Proper scientific method requires acknowledging gaps and provisional positions rather than hiding them.
Evidence
The results were shocking. Out of twenty-nine very intelligent subjects, only six of them proposed the correct rule without any previous incorrect guesses. Thirteen proposed one incorrect rule and nine proposed two or more incorrect rules. One subject was unable to propose any rule at all. What happened? As Wason reports, the subjects who failed at the task seemed unwilling to propose any set of numbers that tested the accuracy of their hypothesized rule and instead proposed only those that would confirm it. … Rather than use their chance to see whether their intuitive rule of “increase by intervals of two” was incorrect, they continued to propose only confirming instances. When these subjects announced their rule they were shocked to learn that it was incorrect, even though they had never tested it with any disconfirming instances. — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 93 (
#complicates, via linked claim)
Categorization
- XREF: connects to: A correct scientific finding can arrive too late to matter legally. — , Harr Jonathan - A Civil Action , 2066; Scientific findings are provisional intermediate states that may later prove wrong — Holm Gero Hümmler, Ulrike Schiesser, Fact and Prejudice: How to Communicate…, 747; Scientific consciousness requires criterial sureness, conceptual grasp, and honest acknowledgment of knowledge gaps (+5 more)
Broader Connections
- Scientific consciousness requires criterial sureness, conceptual grasp, and honest acknowledgment of knowledge gaps
#corroborates(0.92) - People preferentially seek confirming evidence and avoid testing their own hypotheses.
#complicates(0.76) — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 93