[OT] If you needed any more evidence that memory safety is the future...

[XavierAP via Digitalmars-d]

On Wednesday, 8 March 2017 at 14:02:40 UTC, Moritz Maxeiner wrote:
> On Wednesday, 8 March 2017 at 13:14:19 UTC, XavierAP wrote:
>> On Wednesday, 8 March 2017 at 12:42:37 UTC, Moritz Maxeiner 
>> wrote:
>>> On Tuesday, 7 March 2017 at 22:07:51 UTC, XavierAP wrote:
>>>> Plus statistics can prove nothing -- this logical truth 
>>>> cannot be overstated.
>>>
>>> It's called empirical evidence and it's one of the most 
>>> important techniques in science[2] to create foundation for a 
>>> hypothesis.
>>
>> No, mistaking historical data as empirically valid is the most 
>> dangerous scientific mistake. The empirical method requires 
>> all conditions to be controlled, in order for factors to be 
>> isolated, and every experiment to be reproducible.
>
> This is true for controlled experiments like the one I pointed 
> to and this model works fine for those sciences where 
> controlled experiments are applicable (e.g. physics).
> For (soft) sciences where human behaviour is a factor - and it 
> usually is one you cannot reliably control - using 
> quasi-experiments with a high sample size is a generally 
> accepted practice to accumulate empirical data.

Right, but that's why "soft" sciences that use any "soft" version 
of the empirical method, have no true claim to being actual 
sciences. And it's why whenever you don't like an economist's 
opinion, you can easily find another with the opposite opinion 
and his own model.

There are other sane approaches for "soft" sciences where 
(controlled) experiments aren't possible:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Praxeology#Origin_and_etymology

Of course these methods have limits on what can be inferred, 
whereas with models tuned onto garbage historical statistics you 
can keep publishing to scientific journals forever, and never 
reach any incontestable conclusion.