[mkozlows]

The question is whether spherical cow research tells you anything that holds up once you introduce the complications of reality into it. In physics, it clearly does. In economics, I think it does in a lot of cases (though with limits). In software engineering... well, like I say, there are areas where I'm sure it does, but research about e.g. strong typing or unit tests or PR review or whatever just doesn't have the juice, IME.