Suggested default parameter values, was Re: Hapax survival over time

[Tom Anderson]

On Fri, 2004-03-26 at 17:24, Greg Louis wrote:
> (I was trained in science to the Ph.D. level and I made a living doing
> scientific research for 17 years before switching to a career in
> computing.  The accusation of bending facts to fit a postulated theory
> is profoundly offensive and insulting to me, not less so because it is
> made by a self-confessed amateur and is unaccompanied by any attempt at
> rational justification.)

No offense intended.  I'm sure you're more than qualified.  However,
researchers have been known to become too close to their work, and
therefore unknowingly influence their own results.  This is why
double-blind methods were developed (as I'm sure I don't need to tell
you).  My intention was not to label you as dishonest, but perhaps
unwitting of your own bias.  Surely you can think of great scientists
throughout the history of science who have proposed theories or doggedly
held on to them despite the impeccable logic and evidence from their
contemporaries.  Copernicus' theory of celestial motion was not as
predictive as that of Ptolemy, but it was grounded in better logic, and
eventually bore out by Laplace.  

Is it remotely possible that your "full-training" is an "epicycle"
theory?

Tom

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