> Proving the claims of rapid progress would be inordinately difficult and beyond the scope of this contribution. That seems like it's an important part of thi

> Proving the claims of rapid progress would be inordinately difficult and beyond the scope of this contribution. That seems like it's an important part of this issue. If we know that there are massive problems with irreproducibility and we just have to go on an assumption that there has been "rapid progress" then it seems like the most obvious solution to the "paradox" is to question that progress as well. This is similar to how in the 90s everything was labeled "healthy and fat free!" which we know resulted in food filled with sugar, then making the claim "the paradox of healthy food despite high sugar". It might be worth calling into question the claims of healthiness given the fundamental conditions that produce health aren't present. Certainly there are places that everyone will agree we've seen progress, but all of these places seem to be where scientific progress is closely tied to commercial application. One of the best examples that I think everyone will agree has been remarkable has been the storage capacity of batteries. While much of this progress surely starts in the labs, the true measure of progress isn't in papers it's commercial applications. It frankly doesn't matter at all if the academic research behind battery technology was good or not, because we know these batteries work and are in fact smaller. If you cellphone weighed 10 lbs and ran out of energy in 45 minutes you wouldn't care either way what the research said. However the answer to this "paradox" isn't just that the market is some force for testing what is real. Anyone who has worked long enough in machine learning knows a fair amount of bullshit not only exists in papers but in products as well. A better explanation for me is that we live in an age of unprecedented economic and high energy intensity activity. You generate 160,000 TWh of power you're going to see a lot of wonderful things that look like progress. Some real, some illusions, but assuming that science is really the basis for all of this is a fairly large, and unchecked in this article, assumption. Lots of the scientific progress we've made in the last few decades has happened outside of an academic research lab, and assuming "science" is the cause might be a bit naive.