Spencer LaVere Smith on Nostr: Agreed. A program is not “high-risk-high-reward”, unless the failure rate is ...

Agreed. A program is not “high-risk-high-reward”, unless the failure rate is high. If it has been de-risked, it’s not really the frontier any more. So scientists are comfortable with uncertainty. And this might be one of the most misunderstood aspects of science as far as the general public is concerned.

Also, it is possible to consider separate items: (a)rigor and (b) weight of evidence. They can be correlated or not. It is possible to be careful and rigorous while also providing a only a modest quantity of evidence, just as it is possible to have massive Ns, small P values, and multiple orthogonal lines of data, all of which is of dicy quality. The crucible is whether people can build upon what is reported, or if it is a shoddy foundation that does not support further investigation.