[The Man]

Any science has to operate under the assumption that to a greater or lesser degree, data is true. Otherwise, it can't go anywhere.

[f.Christian]

To: f.Christian

Now I follow, thank you. Actually, I don't disagree with this at all since I see the left as abandoning the uncertianty of democracy and majority rule for the assurance technocracy and expert rule.


152 posted on 9/10/02 12:17 PM Pacific by Liberal Classic

[dark_lord]

Any science has to operate under the assumption that to a greater or lesser degree, data is true. Otherwise, it can't go anywhere.

True. However, the data must be checkable. If a scientist says, "Oh, I ran this experiment and produced these neat results, here is the data; but my technique is secret so I won't reveal how I generated the data - intellectual property, I'm applying for a patent you understand..." -- well that's not acceptable to science. Data that cannot be independently generated, checked, and verified is not data that can be declared "true". Therefore, directly to your point - there is data and data, and only verifiable data is data that can be "assumed" to be true.