Re:Confronting the Credibility Gap for Crewed Exploration of...
by paulmd on Wednesday December 21, 2016 @12:40AM
(#13227047)
Unfortunately - even if you had some weird results that didn't fit the prevailing theorems, publishing would likely destroy your professional credibility. See: Fleischmann/Pons and their publications of abnormal results that others speculated might be related to cold fusion, the decades of slander and defamation of them as quacks (despite the fact that they themselves had not claimed anything of the sort), and their recent vindication.
> Perhaps most surprising is that, in the formative years of atomic science in the early 20th century, some scientists reported inexplicable experimental evidence of elemental transmutations. In the 1910s and 1920s, this research was reported in popular newspapers and magazines, and papers were published in the top scientific journals of the day, including Physical Review, Science and Nature. The experiments, using relatively simple, low-energy benchtop apparatus, did not use radioactive sources so the results defied prevailing theory. Several researchers independently detected the production of the gases helium-4, neon, argon, and an as-yet-unidentified element of mass-3, which we now identify as tritium. Two of these researchers were Nobel laureates.
To think that our current models adequately explain every phenomenon in the universe is truly the height of hubris. They can't even explain every phenomenon that has been observed on Planet Earth, let alone universally.
Of course extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof - but we do a tremendous disservice by disincentivizing scientists from ever reporting a novel finding that disagrees with the prevailing theories.
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/its-not-cold...
HN discussion: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/its-not-cold...
> Perhaps most surprising is that, in the formative years of atomic science in the early 20th century, some scientists reported inexplicable experimental evidence of elemental transmutations. In the 1910s and 1920s, this research was reported in popular newspapers and magazines, and papers were published in the top scientific journals of the day, including Physical Review, Science and Nature. The experiments, using relatively simple, low-energy benchtop apparatus, did not use radioactive sources so the results defied prevailing theory. Several researchers independently detected the production of the gases helium-4, neon, argon, and an as-yet-unidentified element of mass-3, which we now identify as tritium. Two of these researchers were Nobel laureates.
To think that our current models adequately explain every phenomenon in the universe is truly the height of hubris. They can't even explain every phenomenon that has been observed on Planet Earth, let alone universally.
Of course extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof - but we do a tremendous disservice by disincentivizing scientists from ever reporting a novel finding that disagrees with the prevailing theories.