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Your suggestion about jumping on the EM drive is in direct opposition to what Sabine suggests: "The only way to avoid being sucked into this vicious cycle is t

Your suggestion about jumping on the EM drive is in direct opposition to what Sabine suggests: "The only way to avoid being sucked into this vicious cycle is to choose carefully which hypothesis to put to the test. But physicists still operate by the “just look” idea like this was the 19th century. They do not think about which hypotheses are promising because their education has not taught them to do so. Such self-reflection would require knowledge of the philosophy and sociology of science, and those are subjects physicists merely make dismissive jokes about. They believe they are too intelligent to have to think about what they are doing." Jumping on a crank's idea is not carefully choosing which hypothesis to test.

ColanR 7y ago
You call the originator of the EM drive a crank; I am proposing that the widespread adoption of your dismissive attitude is in large part the cause of the current scientific stagnation observed by the author. I also suggested that the other large cause of the current stagnation is that we do not have enough scientists pursuing outlandish theories - we should hear about things like the EM drive far more frequently, and we should be excited about new ideas, not dismissive of anything foreign to the current 'groupthink'. Also, returning to your first point, the author pointed out just the opposite to the point you're attempting to make: > With fewer experiments, serendipitous discoveries become increasingly unlikely. And lacking those discoveries, the technological progress that would be needed to keep experiments economically viable never materializes. It’s a vicious cycle: Costly experiments result in lack of progress. Lack of progress increases the costs of further experiment. This cycle must eventually lead into a dead end when experiments become simply too expensive to remain affordable. A $40 billion particle collider is such a dead end.
- scott_s 7y ago
  Your suggestions would lead to absolute paralysis, as you are advocating against using basic plausibility tests before pursuing any hypothesis.
  - ColanR 7y ago
    Isn't that what the author says we have (or are approaching) already?
  - pas 7y ago
    ... seeking extremes won't work, otherwise we'd rule out everything that's not supported by current theories. Also we can't let ourselves be deceived by the everyday cold-fusion perpetuum-mobile crackpot. But we should make it easy for crackpots to test their shtick. So we should invest in better metrology. And when something actually breaks through, then we should jump on it. And basically that's what's going on with the "EM drive". Currently even though it goes in the face of basic theories the test bench they used was not sensitive enough to rule it out.

ColanR 7y ago

You call the originator of the EM drive a crank; I am proposing that the widespread adoption of your dismissive attitude is in large part the cause of the current scientific stagnation observed by the author. I also suggested that the other large cause of the current stagnation is that we do not have enough scientists pursuing outlandish theories - we should hear about things like the EM drive far more frequently, and we should be excited about new ideas, not dismissive of anything foreign to the current 'groupthink'. Also, returning to your first point, the author pointed out just the opposite to the point you're attempting to make: > With fewer experiments, serendipitous discoveries become increasingly unlikely. And lacking those discoveries, the technological progress that would be needed to keep experiments economically viable never materializes. It’s a vicious cycle: Costly experiments result in lack of progress. Lack of progress increases the costs of further experiment. This cycle must eventually lead into a dead end when experiments become simply too expensive to remain affordable. A $40 billion particle collider is such a dead end.

scott_s 7y ago
Your suggestions would lead to absolute paralysis, as you are advocating against using basic plausibility tests before pursuing any hypothesis.
- ColanR 7y ago
  Isn't that what the author says we have (or are approaching) already?
- pas 7y ago
  ... seeking extremes won't work, otherwise we'd rule out everything that's not supported by current theories. Also we can't let ourselves be deceived by the everyday cold-fusion perpetuum-mobile crackpot. But we should make it easy for crackpots to test their shtick. So we should invest in better metrology. And when something actually breaks through, then we should jump on it. And basically that's what's going on with the "EM drive". Currently even though it goes in the face of basic theories the test bench they used was not sensitive enough to rule it out.