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JoshuaZ comments on Using degrees of freedom to change the past for fun and profit - LessWrong

41 Post author: CarlShulman 07 March 2012 02:51AM

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Comment author: JoshuaZ 09 March 2012 02:26:48PM 1 point [-]

So how does one decide whether a paper's claim is over the top? For much of the middle of the 20th century, one might apply such a label to plate tectonics. Later, one could see someone plausibly applying such a label to papers with evidence that ulcers were caused by bacteria rather than stress. Completely ignoring papers in this fashion seems like an unreliable heuristic.