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Judging one's work by anything other than the work itself is unscientific.

• Retra 11y ago
  The purpose of science is to generate correct beliefs about the world. If you believe in nonsense, that's very poor scientific work.
  • isolate 11y ago
    Presumably you can imagine a somewhat stupid robot that does random scientific experiments, generating good beliefs and bad ones. Why would that invalidate the good beliefs? Belief A has no rational basis. Belief B has a rational basis. If you believe A yet have proven B, that doesn't make B wrong. Even if believe that it was A which led you to the discovery.
    • Retra 11y ago
      It doesn't. But it is a good clue that the robot isn't using a rational process to select beliefs, and is instead doing so randomly. It is far easier to come up with an invalid belief than a valid one, and if you aren't selecting them rationally, you are practically guaranteed to be wrong. >If you believe A yet have proven B, that doesn't make B wrong. It makes you wrong. All the time you spend as a proponent for A is wasted.
      • isolate 11y ago
        Brute force approaches can work. For example, evolution produced humans. I agree that it's better not to waste your time believing A if you can avoid it.
  • stefantalpalaru 11y ago
    > If you believe in nonsense, that's very poor scientific work. Non sequitur. What you believe is separated from your work. Just like when you were a kid and your math homework had nothing to do with the fact that you believed wrestling was real.