[SEQ RERUN] Faster Than Science

MinibearRex

Today's post, Faster Than Science was originally published on 20 May 2008. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):

Is it really possible to arrive at the truth faster than Science does? Not only is it possible, but the social process of science relies on scientists doing so - when they choose which hypotheses to test. In many answer spaces it's not possible to find the true hypothesis by accident. Science leaves it up to experiment to socially declare who was right, but if there weren't some people who could get it right in the absence of overwhelming experimental proof, science would be stuck.

Discuss the post here (rather than in the comments to the original post).

This post is part of the Rerunning the Sequences series, where we'll be going through Eliezer Yudkowsky's old posts in order so that people who are interested can (re-)read and discuss them. The previous post was Changing the Definition of Science, and you can use the sequence_reruns tag or rss feed to follow the rest of the series.

Sequence reruns are a community-driven effort. You can participate by re-reading the sequence post, discussing it here, posting the next day's sequence reruns post, or summarizing forthcoming articles on the wiki. Go here for more details, or to have meta discussions about the Rerunning the Sequences series.

Today's post, Faster Than Science was originally published on 20 May 2008. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):

Is it really possible to arrive at the truth faster than Science does? Not only is it possible, but the social process of science relies on scientists doing so - when they choose which hypotheses to test. In many answer spaces it's not possible to find the true hypothesis by accident. Science leaves it up to experiment to socially declare who was right, but if there weren't some people who could get it right in the absence of overwhelming experimental proof, science would be stuck.

Indeed, Bayes is great for suggesting a promising model. But no matter how promising, if the model ends up not offering any new predictions, it is not better than any other one with the same predictive power, except maybe for didactic purposes. Unfortunately, that's exactly what MWI is.

Would you recommend MWI for didactic purposes?

Alternatively, would you recommend it in the counterfactual where it had well-written (perhaps over-written) textbooks, like the statistical interpretation and/or (non-straw-)Copenhagen have?

Would you recommend MWI for didactic purposes?

Probably not. Collapse, as is currently taught, makes the miracle step clear and leaves one wanting to know more. MWI is a mysterious answer that gives a false feeling of a dissolved question.