Requirements of posts in Rigorous Science
To replace using the like of the 'hard-science' tag on Worldbuilding SE, we have the 'Rigorous Science' category. As evident in the name, this involves 'research' of some form, but what does this mean?
That is, what are the requirements for a question in that category and what are the requirements for an answer in that category? If you have a question, how do you know whether or not it's suitable for that category?
2 answers
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Question requirements
I think it definitely falls on the asker to demonstrate first and foremost that the basic tenets of their idea are feasible. Their question should show that they've done a good deal of thinking about their problem already. They don't have to know the field intimately, of course, but they should make an argument that it's possible to approach the problem rigorously.
This could include citing a paper or other resource they've found, or doing a quick order-of-magnitude calculation. Again, it would be unreasonable to expect the asker to exhibit technical knowledge, but you don't necessarily need to be an expert to do some basic thinking about plausibility.
Answer requirements
On Worldbuilding, the requirements currently in place for an answer to a hard-science question are that it be backed up by at least one (and ideally more) of the following:
- Equations
- Empirical evidence
- Scientific papers
- "Other citations"
Looking at it with fresh eyes, I'm honestly not a fan (and, for context, I've been one of the forces behind the tag). It's not clear to me that the first, second and fourth points are useful. By the letter of the rule, you could misapply equations, rely on shaky "evidence", and quote a poorly-written press release, and still satisfy the given criteria. Heck, many Wikipedia articles could be valid, yet there are certainly dangerously inaccurate Wikipedia pages out there.
I'm going to recommend that we axe those three ideas, and whittle the restrictions down to mandate that scientific papers (or conference proceedings) must be cited, and must constitute the backbone of an answer. Preferably, this means that the paper has been cited in a legitimate, peer-reviewed journal - no vanity publishers or predatory journals. This should indicate that the claims therein are at the very least reasonable enough from an expert's point of view. Not all scientific papers are widely accepted, but widely-accepted scientific ideas typically come from papers.
I'm on the fence about allowing preprints. I recall at least one case on Worldbuilding where someone cited an arXiv submission (in response to a non-hard science question); I read it twice and found that it was littered with errors and plagiarism. Yet that answer received dozens of upvotes. I'd be inclined to discourage preprints except in extenuating circumstances. (They also might open up to door to other dubious half-baked ideas, and content sources like viXra, which is . . . not to be trusted.)
This is going to mean that in many cases folks will have to either do literature searches or start from a place that cites papers (e.g. Wikipedia) and then dive in to the works themselves. That itself may discourage people from answering - it's not easy to properly do a lit search. Parsing a paper is usually even harder, particularly if non-technical descriptions of it, such as press releases, cover it inaccurately. I'm thinking back to recent inaccurate sensationalist coverage of a rather more mundane result.
That point is really the crux of my argument that we should either require (or, at the very least strongly recommend) that folks cite papers in their answers. It's extremely easy for the actual conclusions to get distorted when reading secondary sources, even if those sources are doing possible to avoid sensationalism and stick to the facts. I'm not saying you can't use secondary sources to support your claims or maybe make your explanations clearer or less technical - you certainly should, if that will increase readability and clarity - but I wouldn't want to see them be the sole pillars of an answer.
Is it worth the trouble? I think so. The number of these rigorous questions we get is likely not going to be high, and so the majority of users presumably will not have to go through the process of doing the research and writing these answers.
The way I see it for now (and I reserve the right to change my mind in response to discussion in response to this :-))
All of these points are valid for both questions and answers in the standard Q&A category as well; it's just that, in Researched Q&A, we take the normal nice to haves and bump many of them to more like requirements.
Questions
Questions in the Researched Q&A category should:
- Be "well-researched". This isn't the place to drop random ideas just for the fun of it. Take some time to consider the implications of what you are asking about. Try to anticipate follow-up questions, and handle them prematurely in the question (without going overboard). You don't need to have every answer, but at least show that you understand potential issues surrounding whatever you're asking about.
- Be "clearly explained". Take some extra time to show that you have done your homework. Be extra specific about what you want help with, or what you want answers to focus on.
- Be "supported with references, equations, or empirical evidence based on current, widely-accepted science". This doesn't mean that your question cannot be about imaginary things! It's fine to ask a Researched Q&A question about, say, faster-than-light travel, or terraforming, or shapeshifters. However, in that case, you must specify enough about how they work so that answerers can reason about them rigorously. Be prepared to get questions about whatever fictious element you're introducing, if any, and answer those by editing the question to include additional information. In the absence of any special mentions in the question, answerers should be able to assume that the world you're asking about works exactly like our real world. If that means that what you're asking about cannot possibly work, then "you can't have that, and here's a summary of why" is a perfectly valid answer.
Answers
Answers in the Researched Q&A category should:
- Be "well-researched". Don't just say something because you've heard someone mention it, or because you've come across it somewhere. Make sure it actually applies in the first place. (For example, is the formula you're using appropriate for the problem you're trying to solve?)
- Be "clearly explained". This of course applies everywhere, but goes double in Researched Q&A because answers there are likely to rely on specialist knowledge of some kind. Don't just give the answer, but also take extra steps to describe how you arrived at that answer. (For example, explain why you choose to use that particular formula to derive a particular value.)
- Be "supported with references, equations, or empirical evidence". Show your work! The concept of the World Wide Web was born out of researchers' desires to share their work and easily cross-link between it. You don't necessarily have to link to scientific papers, although if you can, that's beneficial (but don't rely on others having access to the full paper, unless it's open access). Make sure to summarize the salient point from what you're linking to as it relates to the answer you're writing and if necessarily clarify why it applies. (For example, insert the formula, with appropriate values, and describe why you're using it and what the value you're using it to calculate means, in the context of the answer.)
- "...based on current, widely-accepted science". This isn't the place for one's pet fringe idea. If you base your answer to a significant degree on retracted scientific papers, superceded scientific knowledge, non-peer-reviewed publications (including preprints or mainstream media press releases), or claims that are either widely disputed by established scientists in the appropriate field, or go against widely accepted scientific knowledge, then you're probably going about this the wrong way. (For example, if you base your answer on the premise that the speed of light is infinite, unless that's actually somehow postulated in the question, your answer is probably not going to be particularly helpful.) This doesn't mean that answerers cannot make reasonable extrapolations! For an example of how one might extrapolate in answers, uplifted animals don't exist in our world, but it's possible to make plausible extrapolations of fields such as genetic engineering that, while challenging in engineering terms, are plausible scientifically; such extrapolations are allowed, but should be clearly indicated as such.
I would like to add another little detail: Don't rush! Particularly people who post in the Researched Q&A category should recognize that it will probably take longer before they get an answer, because the requirements they place on answers by posting there are higher. Take the time to make your answer as good as you possibly can, at a minimum meeting the category criteria; then consider whether there is any way at all you can make it even better.
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