Experiments can fail if they are executed or planned improperly. If both the control and the experimental group are given sugar pills, for example, or the equipment fails in a shower of sparks, the experiment has provided no evidence by which one can update. It is a small quibble, and probably not what the quote meant to illustrate (I’m guessing that the experiment provided evidence which downgraded the probability of the hypothesis), but something to note nonetheless: experiments are not magic knowledge-providers.
Experiments can fail if they are executed or planned improperly. If both the control and the experimental group are given sugar pills, for example, or the equipment fails in a shower of sparks, the experiment has provided no evidence by which one can update.
I think Ferguson would call those “results,” and from those you would have learned about performing experiments, not about the original hypothesis you were interested in.
If anything, I think a really failed experiment is one that makes you think you’ve learned something that is in fact wrong, which is the result of flaws in the experiment that you never become aware of.
I think Ferguson would call those “results,” and from those you would have learned about performing experiments, not about the original hypothesis you were interested in.
Ferguson’s proposed new language is a downgrade. Being unable to identify something as a failure when the outcome sucks is fatalism and not particularly useful.
Experiments can fail if they are executed or planned improperly. If both the control and the experimental group are given sugar pills, for example, or the equipment fails in a shower of sparks, the experiment has provided no evidence by which one can update. It is a small quibble, and probably not what the quote meant to illustrate (I’m guessing that the experiment provided evidence which downgraded the probability of the hypothesis), but something to note nonetheless: experiments are not magic knowledge-providers.
I think Ferguson would call those “results,” and from those you would have learned about performing experiments, not about the original hypothesis you were interested in.
If anything, I think a really failed experiment is one that makes you think you’ve learned something that is in fact wrong, which is the result of flaws in the experiment that you never become aware of.
Ferguson’s proposed new language is a downgrade. Being unable to identify something as a failure when the outcome sucks is fatalism and not particularly useful.