David Allison

Whether it makes us trusted, that's somebody else's judgment.

Trust me or don't trust me, however much you want, that's up to you.

Trustworthy, I think, has to do with the processes.

And my colleagues and I, we have a saying we've sort of coined and we like to use a lot, and we say, in science,

Three things matter.

The data, the methods used to collect the data, which give them their probative value, which shows what they mean, and the logic connecting the data to conclusions.

And everything else is tangential.

And so some people who don't have, quote unquote, the goods on an argument will resort to other things.

They'll resort to ad hominem attacks.

They'll resort to innuendo.

They'll resort to quips.

Quips are great.

Innuendo and ad hominem attacks, not so great, in my view.

But none of those are dispositive.

And when you think about things, we can really declare things known or not known.

No one needs to argue about your conflicts of interest

if you say that I can prove that there's a greatest prime number.

And people say, well, no, Euclid proved there isn't.

And I don't have to say maybe you're paid for by the prime number company or something.

I can just say, here's the proof and you're wrong.