The world is full of constant hype about "breakthrough" studies, and cures for diseases that are "coming soon". Somehow the cures seldom materialize, and too often, if anyone bothers to check, they can't replicate the studies.
I wonder if the secret sauce that makes science effective isn't so much the scientific method, as the spirit of skepticism behind it. Without that, it's easy to make errors. And wishful thinking is pervasive because there are strong incentives: career advancement, corporate influence, ego, and so on.
My view, assuming AI doesn't kill us, is that it's going to save all of our asses (from ourselves).
While I have serious reservations, I do appreciate philosopher Paul Feyerabend's idea of science as "epistemological anarchism." In the end, all rule-based concepts of how to accumulate knowledge and understanding fall victim to methodological problems: the only way to really do science is a no-holds-barred, anything goes attitude of a mind against the universe.
I wonder if the secret sauce that makes science effective isn't so much the scientific method, as the spirit of skepticism behind it. Without that, it's easy to make errors. And wishful thinking is pervasive because there are strong incentives: career advancement, corporate influence, ego, and so on.
My view, assuming AI doesn't kill us, is that it's going to save all of our asses (from ourselves).