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Unfortunately people would not have gotten nearly as excited when seeing nothing, and the nay-sayers would have made this very clear. These things are always a
by stingraycharles 6y ago
Unfortunately people would not have gotten nearly as excited when seeing nothing, and the nay-sayers would have made this very clear.
These things are always as much science as they are politics, so the reputation damage would have been real.
- JamesLeonis 6y agoWhile I agree with you about PR and reputation (sadly), it would be valuable for scientists as a Null value. I would put it on the same level as the Aether experiments.
- stingraycharles 6y agoYes the point I tried to make was explicitly about the political aspects. I agree that from a scientific point of view, the null value is almost as valuable as what we got now.
- YinglingLight 6y agoThe greatest flaw we possess today en masse is that Science, as it is conducted today, is pure. Ironically, a dogmatic belief in it's purity. There is science, which got Western Civilization where it is today, and there is Science™.
- ianai 6y agoMore importantly, could he have done the same thing in today’s world and political realities that he did then?
- ISL 6y agoIf nothing had been seen, the implications would have been spectacular. Experiments worth doing are worth doing no matter the result.
- mirimir 6y agoRight, I suspect that there was much more behind Bob's deep field study than TFA presents.
- Tegran 6y agoThe implications aren't automatically "there's nothing out there", more "this was the wrong tool for the job".
- ISL 6y agoTrue, but I doubt that anyone would have gambled that much Hubble time without working out the statistical sensitivity of the measurement.