The Importance of Repeatability in Science

Repeatability is the replication of a scientist’s experiments and results by other scientists. The can be done because the physical laws are the same every place so an experiment conducted by one scientist should work for any other scientist so as to double check the results. Repeatability is not to be confused with replicating passed events which is done to show the possibility or feasibility of that event which is a totally different from the repeatability being discussed.

Repeatability works best with experiments with well controlled variables so that replication can be as completely as possible. It does not work well in situations where there are difficulties in controlling variables. In such cases results are not easily replicated. The degree of repeatability varies from field to field.

So while repeatability is important to science it is not the absolute principle some make it out to be and some fields are more repeatable than others.