[From Bruce Nevin (990509.2203 EDT)]
This is the passage I was looking for yesterday (Bruce Nevin (990508.1748
EDT) "that Third Party"). I beg your indulgence. Richard Feynman is
speaking to graduates at CalTech in a 1974 commencement address:
"But there is _one_ feature I notice that is generally missing in cargo
cult science. That is the idea that we all hope you have learned in
studying science in school--we never explicitly say what this _is_, but
just hope that you catch on by all the examples of scientific
investigation. It is interesting, therefore, to bring it out now and speak
of it explicitly. It's a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of
scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty--a kind of
leaning over backwards. For example, if you're doing an experiment, you
should report everything that you think might make it invalid--not only
what you think is right about it: other causes that could possibly explain
your results; and things you thought of that you've eliminated by some
other experiment, and how they worked--to make sure the other fellow can
tell they have been eliminated.
"Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given, if
you know them. You must do the best you can--if you know anything at all
wrong, or possibly wrong--to explain it. If you make a theory, for example,
and advertise it, or put it out, then you must also put down all the facts
that disagree with it, as well as those that agree with it. There is also a
more subtle problem. When you have tpu a lot of ideas together to make an
elaborate theory, you want to make sure, when explaining what it fits, that
those things it fits are not just the things that gave you the idea for the
theory; but that the finished theory makes something else come out right,
in addition.
"In summary, the idea is to try to give _all_ of the information to help
others to judge the value of your contribution; not just the information
that leads to judgment in one particular direction or another."
(Reprinted as the last chapter of _Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman!_.)
As I said yesterday, this reminds me of things that Bill has said about the
need to be very imaginative and creative in thinking up alternative
explanations as we try to determine what variables are being controlled in
a situation that we want to model.
Perhaps we need the same kind of imagination and creativity and bending
over backwards at other times that we try to identify controlled
variables--for example, when we try to understand one another.