One takeaway here is, don’t reduce your search space to zero if you can help it. If that means that you have to try things without substantial evidence that they’ll work, well, it’s that or lose, and we’re not supposed to lose.
I can think of a few situations where it’d make sense to reduce your search space to zero pending more data, though. The general rule for that seems to be that if you do allow that to happen, whatever reason you have for allowing that to happen is more important to you than the goal you’re giving up by not looking for solutions. In situations where you’re choosing not to look for solutions to avoid danger, as an example, that makes sense, or if trying the solutions would mean taking resources away from other projects that were also important.
Wow, I came late to this party.
One takeaway here is, don’t reduce your search space to zero if you can help it. If that means that you have to try things without substantial evidence that they’ll work, well, it’s that or lose, and we’re not supposed to lose.
I can think of a few situations where it’d make sense to reduce your search space to zero pending more data, though. The general rule for that seems to be that if you do allow that to happen, whatever reason you have for allowing that to happen is more important to you than the goal you’re giving up by not looking for solutions. In situations where you’re choosing not to look for solutions to avoid danger, as an example, that makes sense, or if trying the solutions would mean taking resources away from other projects that were also important.