4 ms·
> All the efforts to spot such an interaction seem to be based purely on wishing that it is not true, so that fancy expensive detectors can defensibly be promot
by ssivark 3y ago
> All the efforts to spot such an interaction seem to be based purely on wishing that it is not true, so that fancy expensive detectors can defensibly be promoted and somebody might get a prize.
That's incredibly short-sighted. There are many other falsifiable hypotheses and due diligence directs us to make measurements to test those hypotheses.
More generally, it makes zero sense to assume the worst case that cannot be ruled out and use that as an excuse to not pursue science. For example, it is impossible to "falsify" superluminal/nonlocal influence -- and not being able to screen for that renders the whole scientific process fundamentally useless (because there could always be something happening in a neighboring galaxy that is influencing your experiment -- how do you rule that out or control for it?). We simple continue doing science with the optimism that the the universe is not perversely adversarial to our attempts to understand it (and give that optimism fancy names like Occam's razor).
- dventimi 3y agoWell put
- angiosperm 3y agoIt makes plenty of sense to spend on a multitude of cheap experiments in place of vanishingly few super-expensive ones, and on a multitude of disparate, poorly understood phenomena instead of hammering away at just one.
- dventimi 3y ago"Plenty of sense" is a subjective measure that can't be quantified. A person could just add easily state that it makes plenty of sense to concentrate some resources on a few or even just one line of inquiry, because of the perceived payoff. Nobody would be in a position to tell that person they're wrong.
- angiosperm 3y agoDollars have always been strictly quantitative. A dollar spent on experiment A is a dollar not spent on experiments B through Z.
- dventimi 3y agoI was talking about the value of the outcomes.
- angiosperm 3y agoYou miss the point that the value of the outcomes correlates poorly with the expense of the experiment. Therefore, a hundred cheap experiments promise a hundred times the value of one expensive experiment. Compared to dark matter detection experiments, an infinitely greater value, as against the conspicuously zero denominator.
- dventimi 3y agoYou miss the point that you don't know the value of the outcomes. Nobody does because being a matter of judgment about conditions in an unknown future, that's not something that can be known. The best we can do is make educated guesses about potential value. My personal educated guess is that the potential value to fundamental physics of identifying dark matter is great enough to justify the cost of trying. You're free to disagree, but you're in no position to say I'm wrong.
- angiosperm 3y agoStatistics is a science. "Uncorrelated" means something concrete and quantitative. Learning what that means might enable you to produce the sort of educated guesses the rest of science does routinely, and that lead inexorably to the expectation that an abundance of cheaper experiments produce greater value than a few expensive ones. "Expectation" also means something concrete and quantitative.
- deleted 3y ago