But there is no doubt that when they go wrong, experiments with political identity can be fatal, as the Lib Dem case demonstrates.
Science is frustrating because things don't work 90% of the time: ideas are wrong, experiments fail.
If it is wrong, the experiment will serve as an object lesson in the perils of over-centralisation.The rationale for targets is straightforward.
Of course, there is nothing wrong with experimenting with different ways to intervene early and help families.
Still, while there's nothing wrong with experimenting, this scheme doesn't seem thought-out and probably won't spur hard drive sales or stop anyone from downloading illegally — its two main goals.
"They would have gotten them just as wrong before the experiment in Queens," Mr. Scoppetta said.
"We made every mistake known, did every experiment wrong and had to go back and do them right," Dr. Taylor said.
Only when she took a more advanced lab and spent hours poring over a circuit diagram, figuring out that her fellow students had set up an experiment wrong, did she realize she knew as much as they did.
When I watch "Lucky Louie" now, after having seen "Louie" and some of C.K.'s standup work (he's made a handful of TV specials), the series strikes me less as awful than as a simple wrong turn, an experiment of the kind that a smart, interesting artist is bound to make at some point.
