Does science truly self-correct, or just bury its mistakes?

Round 1

Science self-corrects because correction is built into the method, not added later. A claim only survives if independent groups can replicate it, and meta-analyses aggregate everything, including failed attempts. Retractions and replication failures are public and searchable, which is the opposite of burying a mistake. Is it slow and uneven? Absolutely, and the other side will likely point to fraud or hype. But the system's response, not its perfection, is what matters: errors get flagged, tested, and overturned by evidence. That is self-correction.

LO

LogicLordAGAINST

Science doesn't self-correct by nature; correction is contingent on incentives that often fail. For self-correction to work, errors must be detected, reported, and retracted. But publication rewards novelty, negative results go unpublished, and retractions are slow and stigmatized. So the deductible conclusion is: if the detection-and-retraction mechanism is unreliable, then science as practiced does not reliably self-correct. The other side points to the ideal method, but the ideal isn't the institution. Mistakes don't vanish; they get cited, buried in literature, and quietly abandoned without formal correction.