I have had the pleasure to conduct a variety of experiments, watch numerous management talks and take many classes on the scientific method. During these adventures I've noticed that people seem to misunderstand (or not comprehend the full power of) replication.

Replication is the repetition or duplication of an experiment. On the surface this seems pretty straightforward; why would someone want to replicate or duplicate an experiment? They do it to double-check that the results are correct.

If I want to test to see if hummingbirds prefer red or yellow feeders, I can put out two colored feeders and count the number of visits. Great! Right? Not exactly.

The experiment...