3 ms·

I think it's unfair to lump the faster-than-light-neutrino experiment in as bad science. They pretty much said "this is really odd, please suggest your explanat

by jbert 13y ago

I think it's unfair to lump the faster-than-light-neutrino experiment in as bad science. They pretty much said "this is really odd, please suggest your explanations".

jlgreco 13y ago
Media overhypes a cautious plea for assistance made by scientists. Scientists receive their assistance, and announce that the discrepancy has been resolved. Media looks foolish, and claims the entire incident is indicative of flaws in the current state of science. Good times.
- nitrogen 13y ago
  Then there was the part where the scientists resigned/were forced to resign. That part was truly overkill.
  - RyJones 13y ago
    better than the ones that could be criminally convicted for earthquake prediction failures. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-10-23/italian-scientists-convicted-over-earthquake-warning/4328046 http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-10-23/italian-scientists-con...
    - InclinedPlane 13y ago
      That case is more complicated. Notwithstanding the screwed up nature of the Italian courts, those scientists didn't just fail to predict an earthquake they actively encouraged people to ignore the danger. The scientists in question claimed that the tremors removed energy from the fault zone and actually made the situation safer and that there was "no danger". Now, I think it's still open for debate whether what the scientists did justifies charges of manslaughter, but the idea that they were charged merely for failing to predict earthquakes is very wrong.
      - deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
lamontcg 13y ago
Agreed. Everyone in the physics community pretty much knew that the FTL neutrino problem had to be a measurement error, including the group who published it. I think one individual had to resign because they jumped the gun a bit on the initial announcement, but overall they hit a situation with a pretty crazy and groundbreaking result and none of them could poke holes in it, and all of them were skeptical about it. They published that information in the most responsible manner possible, but the media handled it pretty poorly. Some other cases are the first two "discoveries" of the top quark, which were both wrong (and the one in 1984 was by Rubbia who won a Nobel Prize for the W and the Z so he wasn't really a lightweight). Recently, CDF at Fermilab had to retract their W+multijet mystery which might have been a leptophobic Z' boson, but was just that they didn't understand their background (again, everyone kinda saw that one coming as well). Also a couple of the dark matter detectors thought they had some signal, but the recently announced LUX experiment negative results pretty much crushed them. This kind of back-and-forth actually happens all the time. That isn't bad science, that's just science.

by jbert 13y ago

I think it's unfair to lump the faster-than-light-neutrino experiment in as bad science. They pretty much said "this is really odd, please suggest your explanations".

jlgreco 13y ago

Media overhypes a cautious plea for assistance made by scientists. Scientists receive their assistance, and announce that the discrepancy has been resolved. Media looks foolish, and claims the entire incident is indicative of flaws in the current state of science. Good times.

nitrogen 13y ago
Then there was the part where the scientists resigned/were forced to resign. That part was truly overkill.
- RyJones 13y ago
  better than the ones that could be criminally convicted for earthquake prediction failures. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-10-23/italian-scientists-convicted-over-earthquake-warning/4328046 http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-10-23/italian-scientists-con...
  - InclinedPlane 13y ago
    That case is more complicated. Notwithstanding the screwed up nature of the Italian courts, those scientists didn't just fail to predict an earthquake they actively encouraged people to ignore the danger. The scientists in question claimed that the tremors removed energy from the fault zone and actually made the situation safer and that there was "no danger". Now, I think it's still open for debate whether what the scientists did justifies charges of manslaughter, but the idea that they were charged merely for failing to predict earthquakes is very wrong.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]

lamontcg 13y ago

Agreed. Everyone in the physics community pretty much knew that the FTL neutrino problem had to be a measurement error, including the group who published it. I think one individual had to resign because they jumped the gun a bit on the initial announcement, but overall they hit a situation with a pretty crazy and groundbreaking result and none of them could poke holes in it, and all of them were skeptical about it. They published that information in the most responsible manner possible, but the media handled it pretty poorly. Some other cases are the first two "discoveries" of the top quark, which were both wrong (and the one in 1984 was by Rubbia who won a Nobel Prize for the W and the Z so he wasn't really a lightweight). Recently, CDF at Fermilab had to retract their W+multijet mystery which might have been a leptophobic Z' boson, but was just that they didn't understand their background (again, everyone kinda saw that one coming as well). Also a couple of the dark matter detectors thought they had some signal, but the recently announced LUX experiment negative results pretty much crushed them. This kind of back-and-forth actually happens all the time. That isn't bad science, that's just science.