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[Phys-L] A Sceptical View of Science



At 01:55 AM 6/18/2005, Pentcho Valev, you wrote:

Compare Bryan Wallace's prediction:

http://www.ekkehard-friebe.de/wallace.htm :

"I expect that the scientists of the future will consider the dominant
abstract physics theories of our time in much the same light as we now
consider the Medieval theories of how many angels can dance on the head of
a pin or that the Earth stands still and the Universe moves around it."
///
Pentcho Valev

Quite so.

More from www.ekkehard-friebe.de - a sceptical web presence:

In a paper on self-deception in science, Michael J. Mahoney of
the University of California at Santa Barbara described the
results of a field trial in which a group of 30 Ph.D. scientists
were given 10 minutes to find the rule used to construct a
sequence of three numbers, 2,4,6, by making up new sequences,
inquiring whether they obeyed the same rule, and then
announcing (or "publishing") what they concluded the rule
to be when they felt sufficiently confident.

The results obtained by the scientists were compared to those
achieved by a control group of 15 Protestant ministers.
Analysis showed that the ministers conducted two to three
times more experiments for every hypothesis that they put
forward, were more than three times slower in "publishing"
their first hypothesis, and were only about half as likely as
the scientists to return to a hypothesis that had already
been disconfirmed. "

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It is amusing to draw conclusions from this sort of 10 minute
model of scientific research/publishing activity, in the spirit
of the game.

1) Scientists time rate of paper production was
1 per time unit compared with non-scientists <0.33 per unit time.

2) Non-scientists published disconfirmed ("suspect") papers
at a time rate 50% higher than scientists output.

3) Non-scientists needed 2.5 experiments per experimental
hypothesis compared to each experiment used in a
scientist's hypothesis.

Perhaps Pentcho has been taking scientists in general, and physicists in
particular, entirely too seriously, rather than as
the fallible folks they undoubtedly are?

:-)





Brian Whatcott Altus OK Eureka!
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