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Comment on Does anyone else feel like 90% of the population is stupid?

Even our scientific method is a bit wanting in this area, since if we hear X, how can we prove X?

by looking at their lab notes and repeating their experiment and seeing if we can make the same observations. if they lied about their process (see the guy that claimed he made a room temp superconductor…) they get caught out.

I think you thoroughly misunderstand the process involved. yeah, there’s more emphasis on being first… but no… there’s definitely still verification. Oh. and. yes. we can image atoms.

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NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Yeah, I’d second this. The scientific method is very thorough.

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comfydecal@infosec.pub ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
So thinking on this more, there are many studies that are impossible to replicate, either due to time, money, or team size. Think about weather studies, no human lives long enough, so we have to push the belief back on the original data being accurate. Human studies that span millions of people are also hard for small teams or individuals to replicate. Also hard to have a particle accelerator for most people, so we have to trust the accelerators function properly, the data collected is not malformed and the interpretations are also correct (the last bit is what we could possibly double check if we had direct access)

I love the scientific method as well, but I think we still have some limits. Even if we had infinite time, but without infinite resources we might not be able to replicate everything “scientifically proven” (and even then, due to space time curvature, it might not be possible if infinite time and infinite resources had a fixed physical point, but that is probably Einsteinian philosophy)

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match@pawb.social ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Agreed, science is essentially set up as a competition such that disproving important things is also rewarded; reproducibility comes up more for niche fields

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comfydecal@infosec.pub ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Totally agree that most of the tools are there, but how many trials have you personally duplicated? The average person?

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- NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  That doesn’t make the scientific method wrong. If someone isn’t following the scientific method, that’s on them, not the science.
  
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