Both have places, but science must be in #2 to work at all. That is the point of science.
One of the critical parts of this mindset is separating criticism of work, quality of work, and the individual. Indeed, the more significant the science, the more it needs criticism. There is little (and probably even a negative) correlation between the quality of science and the quantity of criticism.
If I list out the limitations of your work in a blog post, that is not, should not, and cannot be read as a condemnation of your work, and especially not of you as an individual.
Indeed, generally, what that means is I took an interest in your work, found it compelling enough to do a deep dive, and I wrote a blog post because I'm trying to figure out next steps.
There is a pipeline from speculation to hypothesis to theory to fact, and it RELIES on people doing their best to invalidate a piece of work, understand methodological limitations, find alternative explanations, and otherwise poke holes. Once those holes are filled, and there are no more criticisms, you have trustworthy knowledge.
PLEASE attack my work (so long as you do it honestly and correctly; not unhinged emotional attacks). It makes my work better.
If the comment was along the lines of "I've read the paper and think it has some serious problems like x, y and z" then you'd be right.
But this is just someone who's read the title of a BBC article about the paper and basically saying "yeah but science is hard". We know it's hard. That's why we don't all have publications in peer-reviewed journals. This isn't specific to this study. You think published authors in the field don't know this?
I don't think the audience for the comment was "published authors in the field" but "random people in a web forum" who make comments like yours ("Imagine telling someone you made a website and they're like 'cool, but did you even make sure it has the little green padlock?'")
In that context, it's often helpful to remind people that:
- Correlation is not causation
- It takes many replicated results to go from hypothesis to theory
(Which is quite different from "science is hard"). This is doubly-true with the current level of hype and grandstanding in science where primary and secondary sources are often clickbaity and misleading.
There's two mindsets:
1) An emotional one. "Words impact emotions"
2) A logical one. "Study has issues 1, 2, and 3"
Both have places, but science must be in #2 to work at all. That is the point of science.
One of the critical parts of this mindset is separating criticism of work, quality of work, and the individual. Indeed, the more significant the science, the more it needs criticism. There is little (and probably even a negative) correlation between the quality of science and the quantity of criticism.
If I list out the limitations of your work in a blog post, that is not, should not, and cannot be read as a condemnation of your work, and especially not of you as an individual.
Indeed, generally, what that means is I took an interest in your work, found it compelling enough to do a deep dive, and I wrote a blog post because I'm trying to figure out next steps.
There is a pipeline from speculation to hypothesis to theory to fact, and it RELIES on people doing their best to invalidate a piece of work, understand methodological limitations, find alternative explanations, and otherwise poke holes. Once those holes are filled, and there are no more criticisms, you have trustworthy knowledge.
PLEASE attack my work (so long as you do it honestly and correctly; not unhinged emotional attacks). It makes my work better.