Groupthink Fantasies

How Scientists Get Stuck in Dead-End Research

While many amazing scientific accomplishments have contributed to building our modern world, scientific progress is not always a smooth, straight path into the future. Often there are different research approaches to the same problem. There are different ideas and different theories. Some research paths will lead to breakthroughs, but many will not.

Some hypotheses are more easily tested experimentally than others, and, in those cases, we can weed out bad ideas and dead-end paths relatively quickly. However, in many research areas today, it is not easy or even possible to test new ideas by experimentation. Research areas such as dark matter, dark energy, inflation theory, string theory, the multiverse, multiple dimensions, black...