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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Marshall https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Marshall had to drink a beaker of Helicobacter pylori because no one would beli

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Marshall https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Marshall had to drink a beaker of Helicobacter pylori because no one would believe it caused ulcers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis wound up in an insane asylum for suggesting surgeons should wash their hands. Scientists get hidebound just like the rest of us, at times.

pton_xd 3mo ago
> wound up in an insane asylum for suggesting surgeons should wash their hands. Was rejected and mocked by the medical community for his idea, developed a drinking problem and eventually committed to an asylum by his colleagues after having a nervous breakdown. While in the asylum he was beaten by the guards and died from a wound infection ... yikes!!
glenstein 3mo ago
Those are definitely unfortunate examples and I can see how those environments pushed them to their limits. But if we're talking large-scale systematic thinking about what kind of data would be necessary to show that there's such a thing as a typical, characteristic civilization scale negative reaction to scientific revolutions, these don't demonstrate that this is the usual case. Obviously they're important in their own right. But also the book doesn't suggest that scientists going missing was just a function of humanity's customary response to scientific progress. In the book, it's a very intentional sabotage campaign.
- applfanboysbgon 3mo ago
  The point being made is about the general reaction to weird results. The original supposition was that it would be implausible for scientists at large to have an adverse reaction to results that defied their current worldview. Given that we have seen this play out, there is in fact nothing implausible about it at all. The specifics (proton-scale supercomputers sabotaging scientific experiments by altering the outcomes into incoherent results, the adverse reaction being suicide) aren't important here, because that's obviously the realm of fiction -- we don't need an actual instance of scientists committing suicide to suggest that it's plausible, because we don't have an actual instance of proton-scale supercomputers sabotaging results[1]. We just need to acknowledge that adverse reactions to unexpected results do happen, so plausibly in a fictional story if you have very unexpected results then your scientists could have very adverse reactions as well. [1] That we know of.
  - glenstein 3mo ago
    >Given that we have seen this play out We saw two examples, definitely unfortunate for what they were but well short of a built in civilization level reaction to scientific progress writ large. I don't think there's a single by and large way that people react to scientific revolutions, negative or otherwise. Feels like it depends on a combination of how it impacts most powerful stakeholders, things about culture, and things about the zeitgeist of a particular moment. >we don't need an actual instance of scientists committing suicide to suggest that it's plausible, because we don't have an actual instance of proton-scale supercomputers sabotaging results Right, the specifics of the science fiction don't matter here. And plausibility counts for something though it's a dramatically lower threshold. And the person above who is appealing to scientific revolutions writ large seem to be attempting a general level inference to human reaction to scientific revolutions, which is a huge inference to make on the back of a pair of one-off examples. Possibility counts for something, but I would say it only goes as far as explaining contingencies of particular circumstances and doesn't explain trends, and what happens within the fiction of the book is a trend, and it's explained by a sabotage campaign rather than by an appeal to the stresses of day-to-day science.
    - ImPostingOnHN 3mo ago
      > well short of a built in civilization level reaction to scientific progress writ large if I remember correctly, the plot point wasn't a "civilization level reaction" to bad particle physics experiment results, but rather a very narrow reaction by less than 1/10,000,000th of civilization. which makes sense: the vast majority of the members of "civilization" could not even accurately define "particle physics", much less understand the field, much less comprehend experimental results, much less understand the correctness of them, much less experience anguish over their correctness.
      - glenstein 3mo ago
        >if I remember correctly, the plot point wasn't a "civilization level reaction" Your memory is exactly right. But in this instance, what I'm reacting to is not the book but to an HN commenter who glibly claimed that "the history of scientific revolutions" demonstrated that scientists would be suicidal in response to negative data, a pretty extreme claim, followed by a different commenter attempting to support this claim with two examples of scientists frustrated by lack of acceptance of their work that did not die by suicide, massively underestimating the kind of data necessary to support the notion that of scientific revolutions demonstrate the self destructiveness of scientists in response to uncooperative data. But you are right, that's completely unrelated to what happens in the book, which is all the more reason why appealing to it to explain the behavior of scientists in the Three Body is beside the point. The book doesn't even make that argument! You are not asked to believe that there's some baked in tendency of scientists toward self destruction, it's explained an entirely different way: they are subjected to a campaign of sabotage, harassment, and worse. The whole detour into whether scientists in the usual case would off themselves is a frustrating non sequitur born of short attention spans, that's not even true (and certainly not at such a level of generality that it's a characteristic response to scientific revolutions throughout history) and it's not even applicable to the events in the book.
- ceejayoz 3mo ago
  > In the book, it's a very intentional sabotage campaign. Active malice seems more likely to succeed, doesn't it? They can gaslight people in their own heads, after all.
  - glenstein 3mo ago
    Yeah, I think we're agreeing. The breakdown of scientific progress in the book is due to an actively malicious campaign that scrambles data, intimidates researchers and worse.
onraglanroad 3mo ago
Both examples from medicine rather than physics. Can you give an example from physics? Preferably from the last century or two?
- ceejayoz 3mo ago
  The parent post said scientists; medicine is something I've more knowledge of. You can carry the goalposts yourself, if you wanna move them around! (The parent post also already mentions Einstein on quantum physics.)
  - onraglanroad 2mo ago
    I've just moved the goalposts back to the subject of the article. Treating all sciences as the same seems like an error.
- somenameforme 3mo ago
  I'm not sure about self harm or whatever, but Planck's Principle [1] was not stated without cause: 'Science progresses one funeral at a time.' And that was a quote from an outsized figure during the golden age of physics. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck's_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck's_principle
leoc 3mo ago
Neither Richard Feynman nor the quantum-physics community in general reacted very well to the first efforts to test Bell's theorem experimentally, at first: https://web.archive.org/web/20250723224559/https://arxiv.org/ftp/physics/papers/0508/0508180.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20250723224559/https://arxiv.org... .
stonedivot 3mo ago
The person you replied to was clearly asking of examples where some large paradigm shift caused large scale instances of suicidal thoughts, self harm, or otherwise, as a direct result of these new ideas. Providing two cases is, first of all, certainly not anything like "large scale". Second, these two cases are in complete and total isolation of each other, so not evidence of people getting riled up over the same new idea. And third, these seem like extreme reactions to people not believe their OWN ideas, not reactions to other scientists presenting new ideas. What do you think you've proven with these links?
- glenstein 3mo ago
  Someone who gets it! This whole branch of comments is like a comedy of errors of distractedness in multiple directions. The wrong theory, dramatically inadequate evidence in support of that theory, and a lack of applicability of that theory to the book even if it were true. The book explains it by a specific and intentional campaign of harassment and sabotage (and worse) aimed at scientists. Terrifying hallucinations, death threats, and violent sabotage by a group of domestic collaborators. It's not just scientists getting bummed out by not having agreeable data. And for that matter you would think scientific revolutions, which to some degree are about how you struggle in response to the limits of an old theory that can't explain data, are nevertheless more properly understood as triumphant moments of progress that validate the practice of science, not failures and dead ends the scientists in the book experience.

pton_xd 3mo ago

> wound up in an insane asylum for suggesting surgeons should wash their hands. Was rejected and mocked by the medical community for his idea, developed a drinking problem and eventually committed to an asylum by his colleagues after having a nervous breakdown. While in the asylum he was beaten by the guards and died from a wound infection ... yikes!!

glenstein 3mo ago

Those are definitely unfortunate examples and I can see how those environments pushed them to their limits. But if we're talking large-scale systematic thinking about what kind of data would be necessary to show that there's such a thing as a typical, characteristic civilization scale negative reaction to scientific revolutions, these don't demonstrate that this is the usual case. Obviously they're important in their own right. But also the book doesn't suggest that scientists going missing was just a function of humanity's customary response to scientific progress. In the book, it's a very intentional sabotage campaign.

applfanboysbgon 3mo ago
The point being made is about the general reaction to weird results. The original supposition was that it would be implausible for scientists at large to have an adverse reaction to results that defied their current worldview. Given that we have seen this play out, there is in fact nothing implausible about it at all. The specifics (proton-scale supercomputers sabotaging scientific experiments by altering the outcomes into incoherent results, the adverse reaction being suicide) aren't important here, because that's obviously the realm of fiction -- we don't need an actual instance of scientists committing suicide to suggest that it's plausible, because we don't have an actual instance of proton-scale supercomputers sabotaging results[1]. We just need to acknowledge that adverse reactions to unexpected results do happen, so plausibly in a fictional story if you have very unexpected results then your scientists could have very adverse reactions as well. [1] That we know of.
- glenstein 3mo ago
  >Given that we have seen this play out We saw two examples, definitely unfortunate for what they were but well short of a built in civilization level reaction to scientific progress writ large. I don't think there's a single by and large way that people react to scientific revolutions, negative or otherwise. Feels like it depends on a combination of how it impacts most powerful stakeholders, things about culture, and things about the zeitgeist of a particular moment. >we don't need an actual instance of scientists committing suicide to suggest that it's plausible, because we don't have an actual instance of proton-scale supercomputers sabotaging results Right, the specifics of the science fiction don't matter here. And plausibility counts for something though it's a dramatically lower threshold. And the person above who is appealing to scientific revolutions writ large seem to be attempting a general level inference to human reaction to scientific revolutions, which is a huge inference to make on the back of a pair of one-off examples. Possibility counts for something, but I would say it only goes as far as explaining contingencies of particular circumstances and doesn't explain trends, and what happens within the fiction of the book is a trend, and it's explained by a sabotage campaign rather than by an appeal to the stresses of day-to-day science.
  - ImPostingOnHN 3mo ago
    > well short of a built in civilization level reaction to scientific progress writ large if I remember correctly, the plot point wasn't a "civilization level reaction" to bad particle physics experiment results, but rather a very narrow reaction by less than 1/10,000,000th of civilization. which makes sense: the vast majority of the members of "civilization" could not even accurately define "particle physics", much less understand the field, much less comprehend experimental results, much less understand the correctness of them, much less experience anguish over their correctness.
    - glenstein 3mo ago
      >if I remember correctly, the plot point wasn't a "civilization level reaction" Your memory is exactly right. But in this instance, what I'm reacting to is not the book but to an HN commenter who glibly claimed that "the history of scientific revolutions" demonstrated that scientists would be suicidal in response to negative data, a pretty extreme claim, followed by a different commenter attempting to support this claim with two examples of scientists frustrated by lack of acceptance of their work that did not die by suicide, massively underestimating the kind of data necessary to support the notion that of scientific revolutions demonstrate the self destructiveness of scientists in response to uncooperative data. But you are right, that's completely unrelated to what happens in the book, which is all the more reason why appealing to it to explain the behavior of scientists in the Three Body is beside the point. The book doesn't even make that argument! You are not asked to believe that there's some baked in tendency of scientists toward self destruction, it's explained an entirely different way: they are subjected to a campaign of sabotage, harassment, and worse. The whole detour into whether scientists in the usual case would off themselves is a frustrating non sequitur born of short attention spans, that's not even true (and certainly not at such a level of generality that it's a characteristic response to scientific revolutions throughout history) and it's not even applicable to the events in the book.
ceejayoz 3mo ago
> In the book, it's a very intentional sabotage campaign. Active malice seems more likely to succeed, doesn't it? They can gaslight people in their own heads, after all.
- glenstein 3mo ago
  Yeah, I think we're agreeing. The breakdown of scientific progress in the book is due to an actively malicious campaign that scrambles data, intimidates researchers and worse.

onraglanroad 3mo ago

Both examples from medicine rather than physics. Can you give an example from physics? Preferably from the last century or two?

ceejayoz 3mo ago
The parent post said scientists; medicine is something I've more knowledge of. You can carry the goalposts yourself, if you wanna move them around! (The parent post also already mentions Einstein on quantum physics.)
- onraglanroad 2mo ago
  I've just moved the goalposts back to the subject of the article. Treating all sciences as the same seems like an error.
somenameforme 3mo ago
I'm not sure about self harm or whatever, but Planck's Principle [1] was not stated without cause: 'Science progresses one funeral at a time.' And that was a quote from an outsized figure during the golden age of physics. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck's_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck's_principle

leoc 3mo ago

Neither Richard Feynman nor the quantum-physics community in general reacted very well to the first efforts to test Bell's theorem experimentally, at first: https://web.archive.org/web/20250723224559/https://arxiv.org/ftp/physics/papers/0508/0508180.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20250723224559/https://arxiv.org... .

stonedivot 3mo ago

The person you replied to was clearly asking of examples where some large paradigm shift caused large scale instances of suicidal thoughts, self harm, or otherwise, as a direct result of these new ideas. Providing two cases is, first of all, certainly not anything like "large scale". Second, these two cases are in complete and total isolation of each other, so not evidence of people getting riled up over the same new idea. And third, these seem like extreme reactions to people not believe their OWN ideas, not reactions to other scientists presenting new ideas. What do you think you've proven with these links?

glenstein 3mo ago
Someone who gets it! This whole branch of comments is like a comedy of errors of distractedness in multiple directions. The wrong theory, dramatically inadequate evidence in support of that theory, and a lack of applicability of that theory to the book even if it were true. The book explains it by a specific and intentional campaign of harassment and sabotage (and worse) aimed at scientists. Terrifying hallucinations, death threats, and violent sabotage by a group of domestic collaborators. It's not just scientists getting bummed out by not having agreeable data. And for that matter you would think scientific revolutions, which to some degree are about how you struggle in response to the limits of an old theory that can't explain data, are nevertheless more properly understood as triumphant moments of progress that validate the practice of science, not failures and dead ends the scientists in the book experience.