There was a danger that skeptics and opponents would misread those likelihood ratio tests as rejections of an entire class of models, which of course they were not.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
The overwhelming majority of theories are rejected because they contain bad explanations, not because they fail experimental tests.
I discourage passive skepticism, which is the armchair variety where people sit back and criticize without ever subjecting their theories or themselves to real field testing.
Could we have prevented in 100% certainty? I don't think anything is that certain. However, we would have had a very, very good chance for preventing it.
If the facts are contrary to any predictions, then the hypothesis is wrong no matter how appealing.
Because a truly skeptical position would be a very uncertain one.
In the 1980s, there were occasions when it made sense to say, 'it is too difficult to maximize the likelihood function, and besides if we do, it will blow our model out of the water.'
The credit which the apparent conformity with recognized scientific standards can gain for seemingly simple but false theories may, as the present instance shows, have grave consequences.
There's a certain kind of scepticism that can't bear uncertainty.
A theory has only the alternative of being right or wrong. A model has a third possibility: it may be right, but irrelevant.
Good tests kill flawed theories; we remain alive to guess again.