John C. Wright's Journal

This remark by Joseph Moore in our comments merits the spotlight as its own guest column. The objections raised here are wise and clear. Would that the greater mass of common folk had heard voices like this.

The words below are his.

***   ***   ***

While a certain amount of trust is needed in all human interactions, the glory of formal, modern science properly so called is that the rules of the game require:

• you show all your work – no hiding or fudging data, no secret steps involved;
• you answer your critics – all legitimate questions must be addressed;
• other people have be able to reproduce the results you got using the same or similar methods;
• you must tell us what you are counting (science, as our host points out, is the study of the metrical properties of physical objects). If spelling out exactly what you are counting seems easy or pedantic to you, then you are scientifically illiterate.

Do these things, spell them out in your paper or study, and you have my provisional trust. I will take the claims of your work seriously.

Neglect or refuse to do any of the above, and you’ve surrendered any claim to be doing science, and lost any claims on an honest man’s trust in your work.

I read about a dozen papers that came out at the beginning of the COVID panic, and a couple more over the next year. I stopped reading studies at that point, because, WITHOUT EXCEPTION, every last one of them violated two or more of the principles outlined above.

Read the remainder of this entry »