Most of the downvotes that most people on HN will receive simply mean: "I sure hope that isn't true." (Even though you've cited a peer-reviewed journal and the

Most of the downvotes that most people on HN will receive simply mean: "I sure hope that isn't true." (Even though you've cited a peer-reviewed journal and they've got nothing but hope.) So the more novel and significant the contribution, the better the chance of being downvoted into oblivion, in my experience. But keep commenting, some will read it and knowledge that challenges prejudice (prejudgments) always spreads quite slowly at first. Then later nearly everybody convince themselves they've ever believed anything else. Note that the above is true for most contributors, but most downvotes on the site are directed at a small minority of people who commonly comment without reading the article, or didn't understand it, or blunder through general ignorance or profound bias; so most downvotes are still legit.