主题：【原创】什么是科学以及我们如何走科学的道路 -- 曾自洲

D. An Evolved Theory of Science

If neither Bacon nor Popper nor Kuhn gives us a perfect description of what

science is or how it works, nevertheless all three help us to gain a much deeper

understanding of it all.

Scientists are not Baconian observers of nature, but all scientists become

Baconians when it comes to describing their observations. Scientists are rigorously,

even passionately honest about reporting scientific results and how they

were obtained, in formal publications. Scientific data are the coin of the realm

in science, and they are always treated with reverence. Those rare instances in

which data are found to have been fabricated or altered in some way are always

traumatic scandals of the first order.

Scientists are also not Popperian falsifiers of their own theories, but they

don’t have to be. They don’t work in isolation. If a scientist has a rival with a

often sent to anonymous experts in the field, in other words, peers of the author,

for review. Peer review works superbly to separate valid science from

nonsense, or, in Kuhnian terms, to ensure that the current paradigm has been

respected. It works less well as a means of choosing between competing valid

ideas, in part because the peer doing the reviewing is often a competitor for the

same resources (pages in prestigious journals, funds from government agencies)

being sought by the authors. It works very poorly in catching cheating or fraud,

because all scientists are socialized to believe that even their bitterest competitor

is rigorously honest in the reporting of scientific results, making it easy to fool a

referee with purposeful dishonesty if one wants to. Despite all of this, peer

review is one of the sacred pillars of the scientific edifice.

----Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence

• 挖坟的结果