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Thread: Hey Robert!

  1. #1
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    Hey Robert!

    I know you've seen this before, but I thought it was poignant for today's state of "science," especially the passage:

    Other kinds of errors are more characteristic of poor science. When I was at Cornell. I often talked to the people in the psychology department. One of the students told me she wanted to do an experiment that went something like this—I don’t remember it in detail, but it had been found by others that under certain circumstances, X, rats did something, A. She was curious as to whether, if she changed the circumstances to Y, they would still do, A. So her proposal was to do the experiment under circumstances Y and see if they still did A.

    I explained to her that it was necessary first to repeat in her laboratory the experiment of the other person—to do it under condition X to see if she could also get result A—and then change to Y and see if A changed. Then she would know that the real difference was the thing she thought she had under control.

    She was very delighted with this new idea, and went to her professor. And his reply was, no, you cannot do that, because the experiment has already been done and you would be wasting time. This was in about 1935 or so, and it seems to have been the general policy then to not try to repeat psychological experiments, but only to change the conditions and see what happens.
    Replication Crisis is an institutional demon that Psych can't live down...not that any field can keep up to degree necessary to keep anything from being hijacked at light speed into "junk science" for the gullible unfortunately afflicted with more literacy than logic.

  2. #2
    One eye sees, the other feels OptiBoard Silver Supporter
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    Howdy Hayde!

    I'm not an expert, but I really do try not to fool myself.

    And I know you've seen this, but it might be new to other readers.

    Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself. - Richard P. Feynman

    Experience is the hardest teacher. She gives the test before the lesson.



  3. #3
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    LOL That was funny! Actually, I haven't seen that! Thanks for the link!

    I had an Astronomy professor in college who said "The Scientific Method is a way for non-scientists to understand what scientists really do," the inference I took away from it that he thought 'The Method' was a clumsy and simplistic abstraction that didn't really have much to do with scientific practice. Having been a Philosophy major, I disagreed...I tend to think practicing scientists are the worst at seeing the forest for the trees and stray from Science with embarrassing regularity in the light of day. 'Science' should define who's a scientist...not the other way around.

    And that was 30 years ago. Now it's even worse. Flagrant lack of repentance for spending a "science" career in propaganda instead of education.

    (Or maybe I'm just getting old. I sound old, don't I? Kids these days....)

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