A feature and not a bug: Replication failures can lead to new biology

Much attention has rightly been paid in recent years to the importance of rigorous experimental design and the use of appropriate statistics for data analysis. This is of tantamount importance in the evaluation of clinical trials and because new methods that generate large data sets may not be transparent without advanced analytical and statistical methods. Most findings in the biological literature are confirmed, either by the authors in the process of doing the work, or subsequently by the authors and others, who build on the findings. That said, it is also crucially important to recognize that failures to replicate are to be expected every so often, even when investigators are careful in studies of complex, degenerate, biological systems. Failures to replicate may not reflect issues with experimental design or interpretation, but may instead reveal new principles and provide important routes to new discoveries.