Notice that this is a form of bad science that may well have conformed to all the best practices of scientific method – proper randomizing, proper controls, proper statistical analysis. All the formal rules of ‘how to keep from fooling ourselves’ may have been followed. And yet no progress could possibly be made, because it was not being sought: explanationless theories can do no more than entrench existing, bad explanations. It is no accident that, in the imaginary
