Strong inference
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Strong Inference is the title of a paper by John R. Platt, published in Volume 146, Number 3642 of the journal Science on 1964-10-16. The paper sets out an efficient experimental method which the paper's author finds missing in some areas of science in his time. Platt notes that certain fields, such as molecular biology and high-energy physics, seem to adhere strongly to strong inference, with very beneficial results for the rate of progress in those fields.
The method, very similar to the scientific method, is described as:
- Devising alternative hypotheses;
- Devising a crucial experiment (or several of them), with alternative possible outcomes, each of which will, as nearly as possible, exclude one or more of the hypotheses;
- Carrying out the experiment so as to get a clean result;
- Recycling the procedure, making subhypotheses or sequential hypotheses to refine the possibilities that remain, and so on.
It is also suggested that rather than a single hypothesis which is likely to induce confirmation bias, researchers propose multiple hypotheses, a method put forth in 1890 by Thomas Chrowder Chamberlin, a geologist who was at the time president of the University of Wisconsin.
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