4 ms·

For some reason, dark matter brings out the crazies. It was true when I worked in physics, and it's still true now. People need to understand that physicists d

For some reason, dark matter brings out the crazies. It was true when I worked in physics, and it's still true now. People need to understand that physicists do NOT consider dark matter to be settled, in any sense! The experiments are not done to polish up any theory... they're done because all of the theories are awful, and guidance from observations is necessary for further progress. I also still fully stand by my previous comment on this subject: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23666620 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23666620

dnautics 6y ago
> physicists do NOT consider dark matter to be settled, in any sense Almost every honest physicist will say that. But not all physicists are honest, and I don't trust that there is a positive correlation between honest scientists and loudness in the scientific community, especially where it interfaces with the general public. And if you want an explanation of why dark matter brings out the crazies, I think that's as good a reason as any.
- SubiculumCode 6y ago
  Oh bullshit. Know nothing's of the intricacies of the field love to pretend that the experts are dishonest or idiots. It is so tiring. I'm a neuroscientist, I know nothing of this field, so I keep my damn mouth shut about it. People who've read a few pop physics books should also shut their damn mouths.
  - dnautics 6y ago
    nobody's saying they're idiots. But it's not like the structure of how contemporary scientific discovery gets done isn't ridden with questionable processes that should make you doubt that the system is aligned with producing good science. There is nothing fundamentally different about how physics gets funded (TLAs like NSF, NIH giving out grants via committee), and how physics professors get promoted (H-factors and hiring committees, playing politics at conferences, choosing strategically to work for certain PIs, the truly smart grad students and postdocs burning out and quitting). Most of my peers from high school went into high energy physics (one works at JLab, another is a professor at an east coast college; the others quit or went into... other fields, like finance). Although I am no longer a practicing biochemist, when we got together we complained about the exact same things. So yeah, I don't know about the intricacies of what happens in physics. But that doesn't mean I don't have real insight about what's going on.
    - anoncareer0212 6y ago
      sir this is a thread about Hubble data
      - dylan604 6y ago
        Whoa, there big fella! You've wandered away from the pack a little. Let's get you back with the herd before a wolf comes a-callin' Giddyup
  - andrewflnr 6y ago
    I believe GP is trying to say that the people you hear the most from are not necessarily the real experts. The phenomenon of experts being silent while idiots make noise is damn near a human universal, so it's a hypothesis worth taking seriously regardless of the field. The problem is when people use that as an excuse to loudly substitute their own nonsense rather than try to find the actual experts.
    - inopinatus 6y ago
      This is also a problem in product marketing. For example, throughout my career, whatever the commercial domain, there is almost always a noisy competitor whose product is an amateur hour shit-show, usually a superficial clone of the market leader, that still picks up market share from naive customers by sheer volume of message. When you’re trying to focus on making something that actually creates value for others this can be an irritating distraction. “Pay attention to competitors, but obsess over customers” isn’t always a comfortable mantra to fulfil.
andrewflnr 6y ago
I suspect the fact that you can't observe dark matter directly, but physicists all seem to promote it, enables a combination of (at least superficially) reasonable empirical skepticism and conspiracy-minded contrarianism to work together. You have to expend a little bit of actual effort to see through the logic, and if you have any inclination to believe Big Physics is lying to you, then it's easy to just not bother. People forget that the universe does not owe us comprehensibility. Contrary to your linked comment, to this non-physicist, nearly all physicists in public seem to say that, while the details are unknown, dark matter is pretty much definitely a thing. AFAICT they're not wrong about there being multiple lines of evidence for it. But if you mean "no one worth listening to" says even that much, then I don't know any physicists worth listening to.
- ashildr 6y ago
  > but physicists all seem to promote it It does not seem like it to me (non physicist with some physicist friends from other fields who try to dumb down stuff to me). In my world (SE) it seems like a proprietary binary that must be included for the rest of an open source product describing the observable universe to work very well. Everyone seems to hate it, but nobody wrote something better, yet. Every competing implementation fails to work in other areas that we already are using in production, extensively. And when some professional, who read and understood the source code, starts talking about it, a lot of people voice stupid ideas that they would not have if they passed some lectures on the subject. Edit to add: I envy physicists a little - the best thing for “them” to happen seems to be if something does not work in a very peculiar way.
  - andrewflnr 6y ago
    Ok, but do any of them take seriously the idea that it doesn't exist at all? It was my impression that even theories that try to modify gravity in ways that also explain stuff like the CMB spectrum sort of end up inventing dark matter anyway (IIRC TeVeS was the big one like that).
coronadisaster 6y ago
maybe they just need to believe that dark matter is god's poop?
- dang 6y ago
  Please don't do this here.

dnautics 6y ago

> physicists do NOT consider dark matter to be settled, in any sense Almost every honest physicist will say that. But not all physicists are honest, and I don't trust that there is a positive correlation between honest scientists and loudness in the scientific community, especially where it interfaces with the general public. And if you want an explanation of why dark matter brings out the crazies, I think that's as good a reason as any.

SubiculumCode 6y ago
Oh bullshit. Know nothing's of the intricacies of the field love to pretend that the experts are dishonest or idiots. It is so tiring. I'm a neuroscientist, I know nothing of this field, so I keep my damn mouth shut about it. People who've read a few pop physics books should also shut their damn mouths.
- dnautics 6y ago
  nobody's saying they're idiots. But it's not like the structure of how contemporary scientific discovery gets done isn't ridden with questionable processes that should make you doubt that the system is aligned with producing good science. There is nothing fundamentally different about how physics gets funded (TLAs like NSF, NIH giving out grants via committee), and how physics professors get promoted (H-factors and hiring committees, playing politics at conferences, choosing strategically to work for certain PIs, the truly smart grad students and postdocs burning out and quitting). Most of my peers from high school went into high energy physics (one works at JLab, another is a professor at an east coast college; the others quit or went into... other fields, like finance). Although I am no longer a practicing biochemist, when we got together we complained about the exact same things. So yeah, I don't know about the intricacies of what happens in physics. But that doesn't mean I don't have real insight about what's going on.
  - anoncareer0212 6y ago
    sir this is a thread about Hubble data
    - dylan604 6y ago
      Whoa, there big fella! You've wandered away from the pack a little. Let's get you back with the herd before a wolf comes a-callin' Giddyup
- andrewflnr 6y ago
  I believe GP is trying to say that the people you hear the most from are not necessarily the real experts. The phenomenon of experts being silent while idiots make noise is damn near a human universal, so it's a hypothesis worth taking seriously regardless of the field. The problem is when people use that as an excuse to loudly substitute their own nonsense rather than try to find the actual experts.
  - inopinatus 6y ago
    This is also a problem in product marketing. For example, throughout my career, whatever the commercial domain, there is almost always a noisy competitor whose product is an amateur hour shit-show, usually a superficial clone of the market leader, that still picks up market share from naive customers by sheer volume of message. When you’re trying to focus on making something that actually creates value for others this can be an irritating distraction. “Pay attention to competitors, but obsess over customers” isn’t always a comfortable mantra to fulfil.

andrewflnr 6y ago

I suspect the fact that you can't observe dark matter directly, but physicists all seem to promote it, enables a combination of (at least superficially) reasonable empirical skepticism and conspiracy-minded contrarianism to work together. You have to expend a little bit of actual effort to see through the logic, and if you have any inclination to believe Big Physics is lying to you, then it's easy to just not bother. People forget that the universe does not owe us comprehensibility. Contrary to your linked comment, to this non-physicist, nearly all physicists in public seem to say that, while the details are unknown, dark matter is pretty much definitely a thing. AFAICT they're not wrong about there being multiple lines of evidence for it. But if you mean "no one worth listening to" says even that much, then I don't know any physicists worth listening to.

ashildr 6y ago
> but physicists all seem to promote it It does not seem like it to me (non physicist with some physicist friends from other fields who try to dumb down stuff to me). In my world (SE) it seems like a proprietary binary that must be included for the rest of an open source product describing the observable universe to work very well. Everyone seems to hate it, but nobody wrote something better, yet. Every competing implementation fails to work in other areas that we already are using in production, extensively. And when some professional, who read and understood the source code, starts talking about it, a lot of people voice stupid ideas that they would not have if they passed some lectures on the subject. Edit to add: I envy physicists a little - the best thing for “them” to happen seems to be if something does not work in a very peculiar way.
- andrewflnr 6y ago
  Ok, but do any of them take seriously the idea that it doesn't exist at all? It was my impression that even theories that try to modify gravity in ways that also explain stuff like the CMB spectrum sort of end up inventing dark matter anyway (IIRC TeVeS was the big one like that).

coronadisaster 6y ago

maybe they just need to believe that dark matter is god's poop?

dang 6y ago
Please don't do this here.