Because combing through large amounts of data in search of a hypothesis is as old as the hills. (In fact, the dangers of generating false hypotheses were already detailed on HackerNews a few days ago.) Brin isn't proposing some new way of doing science, he (I think) is just suggesting that the current mentality/funding-structure/whatever is not set up to support this type of analysis optimally.
Because he's not suggesting an experiment. This method involves taking data already obtained and doing analyses on it, to look for something, it's really a different way to form a hypothesis. After he finds something this way it'll go "back" to the standard rigors of the scientific method.
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Why not? Can you explain?
Because combing through large amounts of data in search of a hypothesis is as old as the hills. (In fact, the dangers of generating false hypotheses were already detailed on HackerNews a few days ago.) Brin isn't proposing some new way of doing science, he (I think) is just suggesting that the current mentality/funding-structure/whatever is not set up to support this type of analysis optimally.
Because he's not suggesting an experiment. This method involves taking data already obtained and doing analyses on it, to look for something, it's really a different way to form a hypothesis. After he finds something this way it'll go "back" to the standard rigors of the scientific method.
"it's really a different way to form a hypothesis"
Isn't that enough?
By different, he doesn't mean revolutionary.