Elon Musk's 'Scientific Method' (rollingstone.com)

From a new wide-ranging interview of Elon Musk: An unfortunate fact of human nature is that when people make up their mind about something, they tend not to change it -- even when confronted with facts to the contrary. "It's very unscientific," Musk says. "There's this thing called physics, which is this scientific method that's really quite effective for figuring out the truth." The scientific method is a phrase Musk uses often when asked how he came up with an idea, solved a problem or chose to start a business. Here's how he defines it for his purposes, in mostly his own words:
1. Ask a question.
2. Gather as much evidence as possible about it.
3. Develop axioms based on the evidence, and try to assign a probability of truth to each one.
4. Draw a conclusion based on cogency in order to determine: Are these axioms correct, are they relevant, do they necessarily lead to this conclusion, and with what probability?
5. Attempt to disprove the conclusion. Seek refutation from others to further help break your conclusion.
6. If nobody can invalidate your conclusion, then you're probably right, but you're not certainly right.

Comments

#5 diminishes with wealth and power

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

>> 5. Attempt to disprove the conclusion. Seek refutation from others to further help break your conclusion.

#5's "refutation" seems to diminish with wealth and power. Ask anyone done in by a chorus of "yes men" afraid to challenge their meal ticket...

Re:#5 diminishes with wealth and power

[bluefoxlucid]

Yeah but you can easily identify the sycophants.

The optimal political process is a bit more complex. I'm finding that a lot of things make economic sense, yet raise human issues: a strictly sub-optimal path to address the complexities of political issues is often required.

Take the economies of trade, for example. Because of things like wage differential or cost of resources (e.g. is the climate better for cotton in China?), importing pants is cheaper than making them here. Because of that, whether you create or lose jobs, you're going to make people poorer by making pants in the USA than importing them in China (at $3.20/hr Chinese wage vs $8.25/hr +18% payroll overhead American, it's about 1.8 hours of work for a minimum-wage worker to buy Chinese pants, 3 hours to buy American). When the differential is big enough, you actually lose jobs by moving manufacture to America. That "big enough" is only slightly above minimum-wage today.

Okay, so what about outsourcing then?

Well... when you outsource, somebody's job goes away. It's very bad for some .01% of the population, and very good for the other 99.99%.

Here's the thing: a rising tide lifts all boats, and yet it's obviously barbaric for the folks spread across a million boats to torpedo your boat so as to lift the tide a fraction of an inch. Maybe that's net-positive in a big way; maybe it all works out for you in the end (after you abandon ship and somehow manage to get yourself a new boat); but you just lost a boat, dammit, and that puts you at huge risk and places the burden of all our success on your shoulders.

In faster transitions, lots of people's boats get sunk. So maybe, even though it's not as great for everyone else, maybe we slow down that transition. Maybe we have a stronger safety net--we all pay into it, and we still keep a large part of the profit of this new trade deal--so you don't get torpedoed so bad. We crew you on our boats so you can sleep and eat, and you at least have a secure place in life until you can get back on your feet.

Trade, technology, things that create lay-offs. I look at the hard economic facts. When I talk to unions about these things, I push back on globalism rhetoric: I tell them we need to focus on protecting labor, and that global trade and new technologies are coming and we're not going to outright halt progress. Near as I can tell, they like that: it's uncomfortable, and yet it's facing a problem head-on and taking ownership of and responsibility for the impact on working Americans. We're looking for ways to not simply hurl people into the streets, but rather to carry them securely to their next place in life.

I'm frequently surprised by what people will accept when they think you're being honest, when you won't compromise your position, and when you start incorporating their needs into your position. Politicians who waffle based on with whom they're talking seem to take a hell of a lot of flack--as do politicians who have their mind set and don't care what you think.

This is more-complex than mere science. Well, it is if you actually care about doing your job right.

Re: OK so riddle me this:

[orlanz]

People need to get from point A to B.
Lots of people. Enough that current modes of transit are inefficient and congested.
They need to traverse the space between.
Ground level is at a premium.
Above ground is too visible for peopleâ(TM)s tastes.
Air requires a lot of coordination.

So go below ground?

Slashdot vs. RollingStone

[mi]

Who, among Slashdot's esteemed editorial board, decided, the publication's audience needs a refresher on what scientific method is?

And who, subsequently, chose the Rolling Stone — whoever it is they are interviewing — as the best fount of this illumination?

Re:The Scientific Method is outdated

[ClickOnThis]

While there is surely a better approach than the scientific method, as it seems to converge on a better answer only by luck, I'm not holding my breath either.

Only by luck? I think that dismisses the training, creativity, and perseverance of scientists. Luck is helpful, but science would not progress unless a prepared mind can spot when it occurs. I think patience is more important.

The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' but 'That's funny...' -- Isaac Asimov

There is a more practical problem that needs to be fixed, though: since no one is focused on trying to replicate or disprove ordinary results form other teams, there are fields where more than half of published results are wrong (sometimes just falsified to keep up a quota, as in biochem). That's not a problem with the scientific method, but it's a real problem in modern science.

I don't think it's fair to say that "no one is focused on trying to replicate or disprove ordinary results". First of all, many studies overlap with others, so some repetition of investigations does occur, and rightly. Second, it would not be wise for a scientist to submit a proposal to a granting agency that calls for an exact repetition of someone else's study. Rather, it would be better to spend money and effort trying to find whether the same conclusions hold if a different approach is taken, or better experimental techniques or instruments are developed and employed. And finally, publication of bogus results can be a problem (more in some fields than others) but the self-correcting nature of the scientific method exposes and corrects the mistakes eventually.