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> it has a built in mechanism to allow greater insights to replace lesser ones. As long as we stick to science Well you're not sticking to science when you as

> it has a built in mechanism to allow greater insights to replace lesser ones. As long as we stick to science Well you're not sticking to science when you assume any non-explained phenomenon is "impossible" and dismiss it outright. Science has a long list of "impossibles" that have been proven to be possible. Though of course that list was mostly of phenomenon we couldn't ignore. Saying "EMdrive is impossible given our current knowledge therefore it is not worth measuring" is tautological! Electricity and magnetism were seen as separate phenomenon as well and it seems a lot of people would be opposed to even try to put a compass next to a wire! The only thing I know is that the skeptics don't get the Nobel Prizes. Good, they measured, and as expected, no thrust. Cool.

JackFr 6y ago
What makes this article so refreshing and so compelling is that they replicated the NASA results, and then explained and eliminated them. Another "We don't see anything and it's impossible anyway so you guys are idiots or charlatans" would not be helpful. This is.
Brian_K_White 6y ago
Just because nothing is 100% knowable ultimately, doesn't mean all unknowns are equal. Everyone who doesn't want to invest 10000 human lives and a small countries total resources trying to find out if maybe oxidization isn't really exothermic but just somehow always looks that way (is fire hot?), isn't guilty of being incurious or religious. Come on now.
roywiggins 6y ago
Part of the problem is that it's much easier to come up with a new perpetual motion machine or reactionless drive concept than to prove that it doesn't work. After seeing them all fail, at a certain point people are going to stop paying them any attention. Oh, this time it uses X force in Y configuration? Go away until you have data, we could be more profitably spending time on just about anything else.
- perl4ever 6y ago
  It's only difficult because typically it involves a claimed effect right at the limits of what's measurable. A real effect wouldn't have to be barely perceptible, would it? The person who discovered nitroglycerine didn't somehow find the amount they could make to be right on the edge of detection.
- SideburnsOfDoom 6y ago
  > Part of the problem is that it's much easier to come up with a new perpetual motion machine or reactionless drive concept than to prove that it doesn't work. AKA, the bullshit asymmetry principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law
lolthishuman 6y ago
I think the arrogance stems from language. Certainty doesn’t exist, in fact, the only certainty is the certainty that everything we know is wrong at some level of resolution. Science is the philosophy of being less wrong about nature over time.

JackFr 6y ago

What makes this article so refreshing and so compelling is that they replicated the NASA results, and then explained and eliminated them. Another "We don't see anything and it's impossible anyway so you guys are idiots or charlatans" would not be helpful. This is.

Brian_K_White 6y ago

Just because nothing is 100% knowable ultimately, doesn't mean all unknowns are equal. Everyone who doesn't want to invest 10000 human lives and a small countries total resources trying to find out if maybe oxidization isn't really exothermic but just somehow always looks that way (is fire hot?), isn't guilty of being incurious or religious. Come on now.

roywiggins 6y ago

Part of the problem is that it's much easier to come up with a new perpetual motion machine or reactionless drive concept than to prove that it doesn't work. After seeing them all fail, at a certain point people are going to stop paying them any attention. Oh, this time it uses X force in Y configuration? Go away until you have data, we could be more profitably spending time on just about anything else.

perl4ever 6y ago
It's only difficult because typically it involves a claimed effect right at the limits of what's measurable. A real effect wouldn't have to be barely perceptible, would it? The person who discovered nitroglycerine didn't somehow find the amount they could make to be right on the edge of detection.
SideburnsOfDoom 6y ago
> Part of the problem is that it's much easier to come up with a new perpetual motion machine or reactionless drive concept than to prove that it doesn't work. AKA, the bullshit asymmetry principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law

lolthishuman 6y ago

I think the arrogance stems from language. Certainty doesn’t exist, in fact, the only certainty is the certainty that everything we know is wrong at some level of resolution. Science is the philosophy of being less wrong about nature over time.