Top all-time · #798
Ulrich Schimmack
Personal blog · replicationindex.comsciencephilosophy
Ulrich Schimmack writes Replicability-Index - Improving the replicability of empirical research, a personal blog at replicationindex.com about science and philosophy. Since 2019, 83 different Hacker News readers have linked it 100 times, most often “A Meta-Scientific Perspective on Thinking: Fast and Slow (2020)”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-31, and you can follow it by feed.
Rarely recommended · 2 of 40 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
HN readers link this replication-focused blog as evidence that priming research and Kahneman's Thinking Fast and Slow do not replicate, often in replies recommending the book.
- Recommended for · 2 comments
- Suggested reading as a criticism of Thinking Fast and Slow; one commenter calls its Ioannidis response hilarious.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 40 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Improving the replicability of empirical research
Most-linked posts?
- A Meta-Scientific Perspective on Thinking: Fast and Slow (2020)19 people · 21 mentions · first linked 2021-03-29
- How Priming Research Went off the Rails (2017)14 people · 17 mentions · first linked 2019-07-02
- /2017/02/02/reconstruction-of-a-train-wreck-how-priming-research-went-of-the-rails/comment-page-1/7 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2019-12-28
- A Meta-Scientific Perspective on "Thinking: Fast and Slow" (2020)6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2020-01-14
- /2017/04/07/hidden-figures-replication-failures-in-the-stereotype-threat-literature/5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2019-09-10
- /2020/09/13/the-dunning-kruger-effect-explained/4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2022-04-22
- Reconstruction of a Train Wreck: How Priming Research Went Off the Rails4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2019-02-06
- /2018/01/05/bem-retraction/3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2021-10-21
- Personalized P-Values for Social/Personality Psychologists2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2021-08-28
- /category/kahneman/2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2019-07-02
What Hacker News says?
Kahneman did in fact personally respond to some of the criticisms in a blog comment [0] at https://replicationindex.com/2017/02/02/reconstruction-of-a-... HN discussion at the time https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15228712 [0] Archive link to the original comment by Kahneman https://web.archive.org/web/20190206160415/https://replicati...
Comment linking /2017/02/02/reconstruction-of-a-train-wreck-how-priming-research-went-of-the-rails/
on “Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?”Submitted A Meta-Scientific Perspective on Thinking: Fast and Slow (2020) as a story · 130 points
HN discussionThe top book, "Thinking Fast and Slow" is full of experiments that are flat out false. https://replicationindex.com/category/thinking-fast-and-slow...
Comment linking /category/thinking-fast-and-slow/
on “Show HN: 40k HN comments mentioning books, extracted using deep learning”Submitted How Priming Research Went off the Rails (2017) as a story · 34 points
HN discussionWhen you read up on priming you will discover that it is something people want to believe in, but does not replicate scientifically. https://replicationindex.com/2017/02/02/reconstruction-of-a-... People used to believe in brainwashing too. We like to think people who disagree with us are easily swayed idiots. It keeps our opinions safe and justifies censoring their opinions instead of engaging with them.
Comment linking /2017/02/02/reconstruction-of-a-train-wreck-how-priming-research-went-of-the-rails/
on “YouTube to remove content that alleges widespread election fraud”Submitted A Meta-Scientific Perspective on "Thinking: Fast and Slow" (2020) as a story · 3 points
HN discussionMy comment about priming is due to articles like https://replicationindex.com/2017/02/02/reconstruction-of-a-... . As https://replicationindex.com/2017/02/02/reconstruction-of-a-... shows, Daniel Kahneman came to agree that priming research was bunk. I included that blog post as a guide to what other results may be suspect.
Comment linking /2017/02/02/reconstruction-of-a-train-wreck-how-priming-research-went-of-the-rails/comment-page-1/
on “Daniel Kahneman has died”Submitted What “Thinking: Fast and Slow” Got Wrong as a story · 3 points
HN discussionIf you google "Which Kahneman claims were wrong" , here are the first two of 4.97m hits" https://slate.com/technology/2016/12/kahneman-and-tversky-re... https://replicationindex.com/category/thinking-fast-and-slow... > "Table 1 shows the number of results that were available and the R-Index for chapters that mentioned empirical results. The chapters vary dramatically in terms of the number of studies that are presen…
Comment linking /category/thinking-fast-and-slow/
on “Daniel Kahneman has died”Submitted A Meta-Scientific Perspective on “Thinking: Fast and Slow” as a story · 3 points
HN discussionAbout his book: https://replicationindex.com/2020/12/30/a-meta-scientific-pe...
Comment linking /2020/12/30/a-meta-scientific-perspective-on-thinking-fast-and-slow/
on “Daniel Kahneman has died”Submitted Reconstruction of a Train Wreck: How Priming Research Went Off the Rails as a story · 2 points
HN discussionkahneman was such a fascinating personality. Other than "Thinking fast and slow", I highly recommend "The Undoing Project" by Michael Lewis about Kahneman and Tversky's incredible journey changing the standard economic theory. Some interesting talks with Daniel Kahneman - https://www.edge.org/adversarial-collaboration-daniel-kahnem... - https://replicationindex.com/2017/02/02/reconstruction-of-a-... Kahneman himself…
Comment linking /2017/02/02/reconstruction-of-a-train-wreck-how-priming-research-went-of-the-rails/
on “Daniel Kahneman has died”Submitted Reconstruction of a Train Wreck: How Priming Research Went Off the Rails as a story · 2 points
HN discussionFor what it's worth, Kahnman answered a post that scrutinized the effect of priming: https://replicationindex.com/2017/02/02/reconstruction-of-a-...
Comment linking /2017/02/02/reconstruction-of-a-train-wreck-how-priming-research-went-of-the-rails/comment-page-1/
on “Daniel Kahneman has died”Submitted Why Most Psychologists Are Wrong about P-Values? as a story · 2 points
HN discussionThe density of non-replicable results varies by chapter. You can ignore anything said in chapter 4 about priming for example. See https://replicationindex.com/2020/12/30/a-meta-scientific-pe... for more.
Comment linking /2020/12/30/a-meta-scientific-perspective-on-thinking-fast-and-slow/
on “Daniel Kahneman has died”Submitted A Meta-Scientific Perspective on "Thinking: Fast and Slow as a story · 1 points
HN discussionMe too, I think a bunch of it was found to be reproducible though. https://replicationindex.com/2020/12/30/a-meta-scientific-pe... Same thing is happening w/ a lot of the work of Dan Ariely, but I think his situation is much worse.
Comment linking /2020/12/30/a-meta-scientific-perspective-on-thinking-fast-and-slow/
on “Daniel Kahneman has died”Submitted Most published results in medical journals are not false as a story · 1 points
HN discussionOn "Thinking Fast and Slow", you may want to read criticisms of the book. For example, "Reconstruction of a Train Wreck: How Priming Research Went off the Rails", https://replicationindex.com/2017/02/02/reconstruction-of-a-...
Comment linking /2017/02/02/reconstruction-of-a-train-wreck-how-priming-research-went-of-the-rails/
on “Ask HN: Mind bending books to read and never be the same as before?”Submitted Improving the Replicability of Empirical Research as a story · 1 points
HN discussionThat paper was an interesting read :) I googled a bit about it and found possible explanation https://replicationindex.com/2018/01/05/bem-retraction/
Comment linking /2018/01/05/bem-retraction/
on “Toyota owners have to pay $8/month to keep using their key fob for remote start”Submitted Personalized P-Values for Social/Personality Psychologists as a story · 1 points
HN discussionIndeed. Kahneman actually wrote a comment on the blog post that surfaced this issue: https://replicationindex.com/2017/02/02/reconstruction-of-a-...
Comment linking /2017/02/02/reconstruction-of-a-train-wreck-how-priming-research-went-of-the-rails/comment-page-1/
on “Ask HN: Best books you read in the past decade?”Submitted Personalized P-Values for Social/Personality Psychologists as a story · 1 points
HN discussionYou might want to skip chapter 4: https://replicationindex.com/2017/02/02/reconstruction-of-a-... And take the rest with a bit of salt given that this was Kahneman's comments on the research in that chapter: "Disbelief is not an option. The results are not made up nor are they statistical flukes. You have no choice but to accept that the major conclusions of these studies are true."
Comment linking /2017/02/02/reconstruction-of-a-train-wreck-how-priming-research-went-of-the-rails/
on “Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?”Submitted Open SOEP: Spousal Similarity in Personality as a story · 1 points
HN discussionI'm just done with a 3-hour reading session of an evolutionary psychology book by one of the leading scientists in the field. The book is extremely competently written, and is awash with statistics on almost every page, "70% of men this; 30% of women that ... on and on". And much to my solace, the scientist was super-careful to distinguish studies that were replicable, and those that were not. Still, reading your co…
Comment linking /about/
on “A new replication crisis: Research that is less likely to be true is cited more”Submitted Anti-Black Bias on the IAT Predicts Pro-Black Bias in Behavior as a story · 1 points
HN discussion
