Blondlot had destroyed his reputation with the sort of mistake that would get a failing grade and probably derisive laughter from the T.A. in a first-year undergraduate course on experimental design... in 1991.
But this had been a bit longer ago, in 1904, and so it had taken months before Robert Wood had formulated the obvious alternative hypothesis and figured out how to test it, and dozens of other scientists had been sucked in.
More than two centuries after science had gotten started. That late in scientific history, it still hadn't been obvious.
Which made it entirely plausible that in the tiny wizarding world, where science didn't seem much known at all, no one had ever tried the first, the simplest, the most obvious thing that any modern scientist would think to check.
The books were full of complicated instructions for all the things you had to do exactly right in order to cast a spell. And, Harry had hypothesized, the process of obeying those instructions, of checking that you were following them correctly, probably did do something. It forced you to concentrate on the spell. Being told to just wave your wand and wish probably wouldn't work as well. And once you believed the spell was supposed to work a certain way, once you had practiced it that way, you might not be able to convince yourself that it could work any other way...
...if you did the simple but wrong thing, and tried to test alternative forms yourself.
But what if you didn't know what the original spell had been like?
What if you gave Hermione a list of spells she hadn't studied yet, taken from a book of silly prank spells in the Hogwarts library, and some of those spells had the correct and original instructions, while others had one changed gesture, one changed word? What if you kept the instructions constant, but told her that a spell supposed to create a red worm was supposed to create a blue worm instead?
Well, in that case, it had turned out...
...Harry was having trouble believing his results here...
...if you told Hermione to say "Oogely boogely" with the vowel durations in the ratio of 3 to 1 to 1, instead of the correct ratio of 3 to 1 to 2, you still got the bat but it wouldn't glow any more.
Not that belief was irrelevant here. Not that only the words and wand movements mattered.
If you gave Hermione completely incorrect information about what a spell was supposed to do, it would stop working.
If you didn't tell her at all what the spell was supposed to do, it would stop working.
If she knew in very vague terms what the spell was supposed to do, or she was only partially wrong, then the spell would work as originally described in the book, not the way she'd been told it should.
Harry was, at this moment, literally banging his head against the brick wall. Not hard. He didn't want to damage his precious brains. But if he didn't have some outlet for his frustration, he would spontaneously catch on fire.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
It seemed the universe actually did want you to say 'Wingardium Leviosa' and it wanted you to say it in a certain exact way and it didn't care what you thought the pronunciation should be any more than it cared how you felt about gravity.
WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY?
The worst part of it was the smug, amused look on Hermione's face.
Hermione had not been okay with sitting around obediently following Harry's instructions without being told why.
So Harry had explained to her what they were testing.
Harry had explained why they were testing it.
Harry had explained why probably no wizard had tried it before them.
Harry had explained that he was actually fairly confident of his prediction.
Because, Harry had said, there was no way that the universe actually wanted you to say 'Wingardium Leviosa'.
Hermione had pointed out that this was not what her books said. Hermione had asked if Harry really thought he was smarter, at eleven years old and just over a month into his Hogwarts education, than all the other wizards in the world who disagreed with him.
Harry had said the following exact words:
"Of course."
Now Harry was staring at the red brick directly in front of him and contemplating how hard he would have to hit his head in order to give himself a concussion that would interfere with long-term memory formation and prevent him from remembering this later. Hermione wasn't laughing, but he could feel her intent to laugh radiating out from behind him like a dreadful pressure on his skin, sort of like knowing you were being stalked by a serial killer only worse.
"Say it," Harry said.
"I wasn't going to," said the kindly voice of Hermione Granger. "It didn't seem nice."
"Just get it over with," said Harry.
"Okay! So you gave me this whole long lecture about how hard it was to do basic science and how we might need to stay on the problem for thirty-five years, and then you went and expected us to make the greatest discovery in the history of magic in the first hour we were working together. You didn't just hope, you really expected it. You're silly."
"Thank you. Now -"
"I've read all the books you gave me and I still don't know what to call that. Overconfidence? Planning fallacy? Super duper Lake Wobegon effect? They'll have to name it after you. Harry Bias."
"All right!"
"But it is cute. It's such a boy thing to do."
"Drop dead."
"Aw, you say the most romantic things."
Thud. Thud. Thud.
"So what's next?" said Hermione.
Harry rested his head against the bricks. His forehead was starting to hurt where he'd been banging it. "Nothing. I have to go back and design different experiments."
Over the last month, Harry had carefully worked out, in advance, a course of experimentation for them that would have lasted until December.
It would have been a great set of experiments if the very first test had not falsified the basic premise.
Harry could not believe he had been this dumb.
"Let me correct myself," said Harry. "I need to design one new experiment. I'll let you know when we've got it, and we'll do it, and then I'll design the next one. How does that sound?"
"It sounds like someone wasted a whole lot of effort."
Thud. Ow. He'd done that a bit harder than he'd planned.
"So," said Hermione. She was leaning back in her chair and the smug look was back on her face. "What did we discover today?"
"I discovered," said Harry through gritted teeth, "that when it comes to doing truly basic research on a genuinely confusing problem where you have no clue what's going on, my books on scientific methodology aren't worth crap -"
"Language, Mr. Potter! Some of us are innocent young girls!"
"Fine. But if my books were worth a carp, that's a kind of fish not anything bad, they would have given me the following important piece of advice: When there's a confusing problem and you're just starting out and you have a falsifiable hypothesis, go test it. Find some simple, easy way of doing a basic check and do it right away. Don't worry about designing an elaborate course of experiments that would make a grant proposal look impressive to a funding agency. Just check as fast as possible whether your ideas are false before you start investing huge amounts of effort in them. How does that sound for a moral?"
"Mmm... okay," said Hermione. "But I was also hoping for something like 'Hermione's books aren't worthless. They're written by wise old wizards who know way more about magic than I do. I should pay attention to what Hermione's books say.' Can we have that moral too?"
Harry's jaw seemed to be clenched too tightly to let any words out, so he just nodded.
"Great!" Hermione said. "I liked this experiment. We learned a lot from it and it only took me an hour or so."
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
In the dungeons of Slytherin.
An unused classroom lit with eerie green light, much brighter this time and coming from a small crystal globe with a temporary enchantment, but eerie green li
ght nonetheless, casting strange shadows from the dusty desks.
Two boy-sized figures in cowled grey cloaks (no masks) had entered in silence, and sat down in two chairs opposite the same desk.
It was the second meeting of the Bayesian Conspiracy.
Draco Malfoy hadn't been sure if he should look forward to it or not.
Harry Potter, judging by the expression on his face, didn't seem to have any doubts on the appropriate mood.
Harry Potter looked like he was ready to kill someone.
"Hermione Granger," said Harry Potter, just as Draco was opening his mouth. "Don't ask."
He couldn't have gone on another date, could he? thought Draco, but that didn't make any sense.
"Harry," said Draco, "I'm sorry but I have to ask this anyway, did you really order the mudblood girl an expensive mokeskin pouch for her birthday?"
"Yes, I did. You've already worked out why, of course."
Draco reached up and raked fingers through his hair in frustration, his cowl brushing the back of his hand. He hadn't been quite sure why, but now he couldn't say so. And Slytherin knew he was courting Harry Potter, he'd made it obvious enough in Defense class. "Harry," said Draco, "people know I'm friends with you, they don't know about the Conspiracy of course, but they know we're friends, and it makes me look bad when you do that sort of thing."
Harry Potter's face tightened. "Anyone in Slytherin who can't understand the concept of acting nice toward people you don't actually like should be ground up and fed to pet snakes."
"There are a lot of people in Slytherin who don't," Draco said, his voice serious. "Most people are stupid, and you have to look good in front of them anyway." Harry Potter had to understand that if he ever wanted to get anywhere in life.
"What do you care what other people think? Are you really going to live your life needing to explain everything you do to the dumbest idiots in Slytherin, letting them judge you? I'm sorry, Draco, but I'm not lowering my cunning plots to the level of what the dumbest Slytherins can understand, just because it might make you look bad otherwise. Not even your friendship is worth that. It would take all the fun out of life. Tell me you haven't ever thought the same thing when someone in Slytherin is being too stupid to breathe, that it's beneath the dignity of a Malfoy to have to pander to them."
Draco genuinely hadn't. Ever. Pandering to idiots was like breathing, you did it without thinking about it.
"Harry," Draco said at last. "Just doing whatever you want, without worrying about how it looks, isn't smart. The Dark Lord worried about how he looked! He was feared and hated, and he knew exactly what sort of fear and hate he wanted to create. Everyone has to worry about what other people think."
The cowled figure shrugged. "Perhaps. Remind me sometime to tell you about something called Asch's Conformity Experiment, you might find it quite amusing. For now I'll just note that it's dangerous to worry about what other people think on instinct, because you actually care, not as a matter of cold-blooded calculation. Remember, I was beaten and bullied by older Slytherins for fifteen minutes, and afterward I stood up and graciously forgave them. Just like the good and virtuous Boy-Who-Lived ought to do. But my cold-blooded calculations, Draco, tell me that I have no use for the dumbest idiots in Slytherin, since I don't own a pet snake. So I have no reason to care what they think about how I conduct my duel with Hermione Granger."
Draco did not clench his fists in frustration. "She's just some mudblood," Draco said, keeping his voice calm, rather than shouting. "If you don't like her, push her down the stairs."
"Ravenclaw would know -"
"Have Pansy Parkinson push her down the stairs! You wouldn't even have to manipulate her, offer her a Sickle and she'd do it!"
"I would know! Hermione beat me in a book-reading contest, she's getting better grades than me, I have to defeat her with my brain or it doesn't count!"
"She's just a mudblood! Why do you respect her that much?"
"She's a power among Ravenclaws! Why do you care what some powerless idiot in Slytherin thinks?"
"It's called politics! And if you can't play it you can't have power!"
"Walking on the moon is power! Being a great wizard is power! There are kinds of power that don't require me to spend the rest of my life pandering to morons!"
Both of them stopped, and, in almost perfect unison, began taking deep breaths to calm themselves.
"Sorry," Harry Potter said after a few moments, wiping sweat from his forehead. "Sorry, Draco. You've got a lot of political power and it makes sense for you to keep it. You should be calculating what Slytherin thinks. It's an important game and I shouldn't have insulted it. But you can't ask me to lower the level of my game in Ravenclaw, just so that you don't look bad by associating with me. Tell Slytherin you're gritting your teeth while you pretend to be my friend."
That was exactly what Draco had told Slytherin, and he still wasn't sure whether it was true.
"Anyway," Draco said. "Speaking of your image. I'm afraid I've got some bad news. Rita Skeeter heard some of the stories about you and she's been asking questions."
Harry Potter raised his eyebrows. "Who?"
"She writes for the Daily Prophet," Draco said. He tried to keep the worry out of his voice. The Daily Prophet was one of Father's primary tools, he used it like a wizard's wand. "That's the newspaper people actually pay attention to. Rita Skeeter writes about celebrities, and as she puts it, uses her quill to puncture their over-inflated reputations. If she can't find any rumors about you, she'll just make up her own."
"I see," said Harry Potter. His green-lit face looked very thoughtful beneath the cowl.
Draco hesitated before saying what he had to say next. By now someone had certainly reported to Father that he was courting Harry Potter, and Father would also know that Draco hadn't written home about it, and Father would understand that Draco didn't think he could actually keep it a secret, which sent a clear message that Draco was practicing his own game now but still on Father's side, since if Draco had been tempted away, he would have been sending false reports.
It followed that Father had probably anticipated what Draco was about to say next.
Playing the game with Father for real was a rather unnerving sensation. Even if they were on the same side. It was, on the one hand, exhiliarating, but Draco also knew that in the end it would turn out that Father had played the game better. There was no other way it could possibly go.
"Harry," Draco finally said. "This isn't a suggestion. This isn't my advice. Just the way it is. My father could almost certainly quash that article. But it would cost you."
That Father had been expecting Draco to tell Harry Potter exactly that was not something Draco said out loud. Harry Potter would work it out on his own, or not.
But instead Harry Potter shook his head, smiling beneath the cowl. "I have no intention of trying to quash Rita Skeeter."
Draco didn't even try to keep the incredulity out of his voice. "You can't tell me you don't care what the newspaper says about you!"
"I care less than you might think," said Harry Potter. "But I have my own ways of dealing with the likes of Skeeter. I don't need Lucius's help."
A worried look came over Draco's face before he could stop it. Whatever Harry Potter was about to do next, it would be something Father wasn't expecting, and Draco was feeling very nervous about where that might lead.
Draco also realized that his hair was getting sweaty underneath the cowl. He'd never actually worn one of those before, and hadn't realized that the Death Eaters' cloaks probably had things like Cooling Charms.
Harry Potter wiped some sweat from his forehead again, grimaced, took out his wand, pointed it upward, took a deep breath, and said "Frigideiro!"
Moments later Draco felt the cold draft.
"Frigideiro! Frigideiro! Frigideiro! Frigideiro! Frigideiro!"
Then Harry Potter lowered the wand, though his hand seemed a bit shaky, and put it back into his robes.
The wh
ole room seemed perceptibly cooler. Draco could have done that too, but still, not bad.
"So," Draco said. "Science. You're going to tell me about blood."
"We're going to find out about blood," Harry Potter said. "By doing experiments."
"All right," Draco said. "What sort of experiments?"
Harry Potter smiled evilly beneath his cowl, and said, "You tell me."
Draco had heard of something called the Socratic Method, which was teaching by asking questions (named after an ancient philosopher who had been too smart to be a real Muggle and hence had been a disguised pureblood wizard). One of his tutors had used Socratic teaching a lot. It had been annoying but effective.
Then there was the Potter Method, which was insane.
To be fair, Draco had to admit that Harry Potter had tried the Socratic Method first and it hadn't been working too well.
Harry Potter had asked how Draco would go about disproving the blood purist hypothesis that wizards couldn't do the neat stuff now that they'd done eight centuries ago because they had interbred with Muggleborns and Squibs.
Draco had said that he did not understand how Harry Potter could sit there with a straight face and claim this was not a trap.
Harry Potter had replied, still with a straight face, that if it was a trap it would have been so pathetically obvious that he ought to be ground up and fed to pet snakes, but it was not a trap, it was simply a rule of how scientists operated that you had to try to disprove your own theories, and if you made an honest effort and failed, that was victory.
Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality Page 38