Alain Sepeda <[email protected]> wrote: about the problem some people have with the unknown is fascinating. >
I think that is the core problem. Fear of novelty is common in many animals. It is a healthy evolved response, but it gets in the way of science. > Am I a genius in understanding what is a black box test ? > As you say, it is remarkable how many trained scientists fail to understand this concept. > It is the same for the difference between the importance of successful > experiments compared to failed experiment... > Yes. They often want to compare successful experiments to failed ones, to reach a sort of average, or do science by vote. In another forum, I wrote: "In the late 1950s, Russia and the U.S. were building and launching rockets to reach orbit. Several of these rockets failed. Finally, in 1957 the Russians reached orbit with the Sputnik I. This proved beyond question that it is possible to reach orbit. All of the previous and subsequent failures did not disprove that. They only proved that the technology is difficult to master, and unreliable. . . . The cold fusion effect is difficult to reproduce. Many research groups failed to reproduce it, and they published negative results. That does not prove cold fusion does not exist any more than the failed U.S. Vanguard rocket launches of 1957 and 1958 proved that rockets cannot reach orbit." It is depressing how many scientists do not understand this. > I cannot understand how people with PhD can be so... illogical. > Apparently they do not teach elementary logic in college science courses. I guess they think science majors have already learned it. People did learn that in school decades ago, but not now. People also do not learn to recognize logical fallacies, such as these: http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/ - Jed
