I know a fellow who earned a Ph.D. for showing how a chemical process does not work.
At the time, the process was new and thought to be promising. Although the process was being used, the underlying mechanisms weren’t understood. Chemists thought they knew which mechanisms were involved, but no one had done the experiments to show that their assumptions were correct.
My friend expected to show that the common view was correct and move on to a career at a university. But none of his experiments went as expected.
His research showed that the assumptions were wrong. The process’s potential for development turned out to be a dead end.
That, too, is science.
I suspect that’s the way science works most of the time.
The logical framework that my friend hoped to use in his research was:
If p then q.
If p (the hypothesis about how the process worked) is correct, then q (you get the expected results).
1. If p then q
2. q
3.Therefore: p
What he actually got was:
1. If p then q
2. Not q
Therefore: Not p
We try a hypothesis, and we learn when it fails.
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