SCI: Gullible Physicists

Mark Grant (mark@unicorn.com)
Sun, 26 Jan 1997 23:38:11 +0000


On Sat, 25 Jan 1997, Omega wrote:

> Gribbin goes on to point out: "that physicists can be just as gullible
> as anyone else in accepting an idea because 'everybody knows' that it
> is true",

Actually, we're likely to be worse than most because one point of the
scientific method is that we shouldn't have to go back and check other
people's results unless ours contradict them or we have a good reason to
believe that they did something wrong. This is why scientific knowledge
grows so rapidly; we don't have to waste most of our time checking
everything that other people have previously measured or calculated.

Mark

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