"The ultimate protection against research error and bias is supposed to come from the way scientists constantly re-test each other's results. " To what extent would you agree with this claim in the natural sciences and the human sciences?.
The quote above is indeed correct in the way that scientific societies constantly re-test and preform tests again to see if they will yield the same results. Scientists perform these replicated experiments to further know the purpose and methods in the experiment. In the process, scientists are finding percentage error and minute differences in their results. In this essence, scientific tests will almost all end up with a high percentage of variability and never reach a firm conclusion. It can then be reasoned that the re-testing of experiments and results do not protect against researcher error and bias. This does not work because it is almost impossible to replicate conditions and results exactly, bias is always a factor in research, and many sciences are based off of others.
Indeed, the re-testing of results does aid in solidification of knowledge, however, how just are these "results " and methods that brought about the results? When re-testing any experiment in human sciences or natural sciences, it is extremely difficult to exactly recreate the originator's conditions of the experiment. In respect to human sciences, observation is key. When trying to conduct a human science observation, one must also take into account that the temperature, lighting, colors, and people around make the difference in attitude and emotion expressed. When my younger cousins were little, my parents made the generalization that they loved parks. This was re-tested constantly as they always went to the park on the weekend and always had a happy expression during this time of play. However, one weekend, the weather was overcast and there were no people at the park. My two cousins ended up will sorrowful expressions instead of their usual happy expressions.