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That argument is like saying if we had better theorists you wouldn't need to build particle accelerators.

Nature has brute facts that can only be discovered through observation. I would be surprised to see evidence that an intelligence, no matter how smart, could reason to the fundamental properties of neutrinos without massive physical real world experiments and piles of observational data.



If it could, that would mean rationalism as a philosophy would come back into play, whereas empiricism has been dominant during the scientific revolution.


obviously ultimately you need observation, but I think this article (https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5wMcKNAwB6X4mp9og/that-alien...) makes an intuitive case that having better researchers gets you greater insight per unit observation.




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