Thursday, December 09, 2010

Crick on experimental evidence fitting theories

"I argued that it was important not to place too much reliance on any single piece of experimental evidence. It might turn out to be misleading, as the 5.1A reflection undoubtedly was. Jim was a little more brash, stating that no good model ever accounted for all the facts, since some data was bound to be misleading if not plain wrong. A theory that did fit all the data would have been "carpentered" to do so and would thus be open to suspicion."

--- What mad pursuit: a personal view of scientific discovery
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