Creative destruction in science

Drawing on the concept of a gale of creative destruction in a capitalistic economy, I argue that initiatives to assess the robustness of findings should aim to simultaneously test competing ideas operating in the same theoretical space (Chapter 1). In other words, replication efforts should seek not just to support or question the original findings, but also to replace them with revised, stronger theories with greater explanatory power. This, Replication 2.0, will typically require adding new measures, conditions, and subject populations to research designs, in order to carry out conceptual tests of multiple theories in addition to directly replicating the original findings. Which theory best accounts for the variance across key outcomes and contexts can be formally assessed. To illustrate the value of the creative destruction approach for theory pruning in science, I describe recent replication initiatives re-examining culture and work morality (Chapter 2) and gender discrimination in hiring decisions (Chapter 3). The optimal conditions under which to use the creative destruction approach are then discussed (Chapter 4)