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Its amazing to me how many people who purportedly believe in science act more like priests than scientists. Science is about drawing conclusions from empirical

Its amazing to me how many people who purportedly believe in science act more like priests than scientists. Science is about drawing conclusions from empirical data, not ignoring empirical data that doesn't jive with your predetermined conclusions.

maverick_iceman 10y ago
The science is pretty settled here. No such thing can exist by laws of physics. You might as well try making a perpetual motion machine or homeopathic medicine.
- StanislavPetrov 10y ago
  >The science is pretty settled here. No such thing can exist... Thanks, this more neatly sums up the attitude I was attempting to describe then anything I could come up with. The hubris that is endemic in much of the "scientific" community is simply amazing. Another glaring example of the gap between education and intelligence.
  - Oletros 10y ago
    Extraordinary claims need extraordinary proof and until now there is no single proof or theory. so yes, it is not hubris, it is science. > Another glaring example of the gap between education and intelligence. Pot kettle?
- EvgeniyZh 10y ago
  Scientific method say that if observation contradicts your theory, then your theory is wrong.
  - gus_massa 10y ago
    One of the more important things that you learn in a laboratory is that experimental science is hard. There are many source of experimental errors. So it's not enough to have an experimental result, it's necessary to check very carefully the details to be convinced that it breaks the theory. In this case, the problem is that they are measuring a very small force, and many things can cause small forces. So you must be sure that all the other possible small forces sources are under check and that the force you are measuring is created by the method you are trying to measure. In this case, the most obvious candidates for errors are: * Thermal: The device gets very hot, so there may be some thermal expansions and some thermal air currents. * Electromagnetic: They use a lot of current, so the wires that connect the device may be acting as an electromagnet or something. They try to bound this error, but it's very hard to estimated correctly how big each one of them are, and prove that they are smaller than the force they see in the experiment.
- gus_massa 10y ago
  Actually, IF this were true and they really were breaking the conservation of momentum law, then by special relativity in most of the reference frames they must be breaking the conservation of energy law. So if this were true then they could build a perpetual motion machine too. IIRC one possible design was to put two em-drives with opposite directions at the opposite sides of a carousel. [Disclaimer: I think that this is an experimental error and that the conservation of momentum and energy laws are safe.]
gaur 10y ago
It's amazing to me how many people go nuts over marginal results that lack even a thin veneer of peer review. There are plenty of bizarre conclusions (dark matter and dark energy, for example) that have been drawn from stark empirical data and have withstood peer review. The EMdrive is not one of them.
cameldrv 10y ago
Yes, you must draw conclusions from empirical data. However, there is a likelihood, and there is a prior. The emdrive has no theoretical basis, so the prior is very low. The likelihood is small but not very small, because the results are just about at the detection limit. They claim that thrust is linear in the 40-80 watt range at 1.2mN/kW. Rather than go to the press, why don't they just turn up the power until the effect can't be denied? The fact that they did not publish that is also information.

maverick_iceman 10y ago

The science is pretty settled here. No such thing can exist by laws of physics. You might as well try making a perpetual motion machine or homeopathic medicine.

StanislavPetrov 10y ago
>The science is pretty settled here. No such thing can exist... Thanks, this more neatly sums up the attitude I was attempting to describe then anything I could come up with. The hubris that is endemic in much of the "scientific" community is simply amazing. Another glaring example of the gap between education and intelligence.
- Oletros 10y ago
  Extraordinary claims need extraordinary proof and until now there is no single proof or theory. so yes, it is not hubris, it is science. > Another glaring example of the gap between education and intelligence. Pot kettle?
EvgeniyZh 10y ago
Scientific method say that if observation contradicts your theory, then your theory is wrong.
- gus_massa 10y ago
  One of the more important things that you learn in a laboratory is that experimental science is hard. There are many source of experimental errors. So it's not enough to have an experimental result, it's necessary to check very carefully the details to be convinced that it breaks the theory. In this case, the problem is that they are measuring a very small force, and many things can cause small forces. So you must be sure that all the other possible small forces sources are under check and that the force you are measuring is created by the method you are trying to measure. In this case, the most obvious candidates for errors are: * Thermal: The device gets very hot, so there may be some thermal expansions and some thermal air currents. * Electromagnetic: They use a lot of current, so the wires that connect the device may be acting as an electromagnet or something. They try to bound this error, but it's very hard to estimated correctly how big each one of them are, and prove that they are smaller than the force they see in the experiment.
gus_massa 10y ago
Actually, IF this were true and they really were breaking the conservation of momentum law, then by special relativity in most of the reference frames they must be breaking the conservation of energy law. So if this were true then they could build a perpetual motion machine too. IIRC one possible design was to put two em-drives with opposite directions at the opposite sides of a carousel. [Disclaimer: I think that this is an experimental error and that the conservation of momentum and energy laws are safe.]

gaur 10y ago

It's amazing to me how many people go nuts over marginal results that lack even a thin veneer of peer review. There are plenty of bizarre conclusions (dark matter and dark energy, for example) that have been drawn from stark empirical data and have withstood peer review. The EMdrive is not one of them.

cameldrv 10y ago

Yes, you must draw conclusions from empirical data. However, there is a likelihood, and there is a prior. The emdrive has no theoretical basis, so the prior is very low. The likelihood is small but not very small, because the results are just about at the detection limit. They claim that thrust is linear in the 40-80 watt range at 1.2mN/kW. Rather than go to the press, why don't they just turn up the power until the effect can't be denied? The fact that they did not publish that is also information.