Eliezer_Yudkowsky comments on Go Forth and Create the Art! - Less Wrong

38 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 23 April 2009 01:37AM

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Comment author: Luke_A_Somers 10 May 2013 02:27:47PM *  5 points [-]

The one crackpot I interacted most strongly did have experimental results, and trumpeted them loudly. The experiment turned out to be a notoriously finnicky one (not quite down to Millikan experiment territory) done in slipshod fashion. This was utterly predictable, given purely theoretical considerations and examination of his style, even before it came to the observations - his theory contradicted, say, the existence of comets.

Experiments can be wrong. Maybe even most attempts at experiments are wrong. What makes a scientist a scientist instead of a crackpot is the debugging and validation. Trying to exclude every way the results might not mean what it seems like they mean - not just doing control-experiment comparison and saying you've done your duty.

Crackpot experiments, lacking these extra checks, are worthless.

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 10 May 2013 08:40:15PM 3 points [-]

What makes a scientist a scientist instead of a crackpot is the debugging and validation. Trying to exclude every way the results might not mean what it seems like they mean - not just doing control-experiment comparison and saying you've done your duty.

This would make most modern professional scientists crackpots which sounds a bit noncentral - they may be no true scientists, but they seem very different from the crackpots I've met.

Comment author: Luke_A_Somers 10 May 2013 09:48:47PM 4 points [-]

There's a bit of a gap between what ordinary not-very-good scientists do to make sure the experiment is right and what they should be doing.

There is a colossal gulf between what crackpots do and ordinary not-very-good scientists do.