The
replication crisis (or
replicability crisis) refers to a
methodological crisis in
science, in which scientists have found that the results of many
scientific experiments are difficult or impossible to
replicate on subsequent investigation, either by independent researchers or by the original researchers themselves. Since the reproducibility of experiments is an essential part of the
scientific method, this has potentially grave consequences for many fields of science in which significant theories are grounded on experimental work which has now been found to be resistant to replication.