"Each began with a scientist who had reached an initial opinion as to which of two opposing hypotheses is more likely to be true." Herein lies (at least) one p

"Each began with a scientist who had reached an initial opinion as to which of two opposing hypotheses is more likely to be true." Herein lies (at least) one problem. Scientific publishing is about presenting experiments + data and then interpreting the results in the context of hypotheses. Interpretation ought to be about evidence in favour of or against various hypotheses ... and not about forming an opinion about a particular hypothesis (and then designing experiments to validate that opinion) One can't though ignore the current culture especially in academic science. No Assistant Professor is going to get a paper into Nature or Science by carefully presenting a balanced assessment of evidence for and against a hypothesis. It's a crying shame, because the current culture is implicitly training our young scientists to behave in an unscientific way.