Re:Have we already been visited by aliens?
by ntsplnkv2 on Wednesday January 20, 2021 @05:29PM
(#25852824)
This is a good thing. If we entertained every crackpot theory we would waste tons of time. it's good for there to be some gatekeeping. Of course sometimes they're wrong - but so what? That will come out if there is actual evidence.
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Re:Have we already been visited by aliens?
by eloff on Wednesday January 20, 2021 @06:59PM
(#25853544)
There is a balance here, you are correct, but I think we currently skew too far toward gatekeeping.
Too little gatekeeping means trouble finding the signal through the noise and time wasted on dead ends. Too much and good ideas get neglected or squashed for far too long. There is a cost to both.
Re:Have we already been visited by aliens?
by totalZero on Wednesday January 20, 2021 @10:21PM
(#25854957)
Unfortunately, gatekeeping is essential to academia. Ask anyone who wants to publish a finding independently, or read a paper for free without being associated with an institution. Heck, ask the undergrads who paid tens of thousands of dollars for Zoom classes that have MOOC alternatives alternatives.
> Too little gatekeeping means trouble finding the signal through the noise and time wasted on dead ends.
Much time is supposed to be spent on dead ends anyway. That's the way the corpus matures, not to mention an inevitable result of peer review (no need to review anything if all the research product is perfect). Research is a search; imagine running BFS without expecting to encounter dead ends.