3 ms·

I don't know who you're referring to "from Rochester", but the excitement from last summer around LK-99 came from two South Korean researchers. Which, mind you,

I don't know who you're referring to "from Rochester", but the excitement from last summer around LK-99 came from two South Korean researchers. Which, mind you, all turned out to be faulty interpretation of their data. To be clear, I don't mean to cast unnecessary shade on these current results, I'm just saying the sane and prudent thing to do, especially given LK-99's recent history, is to hold off on any champagne popping, and that appropriate restraint shouldn't be characterized as "false modesty".

godelski 3y ago
> Which, mind you, all turned out to be faulty interpretation of their data. Which we should be critical of, but understandable, since that's one of the main reasons to publish (and why I think it is weird we say arxiv papers aren't peer reviewed. That was probably one of the most peer reviewed works in the last decade) and since we're all human. Science is full of mistakes, and is unsurprising when a lot of it is literally trying to do things that humans have never done before (much more to science than this too). What I thought was really cool about LK-99 is that it isn't too often that people get a first hand look at what goes on inside the science communities. An abnormal amount of attention and openness, but illustrative. Just not sure this is the takeaway people got. But I saw science working in action, and it was really cool.
floxy 3y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranga_P._Dias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranga_P._Dias
wiz21c 3y ago
Extraordinary claim should be backed by extraordinary tests. So why do they publish if they're not 100% confident ? Why not wait to be certain ?
- hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
  > So why do they publish if they're not 100% confident ? Why not wait to be certain ? There are very good reasons to publish before one is "100% certain". It can get lots of other scientists to evaluate your information where they can try to reproduce it or poke holes in your theories. It just makes sense to do that with a tone of "We got some interesting results..." as opposed to what happened in the summer which was more like "We've made one of the biggest discoveries of mankind!!!"
  - vlovich123 3y ago
    Yeah, there’s a very good argument I’ve read from researchers that instead of papers we should be publishing continuously what our results are to encourage this early and often community interaction/feedback (ie more like code reviews). The reason it doesn’t happen is publish/perish + needing to be first to publish (ie someone taking your work and beating you to the punch and getting all the credit).
    - micromacrofoot 3y ago
      more live-streamed science, fewer pdfs
  - Retric 3y ago
    Getting other people to inspect your work sounds great for you but it costs those people a time and money. So, the incentives for misuse are really high and the net result is that shortcutting the process is a net drag on progress. People remember the bigs stuff like FTL neutrinos, cold fusion, NK-99, etc but arguably this also shows up as part of the ‘reproducibility crisis’ in many fields.
- WhitneyLand 3y ago
  It’s not published, it’s a pre-print on arxiv. That’s one of the purposes of arxiv is to allow others to review or comment on the work.
  - harry8 3y ago
    Seems like an alternative definition of the word “publish” given it’s freely available for anyone to read…
    - IanCal 3y ago
      No just a standard use of the term for academia.
    - dekhn 3y ago
      People argue about whether putting stuff on arxiv constitutes "publication". I like the loose definition of publish (it's available for a wide audience to read, with at most, pay barriers) but other folks do not. There is still a huge cachet in being able to point at a peer-reviewed paper in a prestigious journal, no doubt, and many people will consider arxiv a preprint server, not a publication. (in the old days, after your article was accepted, but before it was published, they'd send you a few copies labelled "preprint" that you could distribute informally)
- bookofjoe 3y ago
  Nobel Prize

godelski 3y ago

> Which, mind you, all turned out to be faulty interpretation of their data. Which we should be critical of, but understandable, since that's one of the main reasons to publish (and why I think it is weird we say arxiv papers aren't peer reviewed. That was probably one of the most peer reviewed works in the last decade) and since we're all human. Science is full of mistakes, and is unsurprising when a lot of it is literally trying to do things that humans have never done before (much more to science than this too). What I thought was really cool about LK-99 is that it isn't too often that people get a first hand look at what goes on inside the science communities. An abnormal amount of attention and openness, but illustrative. Just not sure this is the takeaway people got. But I saw science working in action, and it was really cool.

floxy 3y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranga_P._Dias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranga_P._Dias

wiz21c 3y ago

Extraordinary claim should be backed by extraordinary tests. So why do they publish if they're not 100% confident ? Why not wait to be certain ?

hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
> So why do they publish if they're not 100% confident ? Why not wait to be certain ? There are very good reasons to publish before one is "100% certain". It can get lots of other scientists to evaluate your information where they can try to reproduce it or poke holes in your theories. It just makes sense to do that with a tone of "We got some interesting results..." as opposed to what happened in the summer which was more like "We've made one of the biggest discoveries of mankind!!!"
- vlovich123 3y ago
  Yeah, there’s a very good argument I’ve read from researchers that instead of papers we should be publishing continuously what our results are to encourage this early and often community interaction/feedback (ie more like code reviews). The reason it doesn’t happen is publish/perish + needing to be first to publish (ie someone taking your work and beating you to the punch and getting all the credit).
  - micromacrofoot 3y ago
    more live-streamed science, fewer pdfs
- Retric 3y ago
  Getting other people to inspect your work sounds great for you but it costs those people a time and money. So, the incentives for misuse are really high and the net result is that shortcutting the process is a net drag on progress. People remember the bigs stuff like FTL neutrinos, cold fusion, NK-99, etc but arguably this also shows up as part of the ‘reproducibility crisis’ in many fields.
WhitneyLand 3y ago
It’s not published, it’s a pre-print on arxiv. That’s one of the purposes of arxiv is to allow others to review or comment on the work.
- harry8 3y ago
  Seems like an alternative definition of the word “publish” given it’s freely available for anyone to read…
  - IanCal 3y ago
    No just a standard use of the term for academia.
  - dekhn 3y ago
    People argue about whether putting stuff on arxiv constitutes "publication". I like the loose definition of publish (it's available for a wide audience to read, with at most, pay barriers) but other folks do not. There is still a huge cachet in being able to point at a peer-reviewed paper in a prestigious journal, no doubt, and many people will consider arxiv a preprint server, not a publication. (in the old days, after your article was accepted, but before it was published, they'd send you a few copies labelled "preprint" that you could distribute informally)
bookofjoe 3y ago
Nobel Prize