In the EU it's usually like that. 3 years for a bachelor's, 2 years for a master's, only then you can start pursuing a phd.

I graduated in 2005, and back then we had a different system, where I did a single 5 year program for a computer science degree (engineering), that today is the equivalent of a master's (diplom engineer). I could have continued to go for a dedicated master's, another 2 years, but I got lazy.

Definitely depends on the field. Most "humanities" studies require a masters first, although for that reason many PhD programs include the step of getting your masters so it can all be done as a single track. So still a standard ~6 year program but you get both, masters after the first 3 and then PhD after 3 more. I've only ever run with folks in humanities I'm realizing, so I didn't even realize there were PhDs you could get without a masters

All of continental europe?

Fucking happening over here. The thing with echo chambers is that someone eventually starts farting, and then people start breathing it in. Those people start farting, and boom a moronic fascist dictatorship or radical conspiracy group is born

i think you bring up valid instances where this is fair.

but i think i’m speaking to the very obvious and important ones that are worthy of reproduction. like i’ve seen articles be like “these corporations are responsible for 99% of climate change” or something

and the comments will be like “duh we knew that”

which true, but not empirically. being able to cite data from actual research from professionals is so valuable and far better than anecdotes or guesses. edit: and also informs meaningful policy.

that said, is there some way for a layperson like me to identify when research is not deemed worthy of reproduction? or is it a lost cause

In theory, a paper gives you a methodology that you can use to reproduce the findings. And a refusal to use papers to repeat findings (because shit costs money and nobody wants to publish iterative studies) means you end up with a bunch of novel findings that are never confirmed through repetition.

But the fact that nobody is bothering to repeat these studies also raises a question of what exactly is being researched. Certainly, the more useful scientific research efforts are about formulating applicable techniques. So they would need to be reproducible to have any functional value.

The fact that we're not seeking to replicate studies suggests that we're investing a ton of time in niche under-utilized fields. And that may be a problem of investigative research (we're so focused on publishing that we don't care what we're actually studying) or a problem of applied sciences (we're so focused on scaling up older methods to industrial scale that we're leaving better methods of production on the cutting room floor).

But its definitely some kind of problem.

TBF I’ve lost count of the number of times someone has cited some paper as a reference for the point they are trying to make and when I inspect the paper it has shitty “n”, the paper is written for an agenda (not sure what that’s called where I.e. a paper saying smoking is good for you/not harmful is paid for by the tobacco industry and written by tobacco industry scientists), or it might even just be straight up bullshit written to look like a legit paper.

Peer Review at least offers some barriers to the problems with papers, but it’s definitely not a panacea.

My dad has a friend who is like 65. I lives quite isolated. He's not dumb or anything at all, but he only talks to maybe 6 people and 4 of them are alcoholics and almost as sheltered as he is. The other day i went by because my dad asked me to help him.bwe talked for a bit and he said his knee is fucked but don't want t o do anything about it. I just shrugged and said that everything involving knee or hip surgery is scary. Hell, every surgery is pretty scary. Somehow the conversation (obviously) pivot towards covid. And he said he'll never get another vaccine in his life, because it was a plot from the higher ups, covid is made to kill people but it didn't kill enough. What struck me the most was he kinda saw that i didn't cared abd disagreed, so he quickly said: it's not just me, many people are saying it. Yeah sure, but i also know the people you hang out with who are "saying it" and who have "theories".
That is the guy on the internet, who doesn't even has the internet.