Picture=Observation

Observation

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Observation

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Observation

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Information

Portrait of Francis Bacon, by Frans Pourbus (1617), Palace on the Water in

Warsaw.

Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

Rene Descartes (1596-1650)

Portrait of Rene Descartes byFrans Hals

y = 2.1994e-0.0042x

R2 = 0.9594

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News trend for “bioinformatics”

Strong inference in bioinformatics and computational biology

Philosophical framework

From Platt, JR. (1964) Strong inference. Science 146:347-353

The method:

Devising alternative hypotheses;

Devising a crucial experiment (or several of them), with alternative possible

outcomes, each of which will, as nearly possible, exclude one or more of

the hypotheses;

Carry out the experiment so as to get a clean result.

Recycling the procedure, making sub-hypotheses and sequential

hypotheses to refine the possibilities that remain, and so on.

Hypotheses are not “precious personal property” to be protected and

defended. Instead successful disproof of hypotheses is a key to

progress. The goal of publishing an experimental result is to alert the

community of progress and invite criticism, alternative explanations

and more rigorous experiment.

When alternative hypotheses are not sought, scientific enquiry

becomes a “conflict between men, each with single ruling theory”.

Symptoms of scientific sickness:

The Frozen Method;

The Eternal Surveyor;

The Never Finished;

The Great Man with a Single Hypothesis;

The Little Club of Dependents;

The Vendetta;

The All-Encompassing Theory that Can Never Be Tested.

2.Web publishing

3.Internet

1.Desktop publishingCommunications

6.Visualization

5.Statistical analysis

4.Search engines

3.Data mining

2.Simulation

1.Pattern matchingNumerical Processing

3.Vocabulary

2.IT infrastructure

1.DatabasesArchiving

3.Automated data collection

2.Robotics

1.Equipment controlProcess Control

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