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How Darwin Thought (2016)
- ncmncm 6y agoModern science favors the opposite of Darwin's method. Papers noting results dispredicted by the prevailing consensus theory are harder to publish, and much harder to get discussed. Calling attention to them is considered career-limiting (although it makes good copy in the popular press). Even today, the large majority of papers on Alzheimer's assume amyloids are the root cause, despite decades of utter failure. Magnetic-confinement fusion draws more money than ever -- now, even VC money -- despite break-even and practical power generation being predicted no less distant than 50 years ago; difficulties known of back then but not considered worthy topics stall progress today; others, their equals, remain unpopular. Causal theory was understood a century ago, but suppressed by the Statistics mandarinate, apparently in large part because it supported the claim that smoking caused cancer. It is discussed today largely as a result of Judea Pearl's revival of those century-old results, after its opponents' death. Nature doesn't have a consensus; a minority alternative that accounts for the same phenomena is equal, in nature's eye, to an older model, and it and the older model can both be equally wrong. Often both alternatives are contradicted by evidence, so which prevails depends on which evidence is systematically ignored. The expression, "Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence" is most usually used to suppress the ordinary, dispredicted evidence that Darwin's method would place front and center. Max Planck is quoted, "Science advances one funeral at a time". Modern institutions seem designed to enforce it.