Cleverly Sifting Science
How to gauge how sound the academic mainstream in a given field is likely to be, and how justified one would be to dismiss contrarians out of hand.
When looking for information about some area outside of one’s expertise, it is usually a good idea to first ask what academic scholarship has to say on the subject. …The trouble is, this is not always the case. The fact that a view is way out of the academic mainstream may imply that it’s bunk with near-certainty, but it may also tell us nothing if the mainstream standards in the area are especially bad. I will discuss some heuristics that provide a realistic first estimate of how sound the academic mainstream in a given field is likely to be, and how justified one would be to dismiss contrarians.
