6 ms·

The paper [here](https://bhi.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/07-HJJuly24-AOTM-2.pdf https://bhi.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/07-HJJuly24-AOT...) makes it c

The paper [here](https://bhi.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/07-HJJuly24-AOTM-2.pdf https://bhi.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/07-HJJuly24-AOT...) makes it clear that these researchers (whose main topic is gravitational waves) have used Bayesian analyses to estimate how likely different counts for holes present in the full calendar ring are. This is cool, but the bit about "techniques developed to analyse the ripples in spacetime" is, well, making reference to Bayesian analysis.

lupusreal 2y ago
Why is science reporting such irredeemable clickbaity trash? Not just from the mainstream media with commercial motive, from whom I naturally expect trash, but also from nonprofit universities of all places. Seriously, who is the intended audience of this headline? People who only read the headline and think "Woweee science is amazing!" before scrolling down? Anybody who reads the article will roll their eyes at the headline, and the publisher isn't even getting ad revenue from this shit. Why are they pandering to the most base idiots like this?
- generalizations 2y ago
  > Seriously, who is the intended audience of this headline? People who only read the headline and think "Woweee science is amazing!" before scrolling down? That's a bigger fraction of the population than we might like to think...and probably the majority of the eventual readers of that headline (as it trickles through to other publications). I'd bet your sarcasm is actually correct there.
- itronitron 2y ago
  So, I have some competing thoughts on this. On the one hand, science is tedious and boring but people often pursue it as a career because it is in some way inspirational or aspirational. Students in science programs aren't just yearning for the mines. Also, science is highly repetitive and yet all grant money is scoped as pursuing something new and innovative. When I worked at a research lab, the communications folks would often ask me, can we call it AI? They were almost begging to put that label on it, I suppose they new that would be high quality bait. But no, sorry it's just statistics and computational methods.
- refulgentis 2y ago
  I don't understand what you mean, I think the headline must have changed? It is currently (4:50 PM EST) "GRAVITATIONAL WAVE RESEARCHERS CAST NEW LIGHT ON ANTIKYTHERA MECHANISM MYSTERY" both in the article, and on the HN item. If it didn't change, I guess my confusions stems from this is an extremely straightforward way to state it. Two gravitational wave researchers wrote the paper, and the paper gave us more certainty about whether the Antikythera mechanism represents 354 or 365 days. I can't envision how to make it less sensationalist.
  - lupusreal 2y ago
    That's clickbait. I suppose you think it isn't clickbait because it isn't lying but I classify it as such because it seems intended to give wild impressions which are contrary to truth, namely that the mechanism had anything to do with gravitational waves. Clickbaiting without lying is a common technique among science reporters, almost as common as clickbaiting with lies.
    - refulgentis 2y ago
      I'm sorry if I'm coming off as combative, I'm legitimately, genuinely, confused: what part is clickbait? They are gravitational wave researchers. Poking around this: I have a test for myself before I rant about science journalism: "would it be confusing without the thing my rant is angry about?" Answer here is yes, I'm very familiar with this sort of thing from the astrophysics people in my physics department 18 years ago (monte carlo, bayesian), but it would be bizarre from archaeologists. Poking around this, again: If that isn't convincing: the unwashed masses who we are worried being betrayed by clickbait don't know what "gravitational waves" are, there's no reason for them to be unduly attracted to it.
      - lupusreal 2y ago
        "it seems intended to give wild impressions which are contrary to truth, namely that the mechanism had anything to do with gravitational waves" It's not technically lying but it will nonetheless induce people to think something which isn't true. If this confuses you, consider this article/example: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20171114-the-disturbing-art-of-lying-by-telling-the-truth https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20171114-the-disturbing-a... > "A classic example might be if your mum asks if you've finished your homework and you respond: "I've written an essay on Tennessee Williams for my English class." This may be true, but it doesn't actually answer the question about whether your homework was done. That essay could have been written long ago and you have misled your poor mother with a truthful statement. You might not have even started your homework yet." When you say something which is true but say it in a way or context which you know will cause somebody else to believe something which isn't true, that's a form of lying.
- dataflow 2y ago
  > Seriously, who is the intended audience of this headline? The headline seems fine to me. You might mean the synopsis after it?
- bryan0 2y ago
  You shouldn’t be so surprised, university PR depts are notorious for clickbait like this. These types of articles are all over HN. They are just incentivized to get their name in the press by whatever means necessary.
- dekhn 2y ago
  The intended recipients of these press releases are mainly the people who make decisions for funding agencies. Due to the highly competitive nature of funding, people working in fairly esoteric (if interesting) fields like gravity waves need to demonstrate some sort of applicability to adjacent areas of science. In USA biology, there is a similar problem- it's known as the "Make Senators Believe Your Funding Will Cure Their Disease Problem" whereby even the simplest basic discoveries get pumped up to sound like they've cured cancer to induce future funding.
  - mcphage 2y ago
    I’ve heard recently that a lot of the research funding for looking for the Loch Ness Monster is to marine biologists, who study the life in the lake (and also look for a monster a little bit, as a treat).
- nimish 2y ago
  Science is not magically immune to the same pressures that corrupt every other news and information source.
- Ankaios 2y ago
  Why is science reporting such irredeemable clickbaity trash? Not just from the mainstream media with commercial motive, from whom I naturally expect trash, but also from nonprofit universities of all places. Seriously, who is the intended audience of this headline? University science-by-press-release drives me crazy, too. My guess has been that the intended audience is alums that might be enticed to donate more.
- 8xeh 2y ago
  This is a way to show off someone's mathematical work to a non-mathematical audience and to promote the college. Would you prefer "Our scientists wrote a paper about some math they did called 'An Improved Calendar Ring Hole-Count for the Antikythera Mechanism'", you should read it." ? That doesn't seem as likely to grab the attention of people who watched Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. The antikythera mechanism is a (bad) predictor of planetary locations. People have recreated it in its entirety using legos. There isn't much mystery about what it does. However, a new high resolution X-ray of the device inspired some scientists to do some neat math on it. I read the paper, it's good work. I'd love to a chance to get an article published about one of my papers, even more if regular people had even the slightest chance to understand it.
  - Accujack 2y ago
    Precision matters, and legos only have a certain amount of precision. Besides that, things like the number of holes in the calendar ring matter. Check out Clickspring on youtube, he's one of the people who narrowed the hole count down to 2 numbers, and this paper argues hard for one of those. He's building a replica of the mechanism using period tools, and it's amazingly precise so far.
  - cwillu 2y ago
    Making a technically true statement that you know will be misinterpreted by its intended audience is not meaningfully distinct from lying to that audience.
- db48x 2y ago
  Because reporters are not trained to respect science or to believe that they could understand it, and University press offices employ a lot of reporters who can’t make it at a real newspaper.
- mistermann 2y ago
  Propaganda is popular because it works...and the best kind of propaganda is genuine (truly and sincerely believed).
lbourdages 2y ago
I haven't read through the paper but it seems that it comes to the same conclusion as this prior paper: https://bhi.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/BHI-Antikythera-Mechanism-Evidence-of-a-Lunar-Calendar.pdf https://bhi.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/BHI-Antikythera...
- lrasinen 2y ago
  The new paper does a more detailed statistical analysis and comes up with tighter bounds for the hole count, reinforcing the case for a lunar calendar.
eichin 2y ago
So it's sort of like saying "techniques developed for nuclear weapons design" when all you mean is Monte Carlo methods?
- mnky9800n 2y ago
  I'm definitely referring to Monte Carlo this way from now on.

lupusreal 2y ago

Why is science reporting such irredeemable clickbaity trash? Not just from the mainstream media with commercial motive, from whom I naturally expect trash, but also from nonprofit universities of all places. Seriously, who is the intended audience of this headline? People who only read the headline and think "Woweee science is amazing!" before scrolling down? Anybody who reads the article will roll their eyes at the headline, and the publisher isn't even getting ad revenue from this shit. Why are they pandering to the most base idiots like this?

generalizations 2y ago
> Seriously, who is the intended audience of this headline? People who only read the headline and think "Woweee science is amazing!" before scrolling down? That's a bigger fraction of the population than we might like to think...and probably the majority of the eventual readers of that headline (as it trickles through to other publications). I'd bet your sarcasm is actually correct there.
itronitron 2y ago
So, I have some competing thoughts on this. On the one hand, science is tedious and boring but people often pursue it as a career because it is in some way inspirational or aspirational. Students in science programs aren't just yearning for the mines. Also, science is highly repetitive and yet all grant money is scoped as pursuing something new and innovative. When I worked at a research lab, the communications folks would often ask me, can we call it AI? They were almost begging to put that label on it, I suppose they new that would be high quality bait. But no, sorry it's just statistics and computational methods.
refulgentis 2y ago
I don't understand what you mean, I think the headline must have changed? It is currently (4:50 PM EST) "GRAVITATIONAL WAVE RESEARCHERS CAST NEW LIGHT ON ANTIKYTHERA MECHANISM MYSTERY" both in the article, and on the HN item. If it didn't change, I guess my confusions stems from this is an extremely straightforward way to state it. Two gravitational wave researchers wrote the paper, and the paper gave us more certainty about whether the Antikythera mechanism represents 354 or 365 days. I can't envision how to make it less sensationalist.
- lupusreal 2y ago
  That's clickbait. I suppose you think it isn't clickbait because it isn't lying but I classify it as such because it seems intended to give wild impressions which are contrary to truth, namely that the mechanism had anything to do with gravitational waves. Clickbaiting without lying is a common technique among science reporters, almost as common as clickbaiting with lies.
  - refulgentis 2y ago
    I'm sorry if I'm coming off as combative, I'm legitimately, genuinely, confused: what part is clickbait? They are gravitational wave researchers. Poking around this: I have a test for myself before I rant about science journalism: "would it be confusing without the thing my rant is angry about?" Answer here is yes, I'm very familiar with this sort of thing from the astrophysics people in my physics department 18 years ago (monte carlo, bayesian), but it would be bizarre from archaeologists. Poking around this, again: If that isn't convincing: the unwashed masses who we are worried being betrayed by clickbait don't know what "gravitational waves" are, there's no reason for them to be unduly attracted to it.
    - lupusreal 2y ago
      "it seems intended to give wild impressions which are contrary to truth, namely that the mechanism had anything to do with gravitational waves" It's not technically lying but it will nonetheless induce people to think something which isn't true. If this confuses you, consider this article/example: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20171114-the-disturbing-art-of-lying-by-telling-the-truth https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20171114-the-disturbing-a... > "A classic example might be if your mum asks if you've finished your homework and you respond: "I've written an essay on Tennessee Williams for my English class." This may be true, but it doesn't actually answer the question about whether your homework was done. That essay could have been written long ago and you have misled your poor mother with a truthful statement. You might not have even started your homework yet." When you say something which is true but say it in a way or context which you know will cause somebody else to believe something which isn't true, that's a form of lying.
dataflow 2y ago
> Seriously, who is the intended audience of this headline? The headline seems fine to me. You might mean the synopsis after it?
bryan0 2y ago
You shouldn’t be so surprised, university PR depts are notorious for clickbait like this. These types of articles are all over HN. They are just incentivized to get their name in the press by whatever means necessary.
dekhn 2y ago
The intended recipients of these press releases are mainly the people who make decisions for funding agencies. Due to the highly competitive nature of funding, people working in fairly esoteric (if interesting) fields like gravity waves need to demonstrate some sort of applicability to adjacent areas of science. In USA biology, there is a similar problem- it's known as the "Make Senators Believe Your Funding Will Cure Their Disease Problem" whereby even the simplest basic discoveries get pumped up to sound like they've cured cancer to induce future funding.
- mcphage 2y ago
  I’ve heard recently that a lot of the research funding for looking for the Loch Ness Monster is to marine biologists, who study the life in the lake (and also look for a monster a little bit, as a treat).
nimish 2y ago
Science is not magically immune to the same pressures that corrupt every other news and information source.
Ankaios 2y ago
Why is science reporting such irredeemable clickbaity trash? Not just from the mainstream media with commercial motive, from whom I naturally expect trash, but also from nonprofit universities of all places. Seriously, who is the intended audience of this headline? University science-by-press-release drives me crazy, too. My guess has been that the intended audience is alums that might be enticed to donate more.
8xeh 2y ago
This is a way to show off someone's mathematical work to a non-mathematical audience and to promote the college. Would you prefer "Our scientists wrote a paper about some math they did called 'An Improved Calendar Ring Hole-Count for the Antikythera Mechanism'", you should read it." ? That doesn't seem as likely to grab the attention of people who watched Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. The antikythera mechanism is a (bad) predictor of planetary locations. People have recreated it in its entirety using legos. There isn't much mystery about what it does. However, a new high resolution X-ray of the device inspired some scientists to do some neat math on it. I read the paper, it's good work. I'd love to a chance to get an article published about one of my papers, even more if regular people had even the slightest chance to understand it.
- Accujack 2y ago
  Precision matters, and legos only have a certain amount of precision. Besides that, things like the number of holes in the calendar ring matter. Check out Clickspring on youtube, he's one of the people who narrowed the hole count down to 2 numbers, and this paper argues hard for one of those. He's building a replica of the mechanism using period tools, and it's amazingly precise so far.
- cwillu 2y ago
  Making a technically true statement that you know will be misinterpreted by its intended audience is not meaningfully distinct from lying to that audience.
db48x 2y ago
Because reporters are not trained to respect science or to believe that they could understand it, and University press offices employ a lot of reporters who can’t make it at a real newspaper.
mistermann 2y ago
Propaganda is popular because it works...and the best kind of propaganda is genuine (truly and sincerely believed).

lbourdages 2y ago

I haven't read through the paper but it seems that it comes to the same conclusion as this prior paper: https://bhi.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/BHI-Antikythera-Mechanism-Evidence-of-a-Lunar-Calendar.pdf https://bhi.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/BHI-Antikythera...

lrasinen 2y ago
The new paper does a more detailed statistical analysis and comes up with tighter bounds for the hole count, reinforcing the case for a lunar calendar.

eichin 2y ago

So it's sort of like saying "techniques developed for nuclear weapons design" when all you mean is Monte Carlo methods?

mnky9800n 2y ago
I'm definitely referring to Monte Carlo this way from now on.