This is an article by Philip Stark in Nature published awhile back. I like it.
In 1992, philosopher Karl Popper wrote: “Science may be described as the art of systematic oversimplification — the art of discerning what we may with advantage omit.” What may be omitted depends on the discipline.
You can say this another way: all experiments do violence to the natural world. We always want to cleave at the joints. But doing so may lead to error.
In 1992, philosopher Karl Popper wrote: “Science may be described as the art of systematic oversimplification — the art of discerning what we may with advantage omit.” What may be omitted depends on the discipline. Results that generalize to all universes (or perhaps do not even require a universe) are part of mathematics. Results that generalize to our Universe belong to physics. Results that generalize to all life on Earth underpin molecular biology. Results that generalize to all mice are murine biology. And results that hold only for a particular mouse in a particular lab in a particular experiment are arguably not science.
Science should be ‘show me’, not ‘trust me’; it should be ‘help me if you can’, not ‘catch me if you can’. If I publish an advertisement for my work (that is, a paper long on results but short on methods) and it’s wrong, that makes me untrustworthy. If I say: “here’s my work” and it’s wrong, I might have erred, but at least I am honest.
In medicine we have particular problems. Repeating experiments in model organisms is often possible whereas in man things are much harder. There is an awful lot of published medical research that is not a reliable guide to action.