Methods systems and computer readable media for testing operation of an instrument controlled by a system under test. Raw data, used by the system under test to calculate reduced data, is inputted to an independent data reduction engine. Independent reduced data is calculated using at least one independent algorithm independent of a corresponding algorithm used by the system under test to calculate the reduced data. Values of the reduced data are compared with corresponding values of the independent reduced data, and at least one of outputting a result of the comparing for use by a human user, and storing a result of the comparing in memory are performed.