Confidence in constant progress: or how pragmatic nihilism encourages optimism through modesty

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Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Gjalt-Jorn Ygram Peters http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0336-9589

Rik Crutzen http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3731-6610

Notes

1. We claim that for all practical purposes, variables are equivalent to their operationalisations. Note that not all purposes are practical purposes; one could perhaps even argue that, for example, philosophy is quite the opposite of practical.

2. Trafimow (2012) describes an excellent example of Mendeleev's periodic table, which is not an integration of knowledge regarding all elements in chemistry, but is based on valence as the unifying principle.