing positive results and accept only replications.

Correct Answer: The incentive structure of science rewards novel positive results over verification, thereby distorting the published literature.

The passage argues that incentives nudge scientists "toward novelty and away from verification," producing a literature of fragile claims. It explicitly says the damage "does not require fraud" (ruling out a), and never calls for banning positive results (d).

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