Cargo Cult Science – Feynman's 1974 Caltech commencement address

Re:Cargo Cult Science – Feynman's 1974 Caltech commencement ... by User23 on Monday March 06, 2023 @03:32PM (#35047160)

Feynman mentions a similar point in QED when he talks about the "science" of proton decay. The proton hasn't had the courtesy to actually decay in an experiment, so all they do is keep publishing increasingly high lower bounds on the proton's half-life.

It's fascinating that someone can make a career out of a phenomenon not being observed.

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Re:Cargo Cult Science – Feynman's 1974 Caltech commencement ... by analog31 on Monday March 06, 2023 @05:33PM (#35048721)

Folks talk about the lack of support for things like replication studies and the publication of negative results in the life sciences, as contributing to the widely proclaimed replication crisis.

Establishing a solid negative result that rules out hypotheses is worthwhile if unglamorous.

Citing an upper bound on the half-life is all that can be credibly reported. It's how you put an error bar on something that's non-negative but consistent with zero.

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Re:Cargo Cult Science – Feynman's 1974 Caltech commencement ... by User23 on Monday March 06, 2023 @06:31PM (#35049376)

Sure, but when an event supposedly happens on average less frequently than once every 10^32 years maybe it’s time to consider the possibility that the sought phenomenon never occurs. At least that appeared to me to be what Feynman was getting at.

The life sciences equivalent would be a study of unicorn sightings. None so far, but they could be put there so please fund my research!

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Re:Cargo Cult Science – Feynman's 1974 Caltech commencement ... by analog31 on Monday March 06, 2023 @06:55PM (#35049614)

Placing an upper limit on the half life means that zero is within the reported bounds, so they are considering the possibility.

Whether to fund difficult research, when it's reasonable to give up, and when it escapes beyond reasonable definitions of science, are separate questions. Physics is wrestling with these questions in a number of areas, such as the search for an empirically testable theory that reconciles quantum mechanics and gravity.

The life sciences have no equivalent. Precision measurement is not their bag, which is OK. Physics is the first to arrive at such a roadblock. Maybe the search for proofs of some famous math conjectures is an analogy to draw guidance from.

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