9 ms·

The original "signs of life discovered on Venus" announcement was discussed a couple months ago here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24463423 https://news

by awb 6y ago

The original "signs of life discovered on Venus" announcement was discussed a couple months ago here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24463423 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24463423 Numerous comments about the promoter's non-scientific background, the sensationalism of the original announcement and skepticism over the findings. Please note that the scientists themselves weren't sensationalizing their findings, but others were. As this article points out: it was a "big, if true" story that had numerous red flags from the start.

canjobear 6y ago
Interestingly in the old comment thread, and the other ones I read at the time, there was lots of discussion about how the phosphine might have originated non-biologically, but no one suggesting a problem in the data analysis. Now it looks like that is what happened. It also means just about no one read the real paper...a twelfth-order polynomial would certainly be a red flag for me. Interesting moral here for interpreting science: surprising results don't usually have interesting explanations. It's usually a bug.
- garmaine 6y ago
  Lots of people said that the data analysis might fall apart upon looking closely, as has happened many times before.
  - gus_massa 6y ago
    The 12 degree polynomial is red flag as big as the Soviet Union. No one made a comment about that. I made a comment in that thread, but I didn't notice the 12 degree polynomial. Perhaps I'm too optimistic, but I expect someone to read the paper and make a comment about that in HN.
    - Zeratoss 6y ago
      can you explain for someone not super math savy?
      - xscott 6y ago
        I'm not the person you asked, but in general with polynomials, if you need to go much past the second or third order order to fit your data, you should probably be fitting with a different set of functions. Take a look at Runge's Phenomenon for an example where higher order polynomials really aren't making the approximation better in a useful way: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runge%27s_phenomenon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runge%27s_phenomenon
      - jschwartzi 6y ago
        Polynomial fitting can be used to generate curves which fit any dataset perfectly given enough degrees. Like if you give me a data set with 150 points in it that are apparently randomly distributed throughout the sample space, I can give you a nice high-order polynomial that perfectly passes through all 150 data points. Making any claims based on that kind of curve fitting is a huge red flag, especially if you don't discuss that. One of the reasons we would prefer lower-order fits to higher-order fits is that there is a very real risk of overfitting in the interior of a data set but then providing completely inaccurate results anywhere but at the data points. Seeing that kind of overfitting in a scientific paper without any justification suggests that the author of the paper is making statements without any basis in science.
        dylan604 6y ago
        Would saying it's like getting too many returns with a greedy regex be a close enough example non-mathy coders could grok?
        Dylan16807 6y ago
        I don't think so. You can easily get too many returns without any overfitting at all. If you want to make it simple, think of using a 12th order curve as being similar to picking whatever 12 points you want to match and then drawing lines from point to point.
- malwarebytess 6y ago
  Don't have the funeral yet.
- lrem 6y ago
  It might have been read by people without the proper background. Even though I can grok the math, upon reading this I would go "oh, interesting what they resort to in this field".
fizixer 6y ago
> ... scientists themselves weren't sensationalizing their findings ... Yeah right. They were saying things like "please prove us wrong" while doing interview rounds, and (I'm sure) celebrating, loving and looking forward to more and more limelight, so strictly speaking they were not "sensationalizing their findings". In a related story, OJ and Casey Anthony did not kill anyone.
- Hnrobert42 6y ago
  Somewhat like the scientists you are criticizing, you ascribe a lot of meaning to little data. Support for your claims that they were celebrating and reveling in fame are very thin. I would like to see more evidence before we criticize not just their work but also them as people.
  - fizixer 6y ago
    On their reddit AMA thread [0], can you point me to a single of their over a hundred answers which expresses concerns that media is overhyping and running away with the story? On the contrary, how would you 'nudge' the laymen's thought to be directed a certain way? would saying things like "So it's a big deal" and then putting a question mark at the end work? [1]. Does that ring a bell, or are you daft enough that you would need data to be convinced that doing so is a sign of wanting attention, and wanting the story to get sensationalized? And why would you do a public forum AMA and then go through the effort to post over a hundred answers to begin with, if you didn't want the story to blow up? I don't know if you're associated with any research or academic body or not, but here's a news flash for you: stories don't get big on their own, not in today's short-attention-span world. The researchers take the just-published work to their organization's news outlet and ask them to cover it. The unspoken, and often spoken, reasoning being "this is significant". If a researcher wants to practice caution, it is super easy these days to do so, just don't make a mountain out of a mole hill. Also you and the other downvote sheep, go eff yourself and do your own research about what really happened a month ago (I was there and was telling everyone that these researchers are bullshitters taking everyone for a ride). [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/itt9b7 https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/itt9b7 [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/itt9b7/askscience_ama_series_we_have_hints_of_life_on/g5hn5fm/ https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/itt9b7/askscien...

by awb 6y ago

canjobear 6y ago

Interestingly in the old comment thread, and the other ones I read at the time, there was lots of discussion about how the phosphine might have originated non-biologically, but no one suggesting a problem in the data analysis. Now it looks like that is what happened. It also means just about no one read the real paper...a twelfth-order polynomial would certainly be a red flag for me. Interesting moral here for interpreting science: surprising results don't usually have interesting explanations. It's usually a bug.

garmaine 6y ago
Lots of people said that the data analysis might fall apart upon looking closely, as has happened many times before.
- gus_massa 6y ago
  The 12 degree polynomial is red flag as big as the Soviet Union. No one made a comment about that. I made a comment in that thread, but I didn't notice the 12 degree polynomial. Perhaps I'm too optimistic, but I expect someone to read the paper and make a comment about that in HN.
  - Zeratoss 6y ago
    can you explain for someone not super math savy?
    - xscott 6y ago
      I'm not the person you asked, but in general with polynomials, if you need to go much past the second or third order order to fit your data, you should probably be fitting with a different set of functions. Take a look at Runge's Phenomenon for an example where higher order polynomials really aren't making the approximation better in a useful way: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runge%27s_phenomenon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runge%27s_phenomenon
    - jschwartzi 6y ago
      Polynomial fitting can be used to generate curves which fit any dataset perfectly given enough degrees. Like if you give me a data set with 150 points in it that are apparently randomly distributed throughout the sample space, I can give you a nice high-order polynomial that perfectly passes through all 150 data points. Making any claims based on that kind of curve fitting is a huge red flag, especially if you don't discuss that. One of the reasons we would prefer lower-order fits to higher-order fits is that there is a very real risk of overfitting in the interior of a data set but then providing completely inaccurate results anywhere but at the data points. Seeing that kind of overfitting in a scientific paper without any justification suggests that the author of the paper is making statements without any basis in science.
      - dylan604 6y ago
        Would saying it's like getting too many returns with a greedy regex be a close enough example non-mathy coders could grok?
        Dylan16807 6y ago
        I don't think so. You can easily get too many returns without any overfitting at all. If you want to make it simple, think of using a 12th order curve as being similar to picking whatever 12 points you want to match and then drawing lines from point to point.
malwarebytess 6y ago
Don't have the funeral yet.
lrem 6y ago
It might have been read by people without the proper background. Even though I can grok the math, upon reading this I would go "oh, interesting what they resort to in this field".

fizixer 6y ago

> ... scientists themselves weren't sensationalizing their findings ... Yeah right. They were saying things like "please prove us wrong" while doing interview rounds, and (I'm sure) celebrating, loving and looking forward to more and more limelight, so strictly speaking they were not "sensationalizing their findings". In a related story, OJ and Casey Anthony did not kill anyone.

Hnrobert42 6y ago
Somewhat like the scientists you are criticizing, you ascribe a lot of meaning to little data. Support for your claims that they were celebrating and reveling in fame are very thin. I would like to see more evidence before we criticize not just their work but also them as people.
- fizixer 6y ago
  On their reddit AMA thread [0], can you point me to a single of their over a hundred answers which expresses concerns that media is overhyping and running away with the story? On the contrary, how would you 'nudge' the laymen's thought to be directed a certain way? would saying things like "So it's a big deal" and then putting a question mark at the end work? [1]. Does that ring a bell, or are you daft enough that you would need data to be convinced that doing so is a sign of wanting attention, and wanting the story to get sensationalized? And why would you do a public forum AMA and then go through the effort to post over a hundred answers to begin with, if you didn't want the story to blow up? I don't know if you're associated with any research or academic body or not, but here's a news flash for you: stories don't get big on their own, not in today's short-attention-span world. The researchers take the just-published work to their organization's news outlet and ask them to cover it. The unspoken, and often spoken, reasoning being "this is significant". If a researcher wants to practice caution, it is super easy these days to do so, just don't make a mountain out of a mole hill. Also you and the other downvote sheep, go eff yourself and do your own research about what really happened a month ago (I was there and was telling everyone that these researchers are bullshitters taking everyone for a ride). [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/itt9b7 https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/itt9b7 [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/itt9b7/askscience_ama_series_we_have_hints_of_life_on/g5hn5fm/ https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/itt9b7/askscien...