Yeah, but it's hard to get funding to do a rigorous replication of something that doesn't have an immediate commercial justification (for example legal liability or FDA requirements in drug trials). It's a big investment where the best case scenario is that you can be a little more confident in prior results. And if you can't replicate the results, it doesn't necessarily mean the original finding was wrong, it could just mean the original scientists were better than the replication scientists.

Also, among scientists who have invested the time to earn a Ph.D., there is a culture of wanting to break new ground and push humanity forward. There would have to be a strong incentive to motivate them to invest the time in replicating research for which they won't get the glory.

You would have to change the way science is funded to make research replication a required step in the modern scientific method.

What evidence/data have you used to form your opinion in regards to hard sciences? I don't necessarily disagree, but considering the subject matter, I feel compelled to press you for a data-supported justification.

I've seen copious bad papers in EE and MechE journals. I'm not qualified to evaluate chem or physics research, but you'd think if any field would be hard to fudge, it would be engineering. Turns out this is not the case. The bad engineering papers I've seen tend to draw overly-broad conclusions while failing to document the methods adequately.

Same question. I would assume this is partially based on replicability, or doing the study over and getting the same results. Recently, there was an attempt to replicate major studies in psychology and only about 36% were replicated. I think something similar was in medicine.

So he had no money, but he had an apple card for $477 and your $250 card with the balance? Sounds like evidence that he's scammed other people with this scam. Sounds like there are already other victims out there, sans justice.

The author has 2 x $250, so $500 total.

The scammer had spent $23.

Yes, but the story said the scammer wanted to repay Haschek with 1 card worth $477 (note that $477 is greater than $250, this will be important in the next sentence) and another card worth the difference. You can't add money to an Apple gift card after the initialization of the card.

Therefore, the $477 card wasn't one of the 2 cards that the scammer scammed from Haschek. It was separate, and evidence of another crime. Hence my post.

And accepting it as payment would make him complicit in harboring stolen property.

You know, I'd be surprised if this is his first scam. I hope it is, but I probably would still tell his parents because apparently they still have a lot of influence. They guy is 22 but he's acting like he's 14. Time to grow up and start seeing consequences for bad decisions.

Personally, I'm a big fan of "Baby Steps" by Dr. Leo Marvin. It means setting small, reasonable goals for yourself, one day at a time, one tiny step at a time. Just set up long range plans and when executing, focus on the immediate step you are facing. Baby steps.

Can these questions be answered? What would an answer to any of these questions even look like?