Thursday, May 22, 2008

Settled science chronicles: "Best science" boilerplate

Reader James Barham, currently struggling with a thesis, writes,
I just wanted to mention, a propos of "settled science," that I have long been irritated by the phrase "our best science" that one encounters everywhere nowadays, and have thought that someone ought to write an article or book entitled: "When our best science is just not good enough" . . .
I agree with James about the expression "our best science" because if one asked, "Who got your second best?" - well, it would turn out that absolutely no one had. And so ...

And of course, settled science is science gathering dust, I suppose, along with the people who huddle around it.