And an experiment can’t fail to provide new information, because you thought it would provide information and then it didn’t, which means it has something to teach you about experiment design. Unless you’re proposing that an experiment that goes exactly as expected is a waste of time?
That said I think what Wilde means by ‘invalid’ is that a strong conclusion that resulted from the experiment is invalid in light of the fact that an entirely different model is consistent with the evidence.
An experiment that fails would be “I was trying to measure the speed of neutrinos, but I measured lab errors instead.”, or “I tried to titrate a solution, but used an excess of phenolphthalein accidentally.”
And an experiment can’t fail to provide new information, because you thought it would provide information and then it didn’t, which means it has something to teach you about experiment design. Unless you’re proposing that an experiment that goes exactly as expected is a waste of time?
That said I think what Wilde means by ‘invalid’ is that a strong conclusion that resulted from the experiment is invalid in light of the fact that an entirely different model is consistent with the evidence.
An experiment that fails would be “I was trying to measure the speed of neutrinos, but I measured lab errors instead.”, or “I tried to titrate a solution, but used an excess of phenolphthalein accidentally.”