waveman comments on Some Heuristics for Evaluating the Soundness of the Academic Mainstream in Unfamiliar Fields - Less Wrong

73 Post author: Vladimir_M 15 February 2011 09:17AM

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Comment author: waveman 19 February 2011 08:26:10AM 2 points [-]

Yes.

My daughter works in molecular biology, and she has noted that every paper / grant application is full of hope and promise of a cure to cancer or some other dread disease. Sometimes this hope and promise is significantly exaggerated.

It is very depressing, even in fields where the science is absolutely rock-solid, to read the nonsense that comes from the periphery. Read Deepak Chopra on Quantum Mechanics for example.