In this article, I suggest a process for empirical science. It is an alternative to the peer-reviewed journal. The overarching goal is scientific progress, and I think this is one way to accelerate it. My suggestion is inspired by modular design, the open science movement and the success of free and open-source software.
Epistemic status
- 80 percent confident that it would produce more scientific progress given the same input.
- 70 percent sure that the idea is not objectively original. I certainly have at least parts of it from other people, and at least parts of it is already being done.
- 70 percent confident that I haven’t found the best name for the concept.
- Many implementation details are unknown to me.
The problem
Imagine that you are a scientist, and you have dreamed up an experiment to answer a question. To illustrate, let us use the hilarious Stanford marshmallow experiment:
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