Science and medicine have done a lot for the world. Diseases have been eradicated, rockets have been sent to the moon, and convincing, causal explanations have been given for a whole range of formerly inscrutable phenomena. Notwithstanding recent concerns about sloppy research, small sample sizes, and challenges in replicating major findings—concerns I share and which I have written about at length — I still believe that the scientific method is the best available tool for getting at empirical truth. Or to put it a slightly different way (if I may paraphrase Winston Churchill’s famous remark about democracy): it is perhaps the worst tool, except for all the rest.
In other words, science is flawed. And scientists are people too. While it is true that most scientists — at least the ones I know and work with — are hell-bent on getting things right, they are not therefore immune from human foibles. If they want to keep their jobs, at least, they must contend with a perverse “publish or perish” incentive structure that tends to reward flashy findings and high-volume “productivity” over painstaking, reliable research. On top of that, they have reputations to defend, egos to protect, and grants to pursue. They get tired. They get overwhelmed. They don’t always check their references, or even read what they cite. They have cognitive and emotional limitations, not to mention biases, like everyone else.
More here – Quillette
True. The scientific method rigorlessly applied has advanced science enormously and our living standards. However knowledge is expanding so rapidly that peer review is splintered into a handful of specialists. If the specialists are inclined to put making a living first, then they allow things through without explanation in full.
The global warming people are a good example. Climate science as such was not even a field of study. Now it is a trillion dollar field. The climate science people invented post normal science – a political term- basically where you alter the data to fit your theory. They do this under the false assertion that by observing things, you alter them anyway by your own bias interpretation. Therefore you can confirm your results by changing the data. . Post normal science hides data, hides results and says computer models are right and nature is wrong.
Try that in the stockmarket. A share or derivative goes the opposite way to your prediction. So you go back and change the market data to fit your bias. A blackbox program is right and the market is wrong. That is a rapid route to the poorhouse.
The scientific method was devised to reduce confirmation bias. The 2nd part was that your results and data had to be open to others repeating the experiment. That way variations in results uncover new ways forward. Isn’t that reviewing your trades does? As markets change, so your methods have to adapt. With post normal trading, you would be trying to say the bull market is continuing in a bear market and vice versa. Crazy.