Thanks for the thread Clive, a very nice demonstration of the scientific method.
For difficult problems, it is easy to provide a small data subset that does not in reality conflict with the actual underlying law - but (especially with a little suggestion) might
also not conflict with an ultimately incorrect alternative hypothesis. Particularly if the alternative is more palatable to the reader, they can happily believe the alternative
but only if they are not in possession of the full body of scientific evidence.
A prevailing theory is
always provisional until conflicting evidence arises; but some theories are considerably closer to the underlying law than others, particularly once a larger body of evidence has been gathered. The example was set nicely to draw people into thinking about geometric or exponential sequences and so on, yet the fuller body of evidence showed this straightforward hypothesis to be erroneous, pointing much more strongly to other conclusions, while not "proving" those conclusions. The US National Research Council put it this way:
"From a philosophical perspective, science never proves anything—in the manner that mathematics or other formal logical systems prove things—because science is fundamentally based on observations. Any scientific theory is thus, in principle, subject to being refined or overturned by new observations. In practical terms, however, scientific uncertainties are not all the same. Some scientific conclusions or theories have been so thoroughly examined and tested, and supported by so many independent observations and results, that their likelihood of subsequently being found to be wrong is vanishingly small. Such conclusions and theories are then regarded as settled facts."
I think some may understand why I might appreciate fairly acutely the links between the fourth estate and science...