For those interested in this topic, I’d recommend reading The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn. It exposes an alternative view of the role of hypotheses. I picked up the book expecting to get a chance to rail at the established scientific paradigms that lead to bias and blindness (similar to this article), but what I got was a better understanding of the different types of scientific inquiry and how they come together to enable wild leaps in scientific progress. It puts articles like these in a different light.
We become explorers, building a map of the data as we start out in one direction, switching directions at crossroads and stumbling into unanticipated regions.
It is not well appreciated, but the truth is that one never really finishes to analyze a dataset. You just decide to stop and move on at some point, leaving some things undiscovered. Because night science demands a highly creative state, it is not surprising that this process mirrors the situation in the arts as described by the poet Paul Valéry in 1933: “un ouvrage n’est jamais achevé . . . mais abandonné” (“a work is never finished, only abandoned”).
For those interested in this topic, I’d recommend reading The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn. It exposes an alternative view of the role of hypotheses. I picked up the book expecting to get a chance to rail at the established scientific paradigms that lead to bias and blindness (similar to this article), but what I got was a better understanding of the different types of scientific inquiry and how they come together to enable wild leaps in scientific progress. It puts articles like these in a different light.
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Poets always know.
Interesting article about discovery and patience.
Loved it!
Funny that you said “and patience” because I wasn’t thinking that but I think you’re right.