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The scientific method and the community of science that surrounds it is truly a powerful machine - able to take the worst aspects of human nature, sailing atop
by reasonattlm 14y ago
The scientific method and the community of science that surrounds it is truly a powerful machine - able to take the worst aspects of human nature, sailing atop a river of garbage specked with half-wrong answers, and spin that mix into the gold of technology. It doesn't matter what your right to wrong to nonsense ratio is when it comes to deciphering the world; so long as you have the will to progress and your sifting mechanism is good enough, accumulating a whole pile of right is just a matter of time.
The front line of science is a messy place; a mostly wrong messy place, as any of us who have spent time there know. A recent study claimed massive error rates across all scientific papers - which is not a surprise to scientists. The closer to the edge of knowledge you come, the more wrong you'll find - a great frothing sea of wrong, enthusiastically generated by scientists in search of nuggets of right. It's all part of the process, and you have to step back from the details in order to see where the process is taking you. In any complex field, and biotechnology and medicine are about as complex is it gets outside astrophysics, validating truth takes time. Scratch any unanswered question and it'll bleed papers and reviews, a dozen for any given position on the topic.
- maratd 14y ago> The front line of science is a messy place; a mostly wrong messy place Reading the article, the most interesting aspect was the concept of a "half-life" of knowledge. This, of course, applies not just to the front lines, but also to the rear guard. By definition, a new idea that proves to work well obsoletes an old one that didn't work quite as well.