Reproducibility

This article is about the reproducibility in science, which means how well a scientific experiment or study can be done again and give the same results.. For how living things have babies, see fertility and fecundity. For reproducibility in when it comes to computer software, see Reproducible builds.

In science, one very important idea is reproducibility. This means that if a scientist does an experiment or studies some data, other scientists should be able to do the same experiment in the same way and get the same results. Reproducibility is closely connected to two similar ideas called replicability and repeatability.

For example, imagine a scientist discovers that a certain plant grows faster when it gets extra sunlight. If another scientist in a different lab follows the same steps and measures the plant growth in the same way, they should see the same faster growth. If they do, the original experiment is considered reproducible.

There are different ways to replicate an experiment, but it usually means that different scientists use the same method to try to get the same results. Only after one or more successful replications can a scientific finding be trusted and accepted as real scientific knowledge.^[1]