I wrote this post, and at the time I just wrote it because… well, I thought I’d be able to write a post with a grand conclusion about how science used to check the truth, and then point to how it changed, but I was so surprised to find that journals had not one sentence of criticism in them at all. So I wrote it up as a question post instead, framing my failure to answer the question as ‘partial work’ that ‘helped define the question’.
In retrospect, I’m really glad I wrote the post, because it is a clear datapoint about how science does not work. I have updated down on the need for large amounts of public critique in figuring out what’s true. I think about the datapoint from time to time, and expect to think about it more.
I wrote this post, and at the time I just wrote it because… well, I thought I’d be able to write a post with a grand conclusion about how science used to check the truth, and then point to how it changed, but I was so surprised to find that journals had not one sentence of criticism in them at all. So I wrote it up as a question post instead, framing my failure to answer the question as ‘partial work’ that ‘helped define the question’.
In retrospect, I’m really glad I wrote the post, because it is a clear datapoint about how science does not work. I have updated down on the need for large amounts of public critique in figuring out what’s true. I think about the datapoint from time to time, and expect to think about it more.