Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

[transposable_element]

Do you know this fic? If not, you have no need to read further.

People have been recommending it to me for years, so I finally downloaded and started reading it a few days ago. I was enjoying it (with certain reservations), until chapters 22-23, in which Harry does some very, very bad science. First, he claims that an hypothesis has been definitively falsified based on an uncontrolled pilot study using pretty sketchy data. Second, even if the data holds up upon further study, it actually supports the hypothesis instead of falsifying it!

And then he browbeats and lectures poor Draco for not accepting his conclusion. I never thought I'd feel sorry for Draco Malfoy....

Unfortunately, this may mean that I'm unable to continue the fic, because I have lost all trust in the author. Unless someone who has read it can tell me that Harry subsequently realizes that he is terrible at genetics?

Comments

[heliopausa]

I'd be thrown by very bad science, too, but maybe the writer is going to double back and save the science-method day?
Unfortunately, I'm not the person who can tell if that happens or not, because though I've demonstrably read further than your opening paragraph, I haven't actually read the fic in question. :) (I've been catching stray mentions of it for years, but never felt up to launching into reading such a mammoth work.)

[transposable_element]

I've set it aside for the moment, possibly for good. It may be that reading the whole thing in big gulps (as opposed to a chapter a time as a serial) is a mistake, because in large doses the author's version of Harry is increasingly repellant. He's an arrogant SOB who thinks he can come in as a novice and upend the entire magical tradition. I think we're supposed to find him flawed, but even so it's hard to take.

I'm not a huge fan of the books, but I started thinking about them again because Filia recently finished reading the series and now we are watching the movies together.

On another note: Nice to hear from you! I think we've both been off dreamwidth for a while (I haven't been regular for over a year, and I see you haven't, either). I hope you're doing well. I'm depressed about the state of national and world politics, but otherwise life is largely unchanged.

[heliopausa]

Good to be in touch with you, too! Yes, it's been an unsettling and disorienting year, one way and another. I'm trying to be back into posting, and reading - maybe even eventually into writing as well.