Dear Friends,

         I believe, it is extremely valuable to create a list of mistakes (researchers did in the past) that must be avoided (or must not be repeated) at any cost by the researchers of any scientific or engineering discipline. I feel young researchers and scientist must be educated about such mistakes by using the past mistakes as example to illustrate subtle symptoms and causes that lead to the mistakes.

         Biggest mistakes cause huge wastage. This kind of knowledge & insights help spot early and/or avoid each such mistake (much sooner rather than much later or even after it is too late). Also, it would become much easier to spot such hidden or undetected mistake and easier to expose the mistake, if such mistake is already committed and/or exists in any scientific or engineering discipline.

            Let me start with the biggest mistake that the 17th century founding fathers of modern scientific discipline wanted to avoid this kind of mistake at any cost: The researchers of basic sciences committed a mistake more than 2000 years ago by believing that: “the Earth is static” is a self-evident fact (i.e. they insisted that the belief needs neither proof nor documenting it as an assumption). The biggest mistake any scientific or engineering discipline must never commit (or must be avoided at any cost) is: Relying on undocumented and unproven beliefs (or assumptions) by insisting that the beliefs are self-evident facts (so needs neither proof nor mentioning that the belief is an assumption).

          Research community of no scientific or engineering discipline want to waste decades of their hard work on perfecting epicycles of geocentric paradigm of their discipline. I have been trying to find, if any other scientific or engineering discipline committed this kind of mistake since the 17th century scientific revolution. I could not find any such example. I am sure it would be widely debated (subtle reasons for such error to go undetected for decades), if and when such error was exposed. It must not be hard to find crisis resulting due to such error and especially scientific or engineering revolution that follows soon after exposing such error.

           The researchers of software committed this kind of mistake more than 45 years ago. Today software engineering is in crisis, because exiting software engineering paradigm has been evolving by relying on the flawed beliefs (and even today researchers insisting that the beliefs are self-evident facts). Many experts feel that it is a heresy (e.g. offending the common sense or deeply entrenched conventional wisdom) to request proof for so called self-evident facts. Questioning the validity of the beliefs is perceived as arrogant and disrespectful.

        I feel it is extremely valuable to educate young researchers and scientist about such potential mistakes in pragmatic perspective and right context (i.e. what are the circumstances and conditions even a widely used process could end up a mistake). For example, relying of beliefs (or assumptions) is essential part of exploration of scientific or engineering frontiers to expand the Body of Knowledge. It is not wrong to rely on beliefs (or assumptions), but it is wrong to (i) not documenting by clearly disclosing that the beliefs are only assumptions (i.e. not yet facts) or (ii) insisting that the beliefs are self-evident facts, without providing falsifiable proof backed by demonstrable evidence.

        The 17th century founding fathers of modern scientific discipline had to endure huge pain and suffering to expose the mistake. If the subtle causes, symptoms and consequences are well documented and understood, this kind of pain and suffering could be minimized or even avoided. Even today it is nearly impossible to expose such mistake, if such mistakes are exist at the root (or core) of a modern scientific or engineering discipline and already detected.

         I wanted to collect a list of other such mistakes, which are illustrated by examples to help gain insights into subtle causes and symptom (e.g. to avoid and to help detect and expose such mistake, if such mistakes is already committed). Attached PDF illustrates one mistake and symptoms by using examples. In light of such clear understanding and insights, no one could argue that it is OK to rely on such belief. There are no exceptions. Many experts blindly insist that their field is an exception to the rule, without giving any valid proof. They justify each belief by using more unproven beliefs (by insisting each is a self-evident fact). In hard sciences, there are no self-evident facts. Nothing can be a fact, until it is proven by a falsifiable proof and only if the proof can’t be falsified.

P.S: Attached file DescriptionOfBiggestMistake.pdf describes a biggest mistake and PDF file ExampleForBiggestMistake.pdf illustrates symptoms and causes for this kind of mistake by using an example.

Best Regards,

Raju

Thesis Description & summary of one of the biggest mistakes researc...

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