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Study Concludes "Planet" Was Just Stellar Spots
Kligat writes "Back in January, it was reported that the youngest planet ever to be discovered, about ten times the mass of Jupiter, was orbiting the eight- to ten-million-year-old star TW Hydrae. Now a Spanish research team has concluded that TW Hydrae b doesn't exist, and that cold spots on the star's surface actually produced the dip in brightness instead of a transiting planet. Not as cool as if a planet had actually been there, but refutations are science, too, right?"
And I had just bought real estate there too! Think they'll give me my money back if I ask nicely?
Talk about a not-so-real estate bubble.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
This is all part of the process of science.
People are trying to figure out the unknown, and don't always get it right the first time.
The popular press may spin it differently for the layman, but this is how science works.
but could this mean that OUR planet is just a stellar spot?
In the 1940s, 61 Cygni was thought to have planets a planet -- then several planets, then none, and now, at least one.It's another example of science correcting itself more than once!
This sig seemed like a good idea at the time....
Frankly, I think the CS'ers (Cold Spotters) are just trying to debunk established scientific facts with fantastic claims that are based in conjecture. All of us Transitional Planetists need to make sure these clowns don't teach this shit in our schools!
This is where I sit back and watch the establishment piss themselves to mod me down first.
I doubt it, because most other measurements were based upon the apparent wobbling of the parent star, not direct observation. This one, AFAIK, was tied to an attempt to "see" the planet transition across the parent star. Actually, I was of the frame of mind to think this is almost as exciting (if not more so) than a planetary discovery. If we can detect "cold spots" on an alien star, there's all sorts of fascinating implications.
From the article:
Impressive! There's a lot we may be able to learn about our own sun by monitoring the daily happenings of other stars. Things like the frequency of solar maximums, sunspots, and so forth on other stars comparing them with our own would be one such course of study.
He who has no
The exo-planet scientists are bumbling their way into obscurity. The public does not understand science. They don't understand small discoveries. They don't understand "backwards" discoveries like this one. Currently there is some interest in inferring that planets may exist around other stars, but it is quickly becoming a passing interest and the media attention is quickly turning from awe to skepticism (and not the good kind of skepticism required for science). It's like the 60s when inference of planetary atmospheres using starlight was proposed.. the interest was strong but no-one actually did the experiment for so long that when probes were proposed to go and directly measure the atmosphere of Venus the results of starlight interferometry were completely ignored.. and that was in the scientific community, which has a much longer attention span than the mainstream.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Amusingly, Ludwig von Mises' younger brother Richard was a real scientist with significant contributions in engineering and probability/statistics.
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
i had that job for awhile, but I was on the night shift.
Your post fundamentally disturbs me... and for a number of reasons.
I say this every time a science post like this is posted: modern science is a joke. What I hate the most is the very concept of theories.
Theories are pretty much entirely what science is about - so, if you have a problem with theories, you have a problem with ALL science, not just "modern science"
The idea that some half-assed guess gets passed around as an acceptable explanation until proven otherwise just strikes a nerve with me. I wish science would stick to black and white, "we know this" and "we don't know this".
Science has never been "black and white" and never will be. If you want that level of certainty, you'll find religion a few doors down the hall.
Theories are also not "half-assed guesses" - they're "best guesses" based on the results of experimentation (note that in some sciences direct experimentation isn't possible, so instead, precise modelling from the available evidence can also be used - this includes most of astronomy and historical things such as large timescale geology and evolution (both geology and evolution on short time scale, we've got experimental science already)).
If you walk in to the room, and I look at you, I can form a hypothesis, almost immediately, based on visual evidence, that you are human. If I then ran some tests based on my hypothesis and they agreed that with the hypothesis, then I'd have a working theory that you're human. I'd probably be right, however I can never know for sure - maybe you're an alien that just happens to be "human enough" that all of the tests I did would pass you as human. Now, I will work on the idea that you're human based on this theory. If however, a few weeks later, I get access to a new kind of DNA test, and for some reason decide to test you again, and find out you're NOT human, then the scientific method has NOT failed. I've determined you're not human, but I ALSO know with a lot more certainty how close to human you are (enough to pass all my initial tests).
That can relate back to the topic at hand by saying that we now know a lot more about HOW spots on a distant sun can LOOK like planets.
Stop this "we think this and that, have no real clue, but are going to pat ourselves on the back for pretending to know something we don't".
I wonder if perhaps you're just not familiar with what makes a theory compared to a hypothesis. Self-congratulations because of a hypothesis, would be bad, but self-congratulations because of a theory are definitely in order if it's interesting enough.
Science doesn't claim to know anything. Scientists will happily pat themselves on the back for a new theory, but anyone who then calls it "fact" is being intellectually dishonest (or perhaps just lazy, which is actually fine if they're not doing it in information that they're actively disseminating). Imagine, after my discovery that you're an alien, I throw a bit of a party because my theory now points to there being alien life on Earth. That party is pretty well justified I think, and some self-congratulation is definitely in order (if I'd thrown a party just after you walked in for looking at you and saying, "yep, that's probably a human" (or even, "yep, that's a probably an alien"), that'd be pretty stupid as I hadn't done any tests to try to confirm it). Then however, a few weeks after that, it turns out that some humans can have the strange DNA traits I found in you. I've gone from thinking you're human, to thinking you're an alien, to it turning out you're probably human after all. I'll say, "oops, looks like my theory was incomplete - sorry for the false alarm everyone!" and that should be fine. Even though I found out you're not an alien, I now know more about what I'm looking for next time, and also I've just learned something new about humans, so it's still a good thing. At this point, I assume you're human, even though I've changed my mi
My book about LSD and Self-Discovery
Also on facebook as: DroppingAcidDaleBewan
Scientist 1: "OMG! There's a tear in the cosmic fabric of space-time! It's swallowing galaxies, heading right for us, and we're all going to DIE!"
Scientist 2: "Would you chill out? It was just a hair on the eyepiece. Look again."
Scientist 1: "Oh. Right. Well, that's enough science for this morning. I think I'm going to break for lunch, now..."
How many other 'facts' about things in the universe might merely be tainted observations?
Likely, several. But that doesn't lessen the value of the work at all. If something appears to work in a particular way, it probably does. If it turns out it doesn't, then the last body of evidence isn't just "thrown away" - it's just tweaked a little more - the previous assumptions, even if wrong, can still serve a useful purpose for explaining things.
Right now, we're pretty certain that there's a black hole at the centre of most (or maybe all) galaxies. We might be wrong. There might be a large, as yet unknown, type of gravity source there that is NOT a black hole. If that turns out to be the case though, it's not a bad thing for science - since every model so far works nicely with a black hole in that position, it will continue to work with a black hole in that position even if there isn't one. Just as Newtonian physics is wrong, but still serves as a very useful set of mathematics for most situations.
So many times I read the most fantastical things astronmers have discovered a billion light-years away, and I think, how do they really know that? When there's that much distance, couldn't there be something out there fooling with their observation?
Yes, there could - which is why we do lots of experiments regarding the kinds of things which may mess up observations as well. Could there be other things? Absolutely. Could that mean we're wrong about a lot of stuff we're observing? Yes, it could. Would that be catastrophic to science? Not at all - we'd have a lot of new things to study! We can build up a very accurate but completely incorrect model of the universe and as long as it's valid from our frame of reference, it can be useful for doing things.
Imagine if it turns out that MOND is probably correct - it doesn't automatically mean all the research in to dark matter has been wasted - a lot of that research could be used as "test cases" for MOND, to help "prove" it. If any of our information about dark matter gave results that could NOT be explained by MOND, we'd have to concede that either the observations are wrong (and then explain how), or that MOND is wrong. Either way, we enhance our understanding, which is good.
and I don't believe it is just the public mis-interpreting something that the scientists said was 'probable'. A lot of these guys pass off their discoveries as facts.
Anyone who does so is being dishonest - that's a problem of the people explaining the science, not of the science itself. That said though, if anyone ever tells me something is "fact", I take it to mean, "all current evidence points towards this being the case and we can't imagine any realistic way that this could not be the case". So, even if some scientists are being dishonest and saying something is fact, then it's STILL the public's misunderstanding of science that is at least partly to blame if they get all upset when new data points to a different answer. I myself am dishonest in this exact way whenever I tell someone that "gravity pulls you down towards the earth", or "We evolved from simpler life over a LONG period of time". I am presenting these theories as facts, because any alternative is completely inconceivable to me, and it's just quicker than explaining, "Given all the available evidence, it appears as if, from your reference frame, gravity will pull you towards the earth". For less well entrenched theories, I tend to avoid such strong statements, and prefer the "longer" explanation, but the meaning should be considered pretty much the same. If clarification is needed, then you should ask how strong the evidence is that points to this theory being correct.
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Also on facebook as: DroppingAcidDaleBewan
Also, for whatever it's worth, there have been rumors floating around since the original announcement that several groups have photometric data showing the variations in stellar flux due to these spots. The period of this variability was supposed to be consistent to the "planet's" period, a very strong argument that it was a rotation/spot effect.
Microsoft delenda est!
Karl Popper would be proud...
What I want to know is this: At what point in the history of Slashdot did it become necessary to explain and defend the fundamental philosophies of science?
Seems this place has suffered along with digg when every 12 year old and their Wii were granted internet acess...?
how do they really know that?
How do we know there are such things as negative numbers? Cuz 5 - 8 has to equal something. Then we find a use for the newly invented "negatives", and find that it just works. What about imaginary numbers? The new negatives have to have a 'square root', and the square root of -1 has to equal something. And so on. Eventually, the preponderance of what works with 'negatives' and 'imaginaries' and all that other stuff leads to acceptance.
I don't believe it is just the public mis-interpreting something that the scientists said was 'probable'. A lot of these guys pass off their discoveries as facts.
Please give an example.
A few years back, a scientist produced findings on meteorite ALH94001 that suggested life on Mars. I watched the press release live, since he was the friend of a friend and was tipped it was coming up.
A publication involved in peer-reviewing the article about it was going to break embargo and release early, forcing Dr. McKay to release before he was ready.
Throughout the press release, he kept saying, "This rock passes all current tests for proving the existence of microfossils in earth rocks. It may be life, or we may have to change or add to the tests". Over and over; he said he was using new equipment that could see things better than before, and differently than before; he said he was putting his findings out there so that other scientists could improve the science. He was careful not to tout it as "fact".
Of course, that's not what the non-scientific media heard or reported. As a result of ALH94001, tests were improved, new things were learned about microfossilization, formation of nanoscale structures, etc.
Realize that science is an economy where the currency is reputation, not cash. It cannot be sold or transferred to another; it can be lost forever; it is seldom lost and regained. Every scientist knows that brightest minds in her/his field will be microanalyzing his/her work. This keeps one humble.
Pavlov wouldn't be so famous if he'd used a can opener instead of a bell.
> but refutations are science, too, right?
Absolutely. And it is precisely that which distinguishes it from religion.
Under what circumstances can ID be refuted?
Before you design for reuse, make sure to design it for use.
1. Actually, no, Galileo only got house arrest, and not as much for "proving some overbearing theology wrong" as for flaming an absolute monarch. There had been closed minded popes and cardinals, but Pope Urban VIII was not one of them. Before becoming a pope, he had actually defended Galileo and opposed other church officials like Bellarmine. And as a pope he actually encouraged Galileo to write his book, and only asked that he presents both models, both his new and his old one, and shows what his model explains that the other didn't.
What Galileo did... was a lot more like flaming. He took the Pope's words, distorted them, and put him in the mouth of a bumbling idiot of a character called, basically, The Stupid. That was the defender of the old model.
The pope didn't take lightly to public ridicule, and did a bit of an abuse of justice to show Galileo who's boss. He suddenly made the helliocentric model the official church position (where he had been very neutral before) just so he could prosecute Galileo and put the offending book on the index of forbidden books. But make no mistake, it wasn't about science vs religion, it was just a troll personally flaming an absolute monarch and getting smacked upside the head for it.
At any rate, Galileo got just a house arrest at his own mansion for his efforts. Hardly the worst possible fate. Other people routinely got executed for lesser offenses against secular monarchs.
2. I think the one you're talking about is Giordano Bruno. That one got burned at the stake all right. However, even there the waters are muddier.
For a start, Giordano Bruno had a _lot_ of accusations of heresy against him, with heliocentrism being by far the least important. Other stuff like preaching that Mary wasn't a virgin, or eastern-style reincarnation (including into animals), plus a few assorted things about Mass, Jesus and the Trinity. The Church couldn't care much less about heliocentrism, but when you start preaching that everything in the new testament is a lie, they started to care. A lot.
Furthermore, Giordano Bruno was a monk. The Church took policing its internal ranks very seriously. (And honestly, it had all the reasons to, since any excesses of one of its members got used as examples of what's wrong with the church as a whole.) Things you could have gotten away with as some lay person, became very serious offenses as a member of the clergy.
Not saying that it makes it "right". Just saying that there's more to it that "science vs religion." I don't think that Giordano's views on reincarnation qualified as "science", for example. Whatever "science" was in his position, seemed to have been more incidental than the fundament of it all. He was tried and executed for plain old heresy.
Again, I'm not saying that the power to try people for heresy is good or right. But let's treat it as the excess of totalitarian power that it was, rather than some grand science-vs-religion battle.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.