Popper, Lakatos, and the Replication Crisis

In this new article, I consider the replication crisis from the perspectives of Popper and Lakatos' philosophies of science. Popper considered theories to be scientific if they’re amenable to logical refutation. In contrast, Lakatos argued that a theory might only be said to be scientific if it expresses a causal connection, which would then make it logically irrefutable. As Lakatos (1978, pp. 18-19) explained:

It’s important to note that, in Popper’s approach, a logical refutation doesn’t necessarily imply the rejection and abandonment of a theory. Other methodological matters need to be taken into account before making this more substantive decision. As Popper (1974b, p. 1009) explained:

Nonetheless, a replication “crisis” makes more sense in Popper’s approach because it's only in this approach that replication failures can logically refute theories, and so an unexpectedly high number of replication failures can represent an unexpectedly high number of theory refutations. In contrast, in Lakatos’ approach, the theoretical “hard core” of a research programme is deemed to be logically irrefutable. Consequently, replication failures are not so problematic because they represent mere “anomalies” rather than “refutations.” Here's Lakatos (1978, p. 48):

I also consider some responses to the replication crisis. I argue that some Popperian researchers may be reticent to adopt a “hidden moderator” explanation of replication failures because it precludes the logical refutation of extant theories. From my article:

I conclude that scientists’ adherence to the Popperian approach may be at least partly responsible for the sense of “crisis” in the replication crisis. 😱 Multiple unexpected replication failures are less concerning in Lakatos' approach because a research programme's theoretical hard core is deemed to be irrefutable, and replication failures may motivate theoretical development within that programme. 🏗️

Further Information

The Article

Rubin, M. (2025). The replication crisis is less of a “crisis” in Lakatos’ philosophy of science than it is in Popper’s. European Journal for Philosophy of Science, 15(5). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13194-024-00629-x 

References

Lakatos, I. (1978). The methodology of scientific research programmes (Philosophical Papers, Volume I). Cambridge University Press.

Popper, K. R. (1974). Reply to my critics. In P. A. Schilpp (Ed.), The philosophy of Karl Popper (Book II) (pp. 960-1197). Open Court.