Towards a general theory of Pathological (Pueudo) Science.

[wags]

Extract from this article that might be thought provoking,

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/21stC/issue-3.4/turro.html

...

Advice for the working revolutionist
Clearly, scientific progress would be impossible if researchers always played it safe within a dominant paradigm, discarding disturbing results or shying away from daring hypotheses. Some of today's most robust discoveries and most promising research subjects--manned space flight, wave-particle duality, C60 (buckminsterfullerene or "buckyball") molecules, high-temperature superconductivity, ad infinitum--once struck mainstream scientific opinion as completely implausible. Working researchers have practical steps they can take to lower the chances that today's "eureka!" will be tomorrow's Ig Nobel:

•Always generate and test several plausible hypotheses to explain a result.


•Use imaginative experimental design to increase objectivities and decrease the chances that the initial observation contains artifacts.


•Let the best available paradigm be your guide, until you're certain that your results require revision of the paradigm.


•Be conservative about the concepts of statistical significance and margin of error, especially when analyzing phenomena on the threshold between signal and noise.


•Reproduce, reproduce, reproduce.


•Discuss surprising findings openly with peers (through both formal and informal channels, inside and outside one's own specialty), and make constructive use of the critiques that arise.


•When discussing research with non-scientists--especially those holding microphones, cameras, notebooks, or checkbooks--avoid the temptations to overinterpret results, oversimplify your explanations, or promise the moon in practical applications.


•If further studies falsify your hypothesis, acknowledge it with grace and learn from the experience. Blind leads are nothing to be ashamed of; they are inseparable from the progress of science. Any number of pathological investigations give way eventually to one like quantum mechanics--which necessitated a few adjustments to the law of conservation of mass but ultimately withstood criticism, explained results that Newtonian theory couldn't explain, and revolutionized physics. The same communal corrective processes that falsified one theory verified the other; that's how science operates and why it almost always works.


•Do the unthinkable: Try your very best to find faults in your experiment or to falsify your interpretation. If this is done fairly, objectively, and passionately, even if you turn out to be wrong, you will be true to your science, and you will be admired by the community for your intellectual courage and dedication to the scientific ethos.

[GManIM]

Amen to that