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Not all "hard" sciences. I'm pretty sure there are no papers in physics that are well known to be wrong but people fear speaking out, though I'm open to being p

Not all "hard" sciences. I'm pretty sure there are no papers in physics that are well known to be wrong but people fear speaking out, though I'm open to being proven wrong.

qudat 8y ago
Richard Feynman was laughed at when presenting new ideas in physics when he was an up-and-comer. The human ego tends to intervene when careers are on the line.
- whatshisface 8y ago
  Laughing at true new ideas is actually the opposite behavior flaw of whispering about false ideas that are known to be false but are associated with too much social power.
  - nothrabannosir 8y ago
    It’s the same family: public judgement of a claim influenced by the person making it, rather than its contents. Point being: Feynman’s ideas should have been judged on their merit, rather than Richard’s career. Same for the papers published by the institute mentioned above.
    - whatshisface 8y ago
      They eventually were judged on merit, which is a testament to the system at the expense of the characters that were involved at the time.
- bsder 8y ago
  To be fair, Feynman wasn't above proof by intimidation, either. I adore Feynman's work, but he was human and had human failings, too.
ctchocula 8y ago
There is an interesting anecdote about how Millikan's oil drop experiment that measured the elementary electric charge was way off when he measured. Feynman talks about it in his book: "We have learned a lot from experience about how to handle some of the ways we fool ourselves. One example: Millikan measured the charge on an electron by an experiment with falling oil drops, and got an answer which we now know not to be quite right. It's a little bit off because he had the incorrect value for the viscosity of air. It's interesting to look at the history of measurements of the charge of an electron, after Millikan. If you plot them as a function of time, you find that one is a little bit bigger than Millikan's, and the next one's a little bit bigger than that, and the next one's a little bit bigger than that, until finally they settle down to a number which is higher. Why didn't they discover the new number was higher right away? It's a thing that scientists are ashamed of—this history—because it's apparent that people did things like this: When they got a number that was too high above Millikan's, they thought something must be wrong—and they would look for and find a reason why something might be wrong. When they got a number close to Millikan's value they didn't look so hard. And so they eliminated the numbers that were too far off, and did other things like that."
albutr 8y ago
There are definitely papers in physics that are well-known to be wrong. I know of results published in high-profile journals where the authors have stated (in person, but not officially in a published update) that even they cannot reproduce their own results.

Not all "hard" sciences. I'm pretty sure there are no papers in physics that are well known to be wrong but people fear speaking out, though I'm open to being proven wrong.

qudat 8y ago

Richard Feynman was laughed at when presenting new ideas in physics when he was an up-and-comer. The human ego tends to intervene when careers are on the line.

whatshisface 8y ago
Laughing at true new ideas is actually the opposite behavior flaw of whispering about false ideas that are known to be false but are associated with too much social power.
- nothrabannosir 8y ago
  It’s the same family: public judgement of a claim influenced by the person making it, rather than its contents. Point being: Feynman’s ideas should have been judged on their merit, rather than Richard’s career. Same for the papers published by the institute mentioned above.
  - whatshisface 8y ago
    They eventually were judged on merit, which is a testament to the system at the expense of the characters that were involved at the time.
bsder 8y ago
To be fair, Feynman wasn't above proof by intimidation, either. I adore Feynman's work, but he was human and had human failings, too.

ctchocula 8y ago

There is an interesting anecdote about how Millikan's oil drop experiment that measured the elementary electric charge was way off when he measured. Feynman talks about it in his book: "We have learned a lot from experience about how to handle some of the ways we fool ourselves. One example: Millikan measured the charge on an electron by an experiment with falling oil drops, and got an answer which we now know not to be quite right. It's a little bit off because he had the incorrect value for the viscosity of air. It's interesting to look at the history of measurements of the charge of an electron, after Millikan. If you plot them as a function of time, you find that one is a little bit bigger than Millikan's, and the next one's a little bit bigger than that, and the next one's a little bit bigger than that, until finally they settle down to a number which is higher. Why didn't they discover the new number was higher right away? It's a thing that scientists are ashamed of—this history—because it's apparent that people did things like this: When they got a number that was too high above Millikan's, they thought something must be wrong—and they would look for and find a reason why something might be wrong. When they got a number close to Millikan's value they didn't look so hard. And so they eliminated the numbers that were too far off, and did other things like that."

albutr 8y ago

There are definitely papers in physics that are well-known to be wrong. I know of results published in high-profile journals where the authors have stated (in person, but not officially in a published update) that even they cannot reproduce their own results.