"That is the idea that we all hope you have learned in studying science in school -- we never say explicitly what this is, but just hope that you catch on by all the examples of scientific investigation. It is interesting, therefore, to bring it out now and speak of it explicitly. It's a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty -- a kind of leaning over backwards. For example, if you're doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid -- not only what you think is right about it: other causes that could possibly explain your results; and things you thought of that you've eliminated by some other experiment, and how they worked -- to make sure the other fellow can tell they have been eliminated."
I've found myself giving what I thought would be a quick synopsis of an issue I discovered, only to have it turn into what felt like a long, conditional, and ultimately not very useful summary. Reading what Feynman says makes me realize I was passing along more information than I realized.
I like thinking about testing from the perspective of a scientific experiment, and this quote lends some validity to that line of thought. While providing all of this information could seem like it is weakening the findings ("Well, I found this, but at the time the server was doing something funny...") the idea of providing evidence of everything you saw and your consideration of that evidence in your reporting helps anyone who has to make a decision based on your work. In the end, providing information to decision makers is what testing is about so I'm going to stop worrying about it when I have a lot to report.
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