5 ms·

What matters is the discovery of new things that are true, that we can do engineering with. Publication by youtube & arxiv doesn't have to be oriented at public

What matters is the discovery of new things that are true, that we can do engineering with. Publication by youtube & arxiv doesn't have to be oriented at public consumption - it works just as well when it's by-researchers, for-researchers. Except without gatekeeping, people like McCalip can participate too. Who cares who's sitting on the sidelines? In post-peer-review, industry-funded academics rush a paper to a preprint server, a space engineer replicates it, and someone else figures out how to mass-produce it, and we get room-temp ambient-pressure superconductors, and we know we did because the engineering works. This works just as well with less exciting tech, because the point is that we collaboratively learned how to build something.

MetaWhirledPeas 3y ago
Agreed. What I don't understand is the gatekeeping. Why would the actions of outsiders have any bearing on "real" research? Are they worried that grant money will get redirected toward shallower, more glamorous groups?
- dotnet00 3y ago
  I think the gatekeeping is relevant because almost every time in recent years that the general completely unvetted, often actively ignorant public has gotten an in on the scientific/R&D process, it has been a disaster for the field. NASA can't take risks and seriously innovate anymore because even intentional explosions will be passed off as failures, we all experienced the sheer madness of the covid years, similarly anything nuclear brings complete randos out of the woodworks claiming absurd things about its dangers. Not having some amount of gatekeeping just lowers the bar too much and introduces so much more noise.
  - MetaWhirledPeas 3y ago
    > Not having some amount of gatekeeping just lowers the bar too much and introduces so much more noise. I can see how this would be a very controversial subject. Discouraging scientific participation? That's a tough pill to swallow without a lot of justification.
    - dotnet00 3y ago
      It isn't discouraging participation, it's requiring that you meet some minimum level of proficiency to be considered credible. Kind of like how you need to have some experience in programming to have any credibility when talking about how a programming language should be designed.
      - MetaWhirledPeas 3y ago
        > it's requiring that you meet some minimum level of proficiency to be considered credible That's not really the case though is it? Doubting someone's credibility would simply mean ignoring their results. But withholding information is something else entirely.
        dotnet00 3y ago
        Maybe I'm misunderstanding, where did withholding information come into this?
        MetaWhirledPeas 3y ago
        > Maybe I'm misunderstanding, where did withholding information come into this? When I mentioned gatekeeping I was specifically referring to how there's this formula that was kept secret since 1999. At some point the potential significance surely became apparent, and one of the only speculations I can come up with to justify that would be gatekeeping; keeping the information out of the hands of the filthy commoners for reasons. Maybe it wasn't gatekeeping. If not I'd sure as heck like to know what it was.
        cycomanic 3y ago
        They didn't keep it, they simply did not work on it and only came back to it 20 years later (somebody posted a bit of history on the other thread currently on the front page, I'm on mobile so it takes to long to find it atm). They didn't know about it's superconducting properties either. So no withholding information at all. But on a more general level if everyone would be posting out every little bit of information they produce during their research instead of publishing articles it would be a disaster. The reason we do science is because we are trying to understand things just posting your random results would just give everyone information overload, because you would know what to focus on. Lk99 is actually a great example, the material would have completely been ignored by most (maybe even has been, not sure if they published about it previously?) if not for these recent results. Moreover because the results were published before the authors were confident about what they had, they have been subject to lots of ridicule and accusations of fraud. It might turn out alright in this case, but something like this can be career ending if it turns out to just be an experimental error.
- giantrobot 3y ago
  My personal opinion/reaction likely isn't going to affect anyone's grant status. I'm just a random asshole. But there are less random assholes whose opinion might count. If someone sounding authoritative, but is just a random asshole like me, shits on this work on social media it might affect a group's grant status if it taints the opinion of someone holding the purse strings. So I don't think asking about credentials or asking about references is gatekeeping. It's putting a statement into context. If I as a random asshole say "this isn't a superconductor" you as a reader should want to know where I'm getting that opinion from rather than just taking my statement at face value.
  - MetaWhirledPeas 3y ago
    I'm not suggesting we give random people credibility: I'm suggesting that when we make potentially-enormous breakthroughs that maybe we shouldn't keep that information to ourselves for decades. Edit: According to this it was just an unfortunate 19-year hiatus. (Yikes.) https://twitter.com/8teAPi/status/1684385895565365248 https://twitter.com/8teAPi/status/1684385895565365248

MetaWhirledPeas 3y ago

Agreed. What I don't understand is the gatekeeping. Why would the actions of outsiders have any bearing on "real" research? Are they worried that grant money will get redirected toward shallower, more glamorous groups?

dotnet00 3y ago
I think the gatekeeping is relevant because almost every time in recent years that the general completely unvetted, often actively ignorant public has gotten an in on the scientific/R&D process, it has been a disaster for the field. NASA can't take risks and seriously innovate anymore because even intentional explosions will be passed off as failures, we all experienced the sheer madness of the covid years, similarly anything nuclear brings complete randos out of the woodworks claiming absurd things about its dangers. Not having some amount of gatekeeping just lowers the bar too much and introduces so much more noise.
- MetaWhirledPeas 3y ago
  > Not having some amount of gatekeeping just lowers the bar too much and introduces so much more noise. I can see how this would be a very controversial subject. Discouraging scientific participation? That's a tough pill to swallow without a lot of justification.
  - dotnet00 3y ago
    It isn't discouraging participation, it's requiring that you meet some minimum level of proficiency to be considered credible. Kind of like how you need to have some experience in programming to have any credibility when talking about how a programming language should be designed.
    - MetaWhirledPeas 3y ago
      > it's requiring that you meet some minimum level of proficiency to be considered credible That's not really the case though is it? Doubting someone's credibility would simply mean ignoring their results. But withholding information is something else entirely.
      - dotnet00 3y ago
        Maybe I'm misunderstanding, where did withholding information come into this?
        MetaWhirledPeas 3y ago
        > Maybe I'm misunderstanding, where did withholding information come into this? When I mentioned gatekeeping I was specifically referring to how there's this formula that was kept secret since 1999. At some point the potential significance surely became apparent, and one of the only speculations I can come up with to justify that would be gatekeeping; keeping the information out of the hands of the filthy commoners for reasons. Maybe it wasn't gatekeeping. If not I'd sure as heck like to know what it was.
        cycomanic 3y ago
        They didn't keep it, they simply did not work on it and only came back to it 20 years later (somebody posted a bit of history on the other thread currently on the front page, I'm on mobile so it takes to long to find it atm). They didn't know about it's superconducting properties either. So no withholding information at all. But on a more general level if everyone would be posting out every little bit of information they produce during their research instead of publishing articles it would be a disaster. The reason we do science is because we are trying to understand things just posting your random results would just give everyone information overload, because you would know what to focus on. Lk99 is actually a great example, the material would have completely been ignored by most (maybe even has been, not sure if they published about it previously?) if not for these recent results. Moreover because the results were published before the authors were confident about what they had, they have been subject to lots of ridicule and accusations of fraud. It might turn out alright in this case, but something like this can be career ending if it turns out to just be an experimental error.
giantrobot 3y ago
My personal opinion/reaction likely isn't going to affect anyone's grant status. I'm just a random asshole. But there are less random assholes whose opinion might count. If someone sounding authoritative, but is just a random asshole like me, shits on this work on social media it might affect a group's grant status if it taints the opinion of someone holding the purse strings. So I don't think asking about credentials or asking about references is gatekeeping. It's putting a statement into context. If I as a random asshole say "this isn't a superconductor" you as a reader should want to know where I'm getting that opinion from rather than just taking my statement at face value.
- MetaWhirledPeas 3y ago
  I'm not suggesting we give random people credibility: I'm suggesting that when we make potentially-enormous breakthroughs that maybe we shouldn't keep that information to ourselves for decades. Edit: According to this it was just an unfortunate 19-year hiatus. (Yikes.) https://twitter.com/8teAPi/status/1684385895565365248 https://twitter.com/8teAPi/status/1684385895565365248