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The two are not mutually exclusive. To say that all scientific progress can't be attained by just following a single scientific method does not imply that follo

by api 11y ago

The two are not mutually exclusive. To say that all scientific progress can't be attained by just following a single scientific method does not imply that following that method is fruitless or wrong. It obviously does work sometimes. The fitness landscape is complex and multifaceted, and different approaches to learning will work to varying degrees at different times. The danger is in fundamentalism -- in the elevation of a single method or philosophy of science to an absolute One True Way and the (always attendant) purging and blacklisting of anyone who doesn't follow it. It seems to me that a lot of people, especially CS and math types, are really deeply uncomfortable with the sort of multi-modality I'm talking about. Studying biology deeply made me really comfortable with it. It's really very rational too. If you understand learning, search, combinatorics, and evolutionary theory, the absolute requirement for multi-modality is easy to grasp... even intuitive to visualize. One would not traverse a desert with snowshoes, an ocean with boots, or a mountain with a road bike. Fitness landscapes are also varied and demand a varying set of strategies to cope with different types of terrain. We need an epistemological toolbox with all kinds of different tools in it.

wfo 11y ago
I think you'll find pure mathematicians and CS theorists more amenable to that creativity and flexibility you're speaking of it's the applied ones who have strayed too close to engineering and had their minds burned into a particular mode that I've found are altogether uncomfortable with multi-modality.
Retric 11y ago
You missed my point methods are just another idea that can be falsified. Ex: http://www.nature.com/news/first-results-from-psychology-s-largest-reproducibility-test-1.17433 http://www.nature.com/news/first-results-from-psychology-s-l... At it's core science is really 3 things. Experiment, book keeping, and continuing after the old guard dies off. That does not mean it's fast, but give it 500 years and phrenology looks like a poor joke.

by api 11y ago

wfo 11y ago

I think you'll find pure mathematicians and CS theorists more amenable to that creativity and flexibility you're speaking of it's the applied ones who have strayed too close to engineering and had their minds burned into a particular mode that I've found are altogether uncomfortable with multi-modality.

Retric 11y ago

You missed my point methods are just another idea that can be falsified. Ex: http://www.nature.com/news/first-results-from-psychology-s-largest-reproducibility-test-1.17433 http://www.nature.com/news/first-results-from-psychology-s-l... At it's core science is really 3 things. Experiment, book keeping, and continuing after the old guard dies off. That does not mean it's fast, but give it 500 years and phrenology looks like a poor joke.