> So the ancient mystery of why we need sleep might have just been answered.
No, science doesn't work that way. The ancient mystery of why we need sleep has a new theory [1].
[1] I am assuming it is new. It might actually be old. I don't know.
No, science doesn't work that way. The ancient mystery of why we need sleep has a new theory [1].
[1] I am assuming it is new. It might actually be old. I don't know.
Most people commenting here know that all models are false but some make good predictions, and achieving that status is enough for most laypeople to classify it as a (potential) answer.
Going further, yes, this is a new theory among others, but afaik is the first one with strong evidence.
It's very much a fundamental misunderstanding of how science works. Almost nothing in science has an answer, and if you let your brain lock in that way, you forego the opportunity to ask interesting questions. It also leads directly to lots of downstream pathologies common in amongst laypeople (e.g. "The Science is Settled", which it almost never is).
> Going further, yes, this is a new theory among others, but afaik is the first one with strong evidence.
I am not an expert in this field, but others have evidence too. Particularly when asking "why" questions like this, the bar for proof is incredibly high.
"might have been answered" is absolutely valid: the correct theory might have been produced
Proposal of a hypothesis is not answering. Even if, decades from now and after many additional studies, scientific consensus settles on this hypothesis as "the answer", the first paper to speculate about the idea is still just a speculation. Moreover, if you're an outsider, the speculation is often an idea that's been floating around the field for longer than you've been aware of it.
Basically, just abandon your notion that there is "an answer" to any sufficiently complex scientific question, and you will be better off.