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Lovely. Thanks for posting that. With all our popular narratives about the inevitability of scientific progress, it's always refreshing (from a historical poin
by routerl 3y ago
Lovely. Thanks for posting that.
With all our popular narratives about the inevitability of scientific progress, it's always refreshing (from a historical point of view) and important (from a personal, ethical perspective) to remember that there's no guarantee that chronologically later developments will necessarily be improvements on earlier conclusions.
It brings to mind our current replication crises in science.
- vladms 3y agoDepends what you mean by "development", as the article does not describe developments on treating scurvy, but rather somehow random actions based on wrong assumptions (ex: limes are the same as lemons; acidity is all that matters). And even if in this case the initial solution was correct, it was still observing a correlation, as they had no clue why lemons do the job. My conclusion based on the article is that just experimenting is not enough, you also need to develop and test a complex understanding of the system. We probably don't cherish enough as a society, that some of us (as in: trained researchers, etc.) have a mindset that expects both replication and understanding, even if being humans we don't always reach this ideal.