Science is really hard!

Excellent piece by Christie Aschwanden Science Isn't Broken -  It’s just a hell of a lot harder than we give it credit for. Good and easy to digest illustrations of one of the most basic statistic concepts used in science: the (dreaded) p-value and the 0.05 value. The interactive data cruncher is great!

Science, even if it appears simple, requires a lot of choices that can shape the results down the road. P-hacking is less of an issue in the physical and natural sciences. But, yes, we do practice HARKing (at times) = hypothesizing after the data have been collected. Why? We all want to a) find cool results and b) prove something. That's a) human nature and b) needed for a successful career.

Still, science remains the most rigorous path to knowledge that we know of - and that really means 'getting less wrong' over time. Our current state of knowledge is only our best estimate of 'the truth'.

And that we don't teach well. We pretend science is easy as long as you follow the regiment of the scientific method and then make a poster for your school science fair. Science = done! In reality you ask a question, do a study, and get a partial / ambiguous answer. And then it continues.