4 ms·

Here we go again Hopefully this time it can be confirmed

Tadpole9181 3y ago
For what it's worth, LK-99 adjacent research is still happening[0]. [0](https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.00999 https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.00999).
- tmikaeld 3y ago
  It's probably an important thread to follow in any case
kikokikokiko 3y ago
It's the boy who cried room temperature superconductivity effect. If we in fact live in a simulation I can clearly see that when someone in fact achieves RTSC, nobody will believe it at first. It's the most movie like turn of events, just as a good simulation writer would like to see.
- sfn42 3y ago
  Believe is something religious people do. The great thing about science is belief is unnecessary. If someone makes a fantastic claim it is reasonable to be skeptical. Skepticism is not an obstacle when you can prove that your claim is true.
  - aspenmayer 3y ago
    The proof in the pudding is in the tasting.
  - itishappy 3y ago
    > Believe is something religious people do. The great thing about science is belief is unnecessary. Unfortunately, we are not all equipped to replicate all experiments, so even scientists rely on a significant amount of belief and faith.
    - sfn42 3y ago
      No. We do rely on trust. I'm not saying everyone needs to replicate all experiments. This is trivial. If this superconductor is real then people will replicate it. People will publish results and once we have multiple independent verifications we can trust that it's real. If it is also practically applicable then it will start to be used in real appliances and when we see it working we know it's real. Science is frequently wrong. False positives, fabricated results etc are published on a daily basis. We should not accept one study's results as fact, we should not blindly believe in it, that's not how science works. We should understand that there are degrees of trust and certainty. A qualitative study is highly unreliable, a quantitative study's reliability depends on specific details such as sample size, methodology etc. All a study says is "we did this and saw these results". We don't know that it isn't fabricated, we don't know that the description is accurate, we have to take it with a grain of salt. But at some point we have enough data to trust claims like "this medication is effective at treating this illness" or "this material is superconductive at room temperature".
      - itishappy 3y ago
        Right, but that trust comes from somewhere. I don't check the credentials of the authors on every paper I read, nor demand professors show me all effect experimentally. We rely on our networks to assign trust appropriately, but often we don't even verify that! We're forced to take so much at each others word that the system may as well be predicated on our faith in humanity. You can see this go wrong as well, people who've lost a little faith start doubting more and more experimental evidence, particularly that which falls outside of their beliefs. I don't mean the system's broken in any way, far from it, this is a healthy functional system of scientific discovery! I just think it's fascinating how much is predicated on good faith.
        sfn42 3y ago
        Eh, I would count myself among those doubting a lot of experimental evidence. There is a lot of bad science around, and even good science is frequently used to draw incorrect conclusions. If everyone uses 95% confidence as the standard then 5% are wrong. That's one in twenty, and that's the best case scenario. In reality there is a lot more that goes wrong, and there's a lot of people out there who don't give a shit about things like integrity. And it's not like all scientists are perfect geniuses, people make mistakes. There's also a lot of things that do get disproved, but nobody ever hears about that. Journals generally publish positive results, they don't publish negative results or failed replications. The whole for-profit scientific journal system seems pretty messed up to me. But this is what we have. So I think it's important that people understand the limitations of modern science. In many cases the science is solid - we know MRI machines work, they're used all over the world. So clearly the science behind them is solid. It gets more fuzzy when people publish studies like "People who eat dark chocolate get cancer less frequently" because I can guarantee you any study in that vein will have something like a 4% lower incidence of cancer in the chocolate group than the control but it'll technically be just above the arbitrary limit we use to determine statistical significance. That's the kind of science I consider pointless bullshit. It's not enough to be statistically significant, it has to be solid. It has to show a clear and indisputable effect, if it doesn't then the study is pointless. "It is possible that eating dark chocolate has some positive effect on your odds of getting cancer" is a completely useless result. We knew that before you started the fucking study.
  - eynsham 3y ago
    Belief is something nearly everybody does, religious or not: when I go downstairs to make some tea, I act thus believing that there is tea downstairs; when I reason by modus ponens, I do so believing therein; and when a scientist uses a theorem in a derivation, they will often believe that the result is going to be at least approximately correct in some sense to be specified thereof. Beliefs of course vary in the level of justification (a) that can be supplied (b) that actually is present.
- boxed 3y ago
  No one should believe it at first. That's how we get progress. If everyone believes fantastic claims too fast, we will just have frauds and mistakes everywhere.
  - appplication 3y ago
    See: merits of blockchain
    - boxed 3y ago
      That made zero sense

For what it's worth, LK-99 adjacent research is still happening[0]. [0](https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.00999 https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.00999).

tmikaeld 3y ago
It's probably an important thread to follow in any case

kikokikokiko 3y ago

It's the boy who cried room temperature superconductivity effect. If we in fact live in a simulation I can clearly see that when someone in fact achieves RTSC, nobody will believe it at first. It's the most movie like turn of events, just as a good simulation writer would like to see.

sfn42 3y ago
Believe is something religious people do. The great thing about science is belief is unnecessary. If someone makes a fantastic claim it is reasonable to be skeptical. Skepticism is not an obstacle when you can prove that your claim is true.
- aspenmayer 3y ago
  The proof in the pudding is in the tasting.
- itishappy 3y ago
  > Believe is something religious people do. The great thing about science is belief is unnecessary. Unfortunately, we are not all equipped to replicate all experiments, so even scientists rely on a significant amount of belief and faith.
  - sfn42 3y ago
    No. We do rely on trust. I'm not saying everyone needs to replicate all experiments. This is trivial. If this superconductor is real then people will replicate it. People will publish results and once we have multiple independent verifications we can trust that it's real. If it is also practically applicable then it will start to be used in real appliances and when we see it working we know it's real. Science is frequently wrong. False positives, fabricated results etc are published on a daily basis. We should not accept one study's results as fact, we should not blindly believe in it, that's not how science works. We should understand that there are degrees of trust and certainty. A qualitative study is highly unreliable, a quantitative study's reliability depends on specific details such as sample size, methodology etc. All a study says is "we did this and saw these results". We don't know that it isn't fabricated, we don't know that the description is accurate, we have to take it with a grain of salt. But at some point we have enough data to trust claims like "this medication is effective at treating this illness" or "this material is superconductive at room temperature".
    - itishappy 3y ago
      Right, but that trust comes from somewhere. I don't check the credentials of the authors on every paper I read, nor demand professors show me all effect experimentally. We rely on our networks to assign trust appropriately, but often we don't even verify that! We're forced to take so much at each others word that the system may as well be predicated on our faith in humanity. You can see this go wrong as well, people who've lost a little faith start doubting more and more experimental evidence, particularly that which falls outside of their beliefs. I don't mean the system's broken in any way, far from it, this is a healthy functional system of scientific discovery! I just think it's fascinating how much is predicated on good faith.
      - sfn42 3y ago
        Eh, I would count myself among those doubting a lot of experimental evidence. There is a lot of bad science around, and even good science is frequently used to draw incorrect conclusions. If everyone uses 95% confidence as the standard then 5% are wrong. That's one in twenty, and that's the best case scenario. In reality there is a lot more that goes wrong, and there's a lot of people out there who don't give a shit about things like integrity. And it's not like all scientists are perfect geniuses, people make mistakes. There's also a lot of things that do get disproved, but nobody ever hears about that. Journals generally publish positive results, they don't publish negative results or failed replications. The whole for-profit scientific journal system seems pretty messed up to me. But this is what we have. So I think it's important that people understand the limitations of modern science. In many cases the science is solid - we know MRI machines work, they're used all over the world. So clearly the science behind them is solid. It gets more fuzzy when people publish studies like "People who eat dark chocolate get cancer less frequently" because I can guarantee you any study in that vein will have something like a 4% lower incidence of cancer in the chocolate group than the control but it'll technically be just above the arbitrary limit we use to determine statistical significance. That's the kind of science I consider pointless bullshit. It's not enough to be statistically significant, it has to be solid. It has to show a clear and indisputable effect, if it doesn't then the study is pointless. "It is possible that eating dark chocolate has some positive effect on your odds of getting cancer" is a completely useless result. We knew that before you started the fucking study.
- eynsham 3y ago
  Belief is something nearly everybody does, religious or not: when I go downstairs to make some tea, I act thus believing that there is tea downstairs; when I reason by modus ponens, I do so believing therein; and when a scientist uses a theorem in a derivation, they will often believe that the result is going to be at least approximately correct in some sense to be specified thereof. Beliefs of course vary in the level of justification (a) that can be supplied (b) that actually is present.
boxed 3y ago
No one should believe it at first. That's how we get progress. If everyone believes fantastic claims too fast, we will just have frauds and mistakes everywhere.
- appplication 3y ago
  See: merits of blockchain
  - boxed 3y ago
    That made zero sense