The iron rule solves this problem not by attempting to glamorize what’s clearly menial, but through a more indirect, more devious stratagem. It sets up scientific argument, as I have explained, as a kind of game in which hypotheses are defended and attacked. In that game, only one kind of move is legitimate: the empirical move in which a hypothesis is attacked for failing to explain some observed matter of fact and defended by showing that the failure is merely apparent, due to malfunctioning equipment, unfavorable conditions, or faulty assumptions.
why did people accept this game? did they?
