I think you mean to say science SHOULD BE driven by experiments over arguments.
However if science were driven by experiments, this list would not need to exist. John On Thu, Jan 1, 2015 at 8:21 AM, James Bowery <jabow...@gmail.com> wrote: > Idiocy. > > Science is driven by experiment over argument. > > When you insist on contaminating every human ecology with every other > human ecology you violate a central tenant of science: controlled > experimentation. > > When failures occur under cirumstances of enforced contamination you are > left with nothing but confusion. You learn nothing from your failures. > Indeed, you learn nothing from your successes. > > The conceit that "conversation" or "discourse" or "discussion" can be the > appeal of last resort in testing truth is something only humans who are > deluded by words could conceive of. > > On Wed, Dec 31, 2014 at 11:49 AM, H Veeder <hveeder...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> Why smart people defend bad ideas >> >> http://scottberkun.com/essays/40-why-smart-people-defend-bad-ideas/ >> >> excerpt: >> <<The second stop on our tour of commonly defended bad ideas is the >> seemingly friendly notion of communal thinking. Just because everyone in >> the room is smart doesn’t mean that collectively they will arrive at smart >> ideas. The power of peer pressure is that it works on our psychology, not >> our intellect. As social animals we are heavily influenced by how the >> people around us behave, and the quality of our own internal decision >> making varies widely depending on the environment we currently are in. >> (e.g. Try to write a haiku poem while standing in an elevator with 15 opera >> singers screaming 15 different operas, in 15 different languages, in >> falsetto, directly at you vs. sitting on a bench in a quiet stretch of open >> woods). >> >> >> That said, the more homogeneous a group of people are in their thinking, >> the narrower the range of ideas that the group will openly consider. The >> more open minded, creative, and courageous a group is, the wider the pool >> of ideas they’ll be capable of exploring. >> >> Some teams of people look to focus groups, consultancies, and research >> methods to bring in outside ideas, but this rarely improves the quality of >> thinking in the group itself. Those outside ideas, however bold or >> original, are at the mercy of the diversity of thought within the group >> itself. If the group, as a collective, is only capable of approving B level >> work, it doesn’t matter how many A level ideas you bring to it. Focus >> groups or other outside sources of information can not give a team, or its >> leaders, a soul. A bland homogeneous team of people has no real opinions, >> because it consists of people with same backgrounds, outlooks, and >> experiences who will only feel comfortable discussing the safe ideas that >> fit into those constraints.If you want your smart people to be as smart >> as possible, seek a diversity of ideas. Find people with different >> experiences, opinions, backgrounds, weights, heights, races, facial hair >> styles, colors, past-times, favorite items of clothing, philosophies, and >> beliefs. Unify them around the results you want, not the means or >> approaches they are expected to use. It’s the only way to guarantee that >> the best ideas from your smartest people will be received openly by the >> people around them. On your own, avoid homogenous books, films, music, >> food, sex, media and people. Actually experience life by going to places >> you don’t usually go, spending time with people you don’t usually spend >> time with. Be in the moment and be open to it. Until recently in human >> history, life was much less predictable and we were forced to encounter >> things not always of our own choosing. We are capable of more interesting >> and creative lives than our modern cultures often provide for us. If you go >> out of your way to find diverse experiences it will become impossible for >> you to miss ideas simply because your homogenous outlook filtered them out. >> >> >> >> Harry >> >> >
