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I think your view of what science is is a little too narrow. "Aliens did it in a way we don't understand, yet" is a hypothesis, which could be supported or refu

I think your view of what science is is a little too narrow. "Aliens did it in a way we don't understand, yet" is a hypothesis, which could be supported or refuted. The famous quote by Asimov is 'The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not "Eureka" but "That's funny..."' We've got something funny here, which may be (probably is?) nothing new, or may be exciting.

dragonwriter 11y ago
It is a conjecture or speculation; it is not a hypothesis, in the scientific sense, because without something more than "some way we don't understand", it makes no falsifiable predictions of future observations. Now, speculation of this type can be the starting point to developing a testable hypothesis, so its not completely outside the scientific process, but it's far sorry of even a hypothesis.
- Almaviva 11y ago
  Thanks for the point, I agree if we're speaking precisely and not colloquially. But... > "its not completely outside the scientific process" Here you unfairly (imo) diminish the role of wonder and speculation in science, which isn't something at the fringes of it, but part of the very soul and essence of it.
  - marvin 11y ago
    There is an unfortunate side effect of the rationalism movement that the (mostly correct) dismissal of religious explanations and pseudoscientific ideas: A lot of people who should know better also dismiss philosophy, conjecture and other ideas that don't have a firmly established theory as unscientific. These things are an important part of the scientific process. A lot of the key scientific tools and knowledge we have today started out as philosophical riddles. Ironically, this same mistake has been made time and time again throughout history when science has made great strides. Someone points out that "that's funny", and are immediately shot down for coming up with ridiculous ideas that are not supported by the current theories. This might not describe OP, but it's a pretty common phenomenon that often shows up in discussions where the boundaries of our current scientific knowledge are close. E.g. AI, the un-observable part of the universe, experiments that seem to break physics (e.g. the RF resonant cavity thruster), what is consciousness, etc.
    - Sharlin 11y ago
      And for every outlandish hypothesis that turned out to be true there have been a hundred for which a much more mundane explanation has sufficed. As Carl Sagan said, "They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown." Many of us yearn for novel, exciting discoveries with extraordinary explanations. The desire for novelty is a fundamental part of the human condition, and alien intelligence is one of the most thrilling, evocative, thought-provoking ideas that exist. However, the very fundamental point of the scientific method is to explicitly work against this bias - to ensure we're pursuing the truth and not our pet ideas. As I brought up in another comment, it is wrong to single out "aliens" in the vast space of hypotheses just because that concept happens to be especially accessible and fascinating to laypeople. There are a plenty of possible explanations that are astrophysically novel and interesting and don't involve such a huge multiplication of entities as the aliens hypothesis does.
      - Houshalter 11y ago
        >And for every outlandish hypothesis that turned out to be true there have been a hundred for which a much more mundane explanation has sufficed. A 1% probability of aliens seems pretty significant to me. Obviously it's more likely that it's not aliens, and no one disagrees with that. But the fact that it's even a possibility is very interesting and makes it worthy of investigation. Anyway there isn't anything inherently unlikely about aliens. You make it like it's incredibly unlikely that aliens exist, so any hypothesis that includes them must be incredibly unlikely. A lot of people have higher prior probabilities on the existence of aliens.
        Sharlin 11y ago
        "Aliens exist" and "an advanced technological civilization built a physics-defying megastructure around this specific star" have rather drastically different prior probabilities. Anyway, I'll give the megastructure conjecture much more weight the second someone in the research community suggests it, preferably with some sort of a testable hypothesis. As far as I know it has been purely layperson speculation and as such not much more plausible than the ramblings of UFO believers or free energy cranks.
- zodiac 11y ago
  > It is a conjecture or speculation; it is not a hypothesis, in the scientific sense, because without something more than "some way we don't understand", it makes no falsifiable predictions of future observations. But it is falsifiable, for example we could falsify it by visiting the star and observing that there is no life in its solar system and no artificial satellites orbiting the star.
- kordless 11y ago
  Technically, a scientific hypothesis requires it to be testable. Given this is at least partially scientific, the person saying it is a hypothesis should probably present a way to test if it is true or not. Given we don't know how to test for it yet, we may be left with continuing to explain what it is we're seeing without saying what it is. Which, I suppose, is a big challenge with space based discoveries.
Sharlin 11y ago
The "nothing new" vs "aliens" is a false dichotomy. It might be a zillion things that are novel and exciting astrophysically but do not involve aliens or completely new physics. Heck, there are novel and exciting things on Pluto that we don't completely understand but no sensible researcher is shouting "aliens"!
meddlepal 11y ago
Tell me how that is any different from "The Lord works in mysterious ways that we just don't comprehend yet"?
- cthalupa 11y ago
  If it's not different, it suggests that you believe the chance of the existence of god is equal to that of there being advanced alien civilizations with technology beyond our comprehension. Neither does anything in the way of real explanation, but if you believe that advanced alien civilizations are likely to exist (which is a fairly defensible argument based on things we DO know) or have existed (depending on how far away what we're observing is), the likelihood is quite different. Not that I'm saying it's aliens.

dragonwriter 11y ago

It is a conjecture or speculation; it is not a hypothesis, in the scientific sense, because without something more than "some way we don't understand", it makes no falsifiable predictions of future observations. Now, speculation of this type can be the starting point to developing a testable hypothesis, so its not completely outside the scientific process, but it's far sorry of even a hypothesis.

Almaviva 11y ago
Thanks for the point, I agree if we're speaking precisely and not colloquially. But... > "its not completely outside the scientific process" Here you unfairly (imo) diminish the role of wonder and speculation in science, which isn't something at the fringes of it, but part of the very soul and essence of it.
- marvin 11y ago
  There is an unfortunate side effect of the rationalism movement that the (mostly correct) dismissal of religious explanations and pseudoscientific ideas: A lot of people who should know better also dismiss philosophy, conjecture and other ideas that don't have a firmly established theory as unscientific. These things are an important part of the scientific process. A lot of the key scientific tools and knowledge we have today started out as philosophical riddles. Ironically, this same mistake has been made time and time again throughout history when science has made great strides. Someone points out that "that's funny", and are immediately shot down for coming up with ridiculous ideas that are not supported by the current theories. This might not describe OP, but it's a pretty common phenomenon that often shows up in discussions where the boundaries of our current scientific knowledge are close. E.g. AI, the un-observable part of the universe, experiments that seem to break physics (e.g. the RF resonant cavity thruster), what is consciousness, etc.
  - Sharlin 11y ago
    And for every outlandish hypothesis that turned out to be true there have been a hundred for which a much more mundane explanation has sufficed. As Carl Sagan said, "They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown." Many of us yearn for novel, exciting discoveries with extraordinary explanations. The desire for novelty is a fundamental part of the human condition, and alien intelligence is one of the most thrilling, evocative, thought-provoking ideas that exist. However, the very fundamental point of the scientific method is to explicitly work against this bias - to ensure we're pursuing the truth and not our pet ideas. As I brought up in another comment, it is wrong to single out "aliens" in the vast space of hypotheses just because that concept happens to be especially accessible and fascinating to laypeople. There are a plenty of possible explanations that are astrophysically novel and interesting and don't involve such a huge multiplication of entities as the aliens hypothesis does.
    - Houshalter 11y ago
      >And for every outlandish hypothesis that turned out to be true there have been a hundred for which a much more mundane explanation has sufficed. A 1% probability of aliens seems pretty significant to me. Obviously it's more likely that it's not aliens, and no one disagrees with that. But the fact that it's even a possibility is very interesting and makes it worthy of investigation. Anyway there isn't anything inherently unlikely about aliens. You make it like it's incredibly unlikely that aliens exist, so any hypothesis that includes them must be incredibly unlikely. A lot of people have higher prior probabilities on the existence of aliens.
      - Sharlin 11y ago
        "Aliens exist" and "an advanced technological civilization built a physics-defying megastructure around this specific star" have rather drastically different prior probabilities. Anyway, I'll give the megastructure conjecture much more weight the second someone in the research community suggests it, preferably with some sort of a testable hypothesis. As far as I know it has been purely layperson speculation and as such not much more plausible than the ramblings of UFO believers or free energy cranks.
zodiac 11y ago
> It is a conjecture or speculation; it is not a hypothesis, in the scientific sense, because without something more than "some way we don't understand", it makes no falsifiable predictions of future observations. But it is falsifiable, for example we could falsify it by visiting the star and observing that there is no life in its solar system and no artificial satellites orbiting the star.
kordless 11y ago
Technically, a scientific hypothesis requires it to be testable. Given this is at least partially scientific, the person saying it is a hypothesis should probably present a way to test if it is true or not. Given we don't know how to test for it yet, we may be left with continuing to explain what it is we're seeing without saying what it is. Which, I suppose, is a big challenge with space based discoveries.

Sharlin 11y ago

The "nothing new" vs "aliens" is a false dichotomy. It might be a zillion things that are novel and exciting astrophysically but do not involve aliens or completely new physics. Heck, there are novel and exciting things on Pluto that we don't completely understand but no sensible researcher is shouting "aliens"!

meddlepal 11y ago

Tell me how that is any different from "The Lord works in mysterious ways that we just don't comprehend yet"?

cthalupa 11y ago
If it's not different, it suggests that you believe the chance of the existence of god is equal to that of there being advanced alien civilizations with technology beyond our comprehension. Neither does anything in the way of real explanation, but if you believe that advanced alien civilizations are likely to exist (which is a fairly defensible argument based on things we DO know) or have existed (depending on how far away what we're observing is), the likelihood is quite different. Not that I'm saying it's aliens.