Reproducibility and Replicability in Science


The report "Reproducibility and Replicability in Science" by the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine is just out, it's of key importance for our scientific work. Here's an article on the report, and the report itself:

https://physicsworld.com/a/science-needs-to-improve-the-transparency-of-research-results-says-report/
https://www.nap.edu/read/25303/chapter/1

Lorena Barba is a prominent US scientist, driving forward several Open Source initiatives such as NumFOCUS, and one of the authors of the report.

Here's a quote from the article:

Barba told Physics World. “What we are calling for is changing those norms to give importance to the full set of digital objects that are part of a scientific study and acknowledging that the scientific paper is insufficient today in its methods section to include all of the information needed for another researcher to confirm the results or build from those results.”

What Lorena is saying is that if a scientific paper is not reproducible, then it cannot really be considered a scientific publication. Here's another article on this:

https://twitter.com/LorenaABarba/status/1125813611308494848
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/04/the-scientific-paper-is-obsolete/556676/

This is also mirrored in the Swedish guidelines for Open Access in Science:

https://www.vr.se/download/18.2412c5311624176023d25590/1555426972107/Proposal-nat-guidelines-open-access_VR_2015.pdf

There is a crisis of reproducibility in science today:

https://www.nature.com/news/1-500-scientists-lift-the-lid-on-reproducibility-1.19970

One of the most cited papers in recent years is the paper "Why most published research findings are false":

https://scholar.google.se/scholar?hl=sv&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=Why+Most+Published+Research+Findings+Are+False&btnG=

The Digital Math framework as the foundation for modern science based on constructive digital mathematical computation, is a solution to the crisis. The computed result (coefficient vector, FEM function, plot, etc.) is a mathematical theorem, and the mathematical Open Source code, here in the FEniCS framework, and computation is the mathematical proof.

Based on the Digital Math framework and the Unicorn/FEniCS realization, we present our Direct FEM Simulation (DFS) methodology together with predictions of the most advanced benchmarks available, unlocking the grand challenge of turbulence and aerodybamics.