3 ms·

Impressive that they admitted the mistake instead of going on full defense and blame something else.

by speeder 14y ago

jgrahamc 14y ago
Who could they have blamed? It's a proof: either it holds up to examination or it doesn't.
- speeder 14y ago
  Some academics enter in denial mode and blabber bullshit. Others just invent convoluted ways to say that whoever pointed them wrong are wrong. Seemly in their case they found out they were wrong themselves and retracted their claims quickly.
  - CKKim 14y ago
    As a Mathematics graduate I was going to call you out on your comment, because I feel the subject does not lend itself to the kind of wiggle room necessary for maneuvering such as you describe. Then I remembered this: http://www.futilitycloset.com/2013/01/23/the-indiana-pi-bill/ http://www.futilitycloset.com/2013/01/23/the-indiana-pi-bill..., and thought better of it.
    - speeder 14y ago
      Heh, that story is awesome. And remembers me when someone almost conceived politicians to ban "oxide of dihydrogen" from foodstuffs
  - jerf 14y ago
    The more objective the discipline, the less you see that, because metaphorically, the light is too bright to hide. Mathematics is, arguably, the most objective discipline there is, so I don't think you see much of this. Particle physics is the most concrete of the real physics, so you see admirable scientific discipline there too, for instance, with the recent FTL neutrinos. As you get fuzzier and fuzzier, you get more and more blabbering, until, ahem, eventually the "science" consists of little more than blabber; I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader as to where to draw that line. http://xkcd.com/451/ http://xkcd.com/451/
    - knowtheory 14y ago
      Er. Let's try this a different way. Kant drew two distinctions, Analytic vs Synthetic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytic%E2%80%93synthetic_distinction http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytic%E2%80%93synthetic_dist... ) and A Priori vs A Posteriori (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_priori_and_a_posteriori http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_priori_and_a_posteriori ). By Kant's reckoning. Math is Analytic and A Priori, meaning that it is neither dependent on facts about the world, nor does the exploration of math require knowledge of the world to interrogate. You start with some axioms, and you just go from there. Fields like physics are synthetic and a posteriori, and the search for a grand unified theory which pull together the fundamental forces we know about are intellectual endeavors that are about the universe, and contingent upon the nature of the universe. If the universe were different, the facts and conclusions we would arrive at would be different. None of this has to do with objectivity per se. Physics is objective(ish), but it's not an analytical field (as Kant defines it). And you can claim that biology or linguistics or sociology aren't "science". But biology was still a field of scientific inquiry before Watson & Crick, or Darwin (although a less rigorous or well developed field). We have ways to know the world, and we should avail ourselves of them, and endeavor to improve their rigor. So, part of what i'm saying is that it'd be nice if people would stop dismissing other fields as "not science" :P
      - neutronicus 14y ago
        > So, part of what i'm saying is that it'd be nice if people would stop dismissing other fields as "not science" :P 'Twould also be nice if people would stop trying to usurp the authority of physics in the public policy domain.
        knowtheory 14y ago
        These goals, they are not incompatible ;) Also, I'm curious as to which usurpations you are alluding.
        neutronicus 14y ago
  - Steuard 14y ago
    As a mathematical physicist, it's fascinating to me that multiple people in this thread have reacted in this way. From a mathematician's point of view, there simply isn't such a thing as "deflecting blame" for errors in a proof: if someone identifies a flaw in the reasoning, there's no sensible way of denying it. To the extent that they're based on math, the sciences often work in the same way (so physics comes closer than biology, for example). But clearly people who aren't specialists in math don't recognize that math is "special" in this way: it's just more academics arguing over ideas. I wonder if this is part of what feeds into public distrust in science, when that arises.
- thebooktocome 14y ago
  Dr. Cowen works, coincidentally, at the same institution as Dr. Louis de Branges, http://www.math.purdue.edu/~branges/site//Papers http://www.math.purdue.edu/~branges/site//Papers , who has claimed a proof of the Riemann hypothesis for many years now. You can read his "Apology for the Proof of the Riemann hypothesis" (Apology in the sense of "defense") to get an idea of who can be blamed for gaps in proofs. (de Branges also claims a proof of the invariant subspace problem, but since his proof of RH is disputed and his proof of ISP uses the same technique, to my knowledge few people have examined it.)
- cantos 14y ago
  I guess the alternative would be to claim that your results are incomplete rather than wrong. This does happen from time to time. Vinay Deolalikar claimed a proof that P is not equal to NP which received intense scrutiny online two years ago and multiple errors were found. He has never withdrawn the claim. You can read his non-withdrawal here http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Vinay_Deolalikar/ http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Vinay_Deolalikar/
psionski 14y ago
I came here to say just that :) Good thing we have set the right expectations in the software industry - everything can be explained by "it's a computer, duh" because users expect everything to be full of bugs anyways :)
jonjacky 14y ago
Another recent example: Edward Nelson of Princeton retracted his claim of having a proof of the inconsistency of Peano Arithmetic. Replying to Terence Tao, he wrote: "You are quite right, and my original response was wrong. Thank you for spotting my error. I withdraw my claim." http://m-phi.blogspot.com/2011/10/nelson-withdraws-his-claim.html http://m-phi.blogspot.com/2011/10/nelson-withdraws-his-claim... http://m-phi.blogspot.com/2011/10/inconsistency-of-pa-and-consensus-in.html http://m-phi.blogspot.com/2011/10/inconsistency-of-pa-and-co...

Impressive that they admitted the mistake instead of going on full defense and blame something else.

by speeder 14y ago

Impressive that they admitted the mistake instead of going on full defense and blame something else.

jgrahamc 14y ago

Who could they have blamed? It's a proof: either it holds up to examination or it doesn't.

speeder 14y ago
Some academics enter in denial mode and blabber bullshit. Others just invent convoluted ways to say that whoever pointed them wrong are wrong. Seemly in their case they found out they were wrong themselves and retracted their claims quickly.
- CKKim 14y ago
  As a Mathematics graduate I was going to call you out on your comment, because I feel the subject does not lend itself to the kind of wiggle room necessary for maneuvering such as you describe. Then I remembered this: http://www.futilitycloset.com/2013/01/23/the-indiana-pi-bill/ http://www.futilitycloset.com/2013/01/23/the-indiana-pi-bill..., and thought better of it.
  - speeder 14y ago
    Heh, that story is awesome. And remembers me when someone almost conceived politicians to ban "oxide of dihydrogen" from foodstuffs
- jerf 14y ago
  The more objective the discipline, the less you see that, because metaphorically, the light is too bright to hide. Mathematics is, arguably, the most objective discipline there is, so I don't think you see much of this. Particle physics is the most concrete of the real physics, so you see admirable scientific discipline there too, for instance, with the recent FTL neutrinos. As you get fuzzier and fuzzier, you get more and more blabbering, until, ahem, eventually the "science" consists of little more than blabber; I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader as to where to draw that line. http://xkcd.com/451/ http://xkcd.com/451/
  - knowtheory 14y ago
    Er. Let's try this a different way. Kant drew two distinctions, Analytic vs Synthetic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytic%E2%80%93synthetic_distinction http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytic%E2%80%93synthetic_dist... ) and A Priori vs A Posteriori (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_priori_and_a_posteriori http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_priori_and_a_posteriori ). By Kant's reckoning. Math is Analytic and A Priori, meaning that it is neither dependent on facts about the world, nor does the exploration of math require knowledge of the world to interrogate. You start with some axioms, and you just go from there. Fields like physics are synthetic and a posteriori, and the search for a grand unified theory which pull together the fundamental forces we know about are intellectual endeavors that are about the universe, and contingent upon the nature of the universe. If the universe were different, the facts and conclusions we would arrive at would be different. None of this has to do with objectivity per se. Physics is objective(ish), but it's not an analytical field (as Kant defines it). And you can claim that biology or linguistics or sociology aren't "science". But biology was still a field of scientific inquiry before Watson & Crick, or Darwin (although a less rigorous or well developed field). We have ways to know the world, and we should avail ourselves of them, and endeavor to improve their rigor. So, part of what i'm saying is that it'd be nice if people would stop dismissing other fields as "not science" :P
    - neutronicus 14y ago
      > So, part of what i'm saying is that it'd be nice if people would stop dismissing other fields as "not science" :P 'Twould also be nice if people would stop trying to usurp the authority of physics in the public policy domain.
      - knowtheory 14y ago
        These goals, they are not incompatible ;) Also, I'm curious as to which usurpations you are alluding.
        neutronicus 14y ago
- Steuard 14y ago
  As a mathematical physicist, it's fascinating to me that multiple people in this thread have reacted in this way. From a mathematician's point of view, there simply isn't such a thing as "deflecting blame" for errors in a proof: if someone identifies a flaw in the reasoning, there's no sensible way of denying it. To the extent that they're based on math, the sciences often work in the same way (so physics comes closer than biology, for example). But clearly people who aren't specialists in math don't recognize that math is "special" in this way: it's just more academics arguing over ideas. I wonder if this is part of what feeds into public distrust in science, when that arises.
thebooktocome 14y ago
Dr. Cowen works, coincidentally, at the same institution as Dr. Louis de Branges, http://www.math.purdue.edu/~branges/site//Papers http://www.math.purdue.edu/~branges/site//Papers , who has claimed a proof of the Riemann hypothesis for many years now. You can read his "Apology for the Proof of the Riemann hypothesis" (Apology in the sense of "defense") to get an idea of who can be blamed for gaps in proofs. (de Branges also claims a proof of the invariant subspace problem, but since his proof of RH is disputed and his proof of ISP uses the same technique, to my knowledge few people have examined it.)
cantos 14y ago
I guess the alternative would be to claim that your results are incomplete rather than wrong. This does happen from time to time. Vinay Deolalikar claimed a proof that P is not equal to NP which received intense scrutiny online two years ago and multiple errors were found. He has never withdrawn the claim. You can read his non-withdrawal here http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Vinay_Deolalikar/ http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Vinay_Deolalikar/

psionski 14y ago

I came here to say just that :) Good thing we have set the right expectations in the software industry - everything can be explained by "it's a computer, duh" because users expect everything to be full of bugs anyways :)

jonjacky 14y ago

Another recent example: Edward Nelson of Princeton retracted his claim of having a proof of the inconsistency of Peano Arithmetic. Replying to Terence Tao, he wrote: "You are quite right, and my original response was wrong. Thank you for spotting my error. I withdraw my claim." http://m-phi.blogspot.com/2011/10/nelson-withdraws-his-claim.html http://m-phi.blogspot.com/2011/10/nelson-withdraws-his-claim... http://m-phi.blogspot.com/2011/10/inconsistency-of-pa-and-consensus-in.html http://m-phi.blogspot.com/2011/10/inconsistency-of-pa-and-co...