5 ms·
Cold fusion is posted here every few months. Does it fall in this category?
by biscuits1 3y ago
Cold fusion is posted here every few months. Does it fall in this category?
- Apocryphon 3y agoOn that note, the entire LK-99 debacle.
- jacquesm 3y agoBut super conductors do exist and room temperature superconductors may be possible. Nobody has ruled that out at all.
- Apocryphon 3y agoYeah but why did so many people take those guys so seriously before their work was replicated? Shouldn’t extraordinary claims be filtered early before we give them the time of day?
- jacquesm 3y agoI'm pretty sure that most people that have a basic idea of materials science were simply intrigued (myself amongst them) because there wasn't anything that ruled it out and it seemed like a potentially promising path. And obviously: the truth would come out anyway given enough time. The HN threads of the time make for interesting reading: I think a lot of people approach technological progress from the point of something very close to wishful thinking, their enthusiasm isn't proportional to the likelihood of the thing being true but to the perceived good a particular invention would do if it were real. And that then overwhelms any kind of reasoning ability. Incidentally: that may well be as good an answer as I can provide to the original question posed by this article.
- XorNot 3y agoI would contend that everyone discussing LK-99 took it very rationally. The idea that there were people "falling for it" is made up post-facto by a group who want to feel smugly superior about everything. Cynicism isn't wisdom though.
- jacquesm 3y agoNo, lots of people were falling for it and were twisting themselves into all kinds of knots that were not supported by evidence. And lots of people were similarly twisting themselves into all kinds of knots to claim it couldn't possibly true. And neither position was supported by evidence or physics.
- DangitBobby 3y agoYou should go back and read the comment threads. People were incredibly level headed (actually tripping over themselves to make sure everyone knew how skeptical they were).
- imtringued 3y agoYou are missing the point of the article. People gobbled it up with the justification that random researchers on twitter "replicated" the results under the assumption that these anonymous researchers are putting their entire career on the line and therefore should be paid attention to. That is literally playing into the point the article is making. I.e. people believing lies because the information came from a higher status individual.
- jacquesm 3y agoSome did, but not everybody did. I recall those threads vividly and I tried very hard to keep an even keel and to keep it all grounded in evidence. But a lot of wishful thinking happened as well as categorical rejection and these had the same element in common: a lack of evidence. Though the categorical rejection faction had history on their side I still think that that's just an argument from statistics without any relevant insight in to the subject matter.
- junofan 3y agoCome on, that was fun and engaging. A floating rock is pretty harmless.
- the_only_law 3y agoThe funniest part of that whole debacle was watching side liners in HN get their ego personally hurt when it was exposed.
- jacquesm 3y agoAh yes, that one too.