"The Currier languages revisited" revisited

[oshfdk]

* And the chances of obtaining useful insights will improve a lot if one uses the good old "scientific method": make an hypothesis, then devise the simplest and most effective way to test for it, and do that.

I think this is the missing piece for me in all this discussion about PCA, Currier languages, etc. Without a hypothesis and clearly stated assumptions PCA cannot be an argument for or against anything. PCA results are just a bunch of numbers with zero explanatory power by themselves. What is more, I think a popular approach to the manuscript where someone would just run a bunch of statistical tests and then try finding an explanation for the results is akin to divination, with graphs and charts replacing the crystal ball and tarot cards, but essentially it's the same attempt of finding pieces of a coherent story in random data and then creating a plausibly looking narrative based on those.