Odds-on Science

utopia27 writes "According to article in New Scientist, a UK-based bookie will be taking bets for two weeks on major science benchmarks (specifically, odds of implementation by 2010). The ponies are life on Titan, 10,000:1, gravitational waves, 500:1, the Higgs boson, 6:1, cosmic ray origins, 4:1, and nuclear fusion, 100:1."

Comments

Seems risky for the bookie...

[ChiralSoftware]

All bookies are at risk from "wise guys" who basically have insider knowledge of the bet in question. Betting on science makes this risk extreme. If I were an exobiologist at NASA and we found good evidence of life on Titan, the lag to publishing or even announcing it would be days, weeks or even months. Plenty of time to put down a $10k bet and then try to collect $100m after the announcement.

The stock markets are obviously subject to the same risk of illegal insider trading, but they are somewhat protected by stringent rules and enforcement (cf. Martha). An inside trader is basically equivalent to a wise guy, except that being an inside trader is illegal but being a wise guy isn't.

Even if their betting contract says "NASA employees and their families may not participate in the Titan bet" or whatever, scientific information (unlike business information) is generally not under any kind of non-disclosure, so Joe Astrobiologist at NASA can freely tell his buddies about the squirmy things they dug up in the ice and his buddy can freely log on and bet wildly if he wants to.

Who sets the odds?

[PaulBu]

I've got an impression from reading the article that the bookie company itself will be setting odds (and, thus, Bookies' odds are not straightforward probabilities. They also take into account how much the company can afford to lose in case they have to pay out.).

I always though that the "proper" way to do this is to make people to bet for/against the event, odds are calculated as the ratio of $$ in those two pots. Then bookie loses nothing (and always gets his fee from both winners and losers).

Are they saying that their odds are fixed numbers and To work out the odds on the physics experiments, Lush consulted physicists and astronomers.?

Paul B.

If you're interested in prognostication,

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't you go to tradesports.net? They have been doing this for a long time and seem to offer "services" covering the political and occasionally scientific as well.

This just seems like a total one-off scam. Tradesports seems to be a legitimate market (in Ireland, where it is located) with quite a few happy users and some scientific research on its accuracy.

However, as I'm an AC, the chances of being heard are 25000:1...

Re:playing the lottery is not stupid

[Spillman]

This actually happened near where I live

Re:Nuclear fusion?

[JabberWokky]

But it was only WTC 7, none of the other buildings spontainiously collapsed.

I can think of two.

Fire has never caused a steel structure to spontainously collapse before this.

A couple did a few hours before.

And in 1923 in Tokyo, leading to Raymond Moss predicting that "steel structures would no longer be built following the 1923 disaster. This was quite a remarkable statement, considering that he was then the vice-president of a steel company. He noted that, while many steel buildings survived the earthquake intact, they were so damaged by the subsequent fire that they had to be razed."

Also more recently in Kobe on January 17th 1995, when the post earthquake fires caused steel buildings to collapse oddly: "Office blocks built in the 1960's of steel and concrete frequently collapsed in the middle so that a whole floor was crushed but the rooms above and below remained intact". Sound like something that would resemble WTC 7?

A shock to the structure followed by unrestrained fire seems to make steel buildings collapse nicely.

Look, I understand that it is more fun to think that everything has great machinations behind them. Fiction is full of great conspiracies and world (or even galaxy) wide cabals that secretly run everything. It is easy to see faces on Mars and shadow people behind the scenes, but it is also easy to ascribe the sun to a chariot of flaming horses driven by gods through the sky. I have friends who work in Congress. The congress-critters have enough problems trying to figure out how to do their jobs without adding sinister plots. Hell, Nixon tried to be sneaky by taping conversations, and not only was that found out, disclosed, led to a resignation, but now the equipment is in a museum.

Or, applying common sense - if politicians were doing all this secret stuff, don't you think they would use their skills at secrets and coverups to hide all the sex scandals with young interns and male employees?

--
Evan