The null policy always has more empirical validation because society clearly hasn't collapsed under it. This fact might be the essence of conservatism.
Implementing it merely risks a minor decrease in economic efficiency for a few years. The potential reward can last for an unlimited time. And there's a guaranteed reward too: Gaining knowledge on what policies work. We should do it even if we expected it to fail (see also VCs).
No society ever collapsed due to policy on repairing washing machines. One could survive indefinitely in a sub-optimal policy regime on a topic of limited importance without collapsing.