It has been called “galling” and “worse than we thought.” It risks demolishing the technocratic case for “expertise.” Nearly two decades into science’s replication crisis, have scholars, researchers, and funding agencies learned anything?

Like a plumbing nuisance-turned-emergency, the replication crisis emerged in dribs and drabs before gushing violently into the public’s consciousness. As early as the 1950s, Democratic Sen. Estes Kefauver was holding congressional hearings on “the sorry state of science supporting drug effectiveness,” a critique that led to stricter FDA requirements. The year 1977 saw the publication of Michael J. Mahoney’s landmark study exposing confirmation bias in the peer-review process. (“Reviewers were strongly biased against manuscripts which reported results contrary to their theoretical perspective.”)