you believe deeply in science and this deep belief implies that the article is necessarily, certainly, undoubtedly wrong in some fashion, and that the flaws in it should be found and exposed, rather than publishing it prematurely....…
There has to be a common sense cutoff for craziness, and when that threshold is exceeded, then the criteria for publication should get far, far more stringent.
The charitable interpretation of Hofstadter’s comment is that the likelihood of 13-been-unlucky is so low that we should look extra hard for flaws in the arguments of papers purporting to prove it than we would for less controversial papers. He seems to be suggesting that a more rigorous review would have meant the paper would not be published, or at least not published ‘prematurely’. Sounds sensible.
The charitable interpretation of Hofstadter’s comment is that the likelihood of 13-been-unlucky is so low that we should look extra hard for flaws in the arguments of papers purporting to prove it than we would for less controversial papers. He seems to be suggesting that a more rigorous review would have meant the paper would not be published, or at least not published ‘prematurely’. Sounds sensible.
A.K.A. “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”. :)