| The dichotomy of 'skepticism' vs 'open-mindedness' doesn't capture all that is important about scientific inquiry (specifically, both of those are important of course). One approach to Science I think is really illustrative is Wheeler's[1] 'radical conservatism': you should accept, and seek, radical ideas, under a skeptical, formal, foundation. So for example, if someone proposes a "free-energy" device with some outlandish explanation, that a priori isn't radical conservatism, because while the proposal is radical, it clashes with the conservative basis of local energy conservation of all modern physics (or maybe with the 2nd law of thermodynamics). However, for example in General Relativity, the question of energy conservation at extremely large scales is not well settled. So that's something you could explore, without letting the fear of ridicule stop you (for breaking energy conservation), as long as you retain solid foundations[2]. Not only that, but this kind of outlandish idea is often how science moves forward, not by making the most obvious hypotheses about established theories (which we already largely know the answer for!) -- but it's difficult to naively distinguish from crackpottery. By solid foundations, I mean you can even revise your physical principles, as long as they explain available evidence and you're able to formalize them to a good degree. Also by 'radical' it is meant that we shouldn't judge ideas by whether they are outlandish or not (Feynman writes extensively about this in his talks) -- Nature doesn't seem to be particularly concerned with seeming outlandish[3]. So to get rid of this bias, you can flip the coin and go after outlandish ideas (ideally simply unbiased, but it's a strategy). See Kip Thorne's memoir, which I haven't read to completion but I'm sure is good: https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1901/1901.06623.pdf [1] (the great friend from Feynman and with enormous contributions) [2] In GR there is some very non-intutive large scale behavior: you can move without reaction mass in vacuum, which naively would seem radical, and violating conservation of momentum. However, it's allowed, and proven!: https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/886/swimming-in-... [3] In reality, what defines what's "bizarre", "outlandish", "unintuitive" for us, are (1) Our previous experiences in the world, (2) Our coded instincts and neural architecture. There's no guarantee those will be valid when extrapolated to a different domain: objects at very small scales, very large scales, very high energies, etc. |