this post was submitted on 21 Mar 2024
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Science Memes

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

This is why my field (reinforcement learning) is unfortunately not science.

(Can't really publish "hey I tried this algorithm and it didn't work")

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

...because people don't accept that it's wrong? Or some other reason?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

I guess I should've clarified; in reforcement learning "I was wrong in numerous ways" almost always translates to "unpublishable, try to not be wrong next time". Nobody cares if a reinforcement learning hypothesis didn't work, its only worth publishing if it worked well.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Gotcha.

I thought that was the norm in all academia these days? Can a physicist (or anyone from another field) publish results that didn't go as expected and save future scientists some time?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

I know a good bit of micro biology, psychology, and medical trial fields can. But thats about the limit of my "other fields" knowledge.