I want to write a book about automated testing. Much of the book would be me explaining the best practices I’ve learned. I know these are good pract

How to argue for something without any scientific evidence

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2024-10-17 19:30:04

I want to write a book about automated testing. Much of the book would be me explaining the best practices I’ve learned. I know these are good practices; I’ve seen them work over and over again. But have no [scientific] data at all to support my conclusions.

This is near and dear to my heart. On one hand, I think empirical software engineering (ESE) is really important and have given several talks on it. On the other, I think ESE's often a trainwreck and find most of the research flawed. And my career is based on formal specification, which hasn't been studied at all.

Thing is, software still needs to get built regardless of how much we know about it. So how do you get people to believe you when there's no science backing you up?

Empirical evidence is a shortcut to both of these: we tend to think the scientific process is perfectly objective (it's not) and consider it unbiased (we shouldn't). At the very least, it's on average more objective and less biased than most other forms of gathering information. Without it, we need to work harder to earn people's trust.

Trustworthiness isn't the same as authority, but they're closely linked. You can't be an authority without being trustworthy.