Monday, April 2, 2012

The achilles heel of scientific pluralism

I advocate scientific pluralism (Scientific Pluralism, S. H. Kellert, et al, U. of Minn. Press, 2006)  in both science and engineering (and in pretty much everything else I do, see my 26 Sept. 2010 blog post).
But one must maintain a strong skepticism.  Most published research is erroneous (Why most published research findings are false, J. P. A. Ioannidis, PLoS Medicine, August 2005) and one can assemble huge "databases" of faulty results (see, for example, www.rexresearch.com).  Just because we accept two or more different theories/models does not mean we can be any less skeptical in our work.

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