Today I watched a NOVA episode from a couple of years ago called “Death Dive to Saturn.” It was about the Cassini mission, the amazing things they discovered–with 30-year-old computer systems!–and its end.
One of the things that struck me was when one of the scientists they interviewed talked about how fun and exciting it was when the data proved they were WRONG about something. They were so excited to find their theories exploded by real-world data.
Isn’t that refreshing? The actual scientific method: forming a hypothesis, gathering data, and looking for proof that you are wrong, not right.
Not manipulating data to prove that you’re right. Not hiding data, deliberately misinterpreting data, or manipulating data with complicated statistical equations to purport to show that the data actually mean the opposite of what they appear to mean.