The Journal of Serendipitous and Unexpected Results

SilverTooth writes "Often, when watching a science documentary or reading an article, it seems that the scientists were executing a well-laid out plan that led to their discovery. Anyone familiar with the process of scientific discovery realizes that is a far cry from reality. Scientific discovery is fraught with false starts and blind alleys. As a result, labs accumulate vast amounts of valuable knowledge on what not to do, and what does not work. Trouble is, this knowledge is not shared using the usual method of scientific communication: the peer-reviewed article. It remains within the lab, or at the most shared informally among close colleagues. As it stands, the scientific culture discourages sharing negative results. Byte Size Biology reports on a forthcoming journal whose aim is to change this: the Journal of Serendipitous and Unexpected Results. Hopefully, scientists will be able to better share and learn more from each other's experience and mistakes."

Comments

So...

[Biff Stu]

If the LHC generates an Earth-eating black hole, will it be published here?

Re:So...

[Asadullah Ahmad]

I don't think so. This Journal will not publish any results that were expected

Re:So...

[Hurricane78]

I don't think so. This Journal will not publish any results anymore. Ever.

There. Fixed that for ya.

A great idea

[al0ha]

but the obstacles are immense. Egos are massive and competition is fierce, so asking researchers to admit a mistake or give the competition a short cut is a tall order.

Re:A great idea

[Cassius Corodes]

I've published a paper with negative results before - there is no great pressure against it - and sometimes failing to re-create claimed results is big news. Perhaps the reason why people think negative results are not published as often is because you don't write "why my study was a big fat failure" - you report on the results you did get - why they are not conclusive / their limitations and what you think future researchers can do to improve on it. I.e. you turn what is ostensibly a failure into a win for science (not to mention a paper for you). I have read many such papers - so they are hardly uncommon.

Re:A great idea

[T Murphy]

Given failed results wouldn't need as much verification, it may be possible for researchers to submit under pseudonyms to avoid embarrassment, and I should think not all researchers are so full of themselves to fear helping others. I agree we won't see the best stories reach this journal, but if nothing else it will be a good way for the honest, cooperative researchers to know they aren't alone.

Re:A great idea

[electrons_are_brave]

I agree - I have on occassion partially replicated previous research and failed to find anything significant. In psychology, at least, this is needed because so many people claim significant results on relatively small correlations (i.e. many psychs are bad at stats).

Repeating the study on a different population and failing to find a significant result can also show that the results don't generalise to that population.

Re:A great idea

[Trepidity]

I agree (my first paper was a negative-results paper), but I think there are some kinds of negative results that are relatively hard to get published. Papers along the lines of: "here's an approach you might have thought would work, but it turned out that it didn't, and in retrospect we can see why, which this paper will explain". If you try to submit a paper like that, you often get push-back of, "oh well, yeah it's obvious why that wouldn't work, dunno why you didn't see it earlier". And of course it often is obvious once you've read why it doesn't work.

As you point out, it's quite a bit easier to get negative results published if someone else had already claimed them as positive results. In that case, you're not both proposing and shooting down the idea simultaneously, but shooting down (or failing to confirm) someone else's idea, which has the advantages that: 1) you have evidence that at least one presumably smart person really didn't think it was obviously a bad idea (in fact, they thought it was a good one, and even that it worked); and 2) you're positioned as correcting an error in the literature, rather than as introducing a correction for a hypothetical error nobody has yet made.

It's a bit tricky to fix, because some negative results really are obvious: it does nobody in the field any good to publish "we tried X on Y, and it didn't work", if genuinely nobody who was competent in the field would've thought X would work on Y, and the reason was exactly the reason you discovered.

Incidentally, here's one previous attempt to start such a journal that didn't really get off the ground. Their one published article, which is quite good, is of the form I mention: the authors of a system called Swordfish recounted an idea they had to produce an improvement, Swordfish2, that in the end turned out to do be better than the original Swordfish. It was hard to get published elsewhere, because it wasn't correcting an existing result---nobody had previously proposed that doing what they tried to Swordfish2 was actually a good idea---but it's interesting (to me, at least) because it really does seem like a plausible idea, and I feel I learned something in reading why it didn't work.

Re:A great idea

[Jurily]

Egos are massive and competition is fierce, so asking researchers to admit a mistake or give the competition a short cut is a tall order.

The funny thing is, discoveries are not "I told you!". They're "That's interesting...".

Re:A great idea

[irp]

In my experience it has nothing to do with egos or competition.

But it is damn hard to publish something that doesn't work!

I was recently involved i developing a microfluidic system for diagnostics. Every milestone and sub-problem was solved. But when the final injection molded devices were tested, they failed due to an sort of interesting non-obvious combination of factors. Two issues with publishing this; the problems were very specific to our system and the conclusion could be written in 5 lines of text.

It would have been like a movie with huge setup, but within the first 3 minutes the hero stumble, break his neck, and dies. End credits. It was a EU founded research project, no more money no more time. You can't get founding to continue a failed project. End of story.

But my point is, in all my experience as scientist. I've never seen one of my colleagues say "we should hide this", but I've often heard "I would like to tell about this, but I don't know of a paper that would accept it".

Also when something fails we need to carry on, but now we're behind schedule...

Re:A great idea

[thrawn_aj]

3 wonderfully candid and informative posts in a row. It's a pity that that won't stop the idiots crying "OMG conspiracy of silence by egotistical scientists!" :P

Re:A great idea

[A nonymous Coward]

There had been 17 -- but some overlord deleted the others before anyone got a chance to see them. These three escaped censorship because they had already been seen.

Go ahead -- prove me wrong!

Re:A great idea

[DangerFace]

The problem is the implication that a lack of discovery is "That's not interesting...". There is certainly very strong evidence that publication bias exists and is a tremendous problem in the academic world. While plenty of negative papers do get published the vast majority of published papers have some positive results. As has been discussed already when you get negative results and you want them published you write them out as if they were positive - there is a reason for this, and it's just how people work.

Obligatory car analogy: if someone says "Look! A Ferrari 612!" you look, and you remember (I'm assuming we care about Italian supercars). If someone says "Look! We can't see a single Fiat 500!" (insert local version of very common car here if necessary) then you might go "Hmm. That's a little odd." but you'd need a bit more than that to make it memorable or even interesting.

Re:A great idea

[TheTurtlesMoves]

In biology this is unfortunately not generally the case. Since i came from physics this took just a little getting use too.

Re:A great idea

[interkin3tic]

Egos are massive and competition is fierce, so asking researchers to admit a mistake or give the competition a short cut is a tall order.

This must depend on the field if it's true anywhere. In biology, you'd have to be the world's biggest ass to act like you've never had an unexpected result. From my limited experience, if you suggest that -most- of your results are completely what you were expecting, I'd suspect you were lying. It seems like on average, every other research presentation I see, by heads of labs included, the presenter admits some of the most interesting data was not what they expected.

The discovery of penicillin was a monumentally important "mistake." Which field are you in that "researchers" think they're better than Alexander Flemming?

Re:A great idea

[Hognoxious]

you report on the results you did get - why they are not conclusive / their limitations and what you think future researchers can do to improve on it.

And why you should get funding to do a follow-up study.

Re:A great idea

[StripedCow]

As you point out, it's quite a bit easier to get negative results published if someone else had already claimed them as positive results.

This one is my favorite:

G. Hathaway, B. Cleveland, Y. Bao, Gravity modification experiment using a rotating superconducting disk and radio frequency fields, Physica C: Superconductivity, Volume 385, Issue 4, 1 April 2003, Pages 488-500, ISSN 0921-4534, DOI: 10.1016/S0921-4534(02)02284-0.

Re:A great idea

[dpilot]

I went to a University whose perhaps biggest contribution to science and mankind was a failure. Case Western Reserve University was where the Michelson-Morley interferometer experiments took place - the failure to find the aether that launched Special Relativity. Einstein once came there, "to see where it all started."

Re:A great idea

[Anonymous Coward]

So what you are trying to say is that you published a story about how your experiment was a big fat failure.

Re:A great idea

[TheRaven64]

Some of the most useful publications I've read were people admitting stuff doesn't work. In computer science, you never see these in peer reviewed journals, but you often see them on researchers' blogs. When you read a paper that says 'we tried this and it works' it often comes with the small print 'in these very narrow conditions that aren't applicable to any real-world cases'. When you see an idea that someone tried and didn't work, quite often you can see a way of changing it slightly so that it will solve your problem, even when it doesn't solve their original one.

But my point is, in all my experience as scientist. I've never seen one of my colleagues say "we should hide this", but I've often heard "I would like to tell about this, but I don't know of a paper that would accept it".

Absolutely. I proposed the idea of an online journal of failed ideas a few years ago while I was doing my PhD. The problem is that, even if we'd accept the paper, you don't get much recognition for trying stuff that doesn't work. Reputations are built on success, not effort, and so it's not worth much time writing something up in a publication-ready form for such a journal. You'd save other people the time and effort of failing in the same way as you, but that doesn't actually benefit you - if anything it's better if your competition is trying approaches you already know won't work because it makes it less likely that they will try the approach that you are working on that does work and publish the success before you.

Re:A great idea

[Mr. Tobes]

But my point is, in all my experience as scientist. I've never seen one of my colleagues say "we should hide this", but I've often heard "I would like to tell about this, but I don't know of a paper that would accept it".

Also when something fails we need to carry on, but now we're behind schedule...

Couldn't agree more with you. I've been repeatedly told "You usually only publish positive results". If anyone is interested in an insightful discussion of many of these issues, they might like to track down a book called "Communicating Science" by Nicholas Russell. The first section gives a good critique of the history of science publishing. One of the major issues is simply the historical legacy of a lack of pages in printed journals - who wants to waste space reporting what didn't work? With the rise of the web and open-access publishing there is the slight possibility that this artificial cap on the amount of research that can be published will be finally lifted.

Re:A great idea

[Anonymous Coward]

been tried before, try googling "journal of negative results"

Re:A great idea

[bkr1_2k]

But my point is, in all my experience as scientist. I've never seen one of my colleagues say "we should hide this", but I've often heard "I would like to tell about this, but I don't know of a paper that would accept it".

Isn't that the point of this journal? To be a place for exactly that type of publication?

Re:A great idea

[Rostin]

Their stories aren't exactly what the article is talking about, imo. It sounds like they all did studies critical of existing positive results. They didn't just write a paper out of the blue that said, "We thought it would be interesting and important to show X. We tried, A, B, and C, but none of those things did what we expected. We still haven't shown X." The exception might be if A, B, and C are somehow exhaustive and so their failure to show X actually disproves X.

I think part of the reason papers like that are rare is, as you suggested, ego. Science is very competitive, and reputation is almost everything. No one wants to give away what they've been working on and how they've been working on it until they can publish something that will make a splash. The risk is too high that some other guy will say, "Oh, yes.. I know just how to show X!" Then he and his students will scoop you and take the lion's share of the credit.

I think that's probably the nature of competition. There's a careful balance between secrecy and openness. You can't compete if you give everything away, but you can't "win" if you don't trumpet your accomplishments. Maybe we can find ways to reward greater openness, but I think that some degree of secrecy is unavoidable.

Re:A great idea

[malp]

It would have been like a movie with huge setup, but within the first 3 minutes the hero stumble, break his neck, and dies.

Lawrence of Arabia?

Re:A great idea

[radtea]

Papers along the lines of: "here's an approach you might have thought would work, but it turned out that it didn't, and in retrospect we can see why, which this paper will explain".

In experimental papers I ususally try to have a section entitled (really) "Things that did not work so well" in which I mention approaches that seemed like good ideas that didn't work out. If I were an editor of an experimental journal I would make this part of the standard format, as any experiment that doesn't lead to the discovery of failed approaches is clearly not difficult enough to be worth doing.

This approach does mean at the end of the day I have to have some positive result, though, which may be couched in terms of "New limits on phenomenon XYZ (that we found no evidence of)".

There's still bias, though. In the search for "physics beyond the standard model" null results are the norm, but the odd (and inevitably mistaken) positive result gets vastly more attention. When I was working in the field and my colleagues in more prolific areas would get a positive result I'd tell them, "Don't worry--that's just as good as a null result", as when I got null results they'd tell me they were just as good as positive results. The fact that they were surprised to be told that suggests the truth: positive results are generally considered better.

Re:A great idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Out of interest, can you show us the 5 lines of text? (I'm interested in microfluidics and unexpected failure modes are always good to know about...)

Re:A great idea

[Anonymous Coward]

It would have been like a movie with huge setup, but within the first 3 minutes the hero stumble, break his neck, and dies.

Lawrence of Arabia?

No, in that movie there was a motorcycle involved. That makes it EPIC and EXCITING!

Re:A great idea

[joeyblades]

This is exactly right.

A complete failure to grasp three fundamental human behaviors:

1. The tendancy to rewrite history so that we don't look like idiots.
2. The tendancy keep competitive advantages to ourselves.
3. The tendency to reinvent stuff because of an NIH (Not Invented Here) mentality

Re:A great idea

[Hurricane78]

Wrong perspective.
Why do you call it a mistake? What crazy idea is that, to call something good (gaining useful new information) “bad”?
It’s not bad, so you don’t have to “admit” anything.

That’s the great thing about science: The worst thing that can happen, is that you don’t learn something new. (= 0)
Everything else (= +x | -x) is a success.
Who cares if it was expected.

Frankly, I find the unexpected results to be far cooler than the expected ones. :)
A scientist is the only person, who can brag, if something goes “wrong”. :D

Re:A great idea

[Hurricane78]

WTF? What “embarassement”?

Sorry, but real scientists don’t care if what happened, was what they expected. (Because it’s always cool new knowledge. Most of the time, the unexpected results are way cooler anyway.)
Or even whether they got new information about what they studied. (Because they still gained the knowledge, that this method does not give any new information.)

I really don’t get, in what twisted mindset one can see that as bad. It boggles my mind...

Re:A great idea

[st0nes]

We thought it would be interesting and important to show X. We tried, A, B, and C, but none of those things did what we expected. We still haven't shown X

I can see why journals might be hesitant to publish a paper like this. It's a little like that newspaper headline: "Fairly Small Earthquake in Andes--Not Very Many Killed", not exactly an eyeball grabber. Science journals are also dependant on sales for advertising revenue, and those sales depend on papers showing positive results.

This could be good

[Kitkoan]

No longer having to remake the broken wheel each time. Or it could lead to a bad side effect having a positive outcome like Viagra and Zyban. Both of these were not what was planned but had amazing results. Hell, penicillin saves millions and if I remember right, was a total mistake at the beginning.

Re:This could be good

[dgatwood]

Penicillin? Not a mistake so much as general messiness. The guy stacked up some bacterial cultures and went on vacation. One of them grew mold. He noticed that the bacteria near the mold were dead.

Re:This could be good

[VShael]

Penicillin? Not a mistake so much as general messiness.

OBLIG: If that's the case, then I've probably got the cure for cancer in my room somewhere.

Re:This could be good

[robot256]

Do you have a nice culture of cancer cells so you can notice when they die? ;)

Re:This could be good

[Anonymous Coward]

>>> Penicillin? Not a mistake so much as general messiness.

> OBLIG: If that's the case, then I've probably got the cure for cancer in my room somewhere.

Possible -- but will you find it? No, will you see it, when you look directly at it?

If so, you'd be as good as Fleming. If not, you'd be just another moron who'd threw everything out because of the mold -- which is indeed a practical decision.

The genius thing was that Fleming was not practical. How many lives his observation has been saving?

This reminds of the old "blowing the hands" oriental fable... (japanese, IIRC)

Re:This could be good

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats what she said!!11!!!

This IS a great idea, and the cause of our failing

[Anonymous Coward]

If we ONLY publish and peer review our successes, our failures and errata is discarded.

In this data could be a LOT of really amazing potential, given peer review and continuance.

No wonder we don't have a theory of everything yet, we're not looking at nearly all the data.

Fantastic idea

[nine-times]

Sometimes talking to people with very pro-sciene views, you get the idea that "science" is either an accumulated set of known facts or a perfect method which, because of peer review, is infallible at learning absolute truth.

In reality, it's just a set of processes that we've developed and which has been generally more successful at producing helpful results than other methods. No reason to think that the way we go about it couldn't be improved. I can't imagine that failing to share the results failed experiments doesn't sometimes result in the loss of important information.

Coincidentally I just saw this talk which raises the question whether helpful data can be gathered even if it's not gathered through conventional rigorous scientific methods. It seems like an interesting idea-- they're essentially gathering lots of data from various sources and using statistical analysis developed by economists to try to draw conclusions. My biggest concern would be purposeful manipulation by someone with an agenda.

But anyway, all of this is to say that this has gotten me thinking about how the scientific process may still be open to some innovation.

Re:Fantastic idea

[Asadullah Ahmad]

How about this for an idea:

There should be a compilation of "Scientific history" of a sort (which is maintained by Scientific community), where only those discoveries are saved which disprove a previous scientific fact, while proving a so called crazy theory. I just can't get around the stubbornness of most scientists when it comes to theories, ideas and beliefs which are not in-line with current mainstream Science.

Re:Fantastic idea

[Ed Peepers]

Gleaning information from very large data sets is very possible, even if gathered in ways that are not strictly rigorous. However, we have to be extremely cautious when we interpret the findings. One of the first things you learn in Stats or Research Methods 101 is that everything becomes significant in a large enough data set. If you have billions of data points and pick any two variables, you should find a statistically significant relationship. It won't mean anything, but someone with an agenda OR someone who doesn't know what they are doing can report it and make it sound real. With great power comes great responsibility! ;)

Re:Fantastic idea

[complete loony]

using statistical analysis developed by economists

Funny, given recent events I would be more worried about the economists models.

Re:Fantastic idea

[swanriversean]

"using statistical analysis developed by economists to try to draw conclusions"

this sounds promising
/deadpan

Re:Fantastic idea

[phantomfive]

Stripped to its bare, ideological minimum, science is nothing more than observation. You can extrapolate the implications of those observations, but in the end everything we know in science can be traced down to an observation. That is why intelligent design fails at being a science: while it technically might be true, it is not an observation, it is a guess. FSM is not an observation it is a (silly) guess.

All the trappings of science, the double-blind experiments, the peer review, etc. are merely ways to improve the accuracy of our observations. It is really beautiful, actually, to realize that for any fact in science you can say, "how do we know this?" and get back to the original observations that show it to be true. This is not something you can do with religion, or philosophy, or literary criticism.

Re:Fantastic idea

[Entropius]

This is because statistical error -- the error you make because of the limits of your sample size -- goes down as 1/sqrt(N), but systematic error -- the error you make because of imperfect knowledge of your model, biases you can't estimate and control for, and so on -- does not.

A large and difficult part of the field of computational physics I do, at least, is accurately estimating systematic errors. Statistical errors are easy, you just do the probability shit. But honestly estimating systematic errors is hard.

If you have a large sample size, of course, you should be trying to bring that huge sample to bear to reduce systematic error, which can usually be done. An example of trying to correct for systematic error is the corrections made to polling data to account for cell-phone-only voters. It can be done, and as long as it is done honestly, you will get a reliable estimate of significance levels at the end.

Re:Fantastic idea

[Trepidity]

In the social sciences and medicine, I think it's an even deeper problem than models. In complex interconnected systems like "human psychology" or "human societies" or "the cardiovascular system", there are very few variables that turn out to be either: 1) absolutely unrelated to each other; or 2) exactly identical. Everything is slightly related, and slightly different, so given large enough datasets, you can always show statistical significance, because it really is a real effect. That's one reason there's been a shift towards a view that some measure of "scientific significance" should be measured: proving a statistically significant but almost-zero effect should not be reported as "significant effect found!!".

Re:Fantastic idea

[TapeCutter]

"Stripped to its bare, ideological minimum, science is nothing more than observation."

You went too far, you stripped off the meat. Science uses observation to find models that accurately predict new observations. The guts of the philosophy is that the utility of reliable predictive models is self evident.

Re:Fantastic idea

[ShakaUVM]

>>But anyway, all of this is to say that this has gotten me thinking about how the scientific process may still be open to some innovation.

The sad fact is, there's a lot of work being done under the name of science that isn't really science, or perhaps, science-lite. Do you think "Climate Scientists" have the ability to run scientific experiments? (Let's start with 1,000 earths, add 100ppm of CO2 to half of them, and measure the difference in average temperature across 100 years.) No, of course not. But everyone calls it science anyway, because they publish papers, do a lot of modeling and data analysis and otherwise appear to be doing the same sort of things that real scientists do.

Of course, when you start getting picky about it, there's very few disciplines outside of physics that actually have the same ability to cleanly hold experimental variables in isolation from each other. People conducting "scientific" studies on education will take a group of 60 teachers, train half of them in some cool new teaching technique, and then study the differences in class test results between the control and experimental groups. But teachers and students are complex things, and so even if you show positive test gains, you can't be certain it was your nifty new teaching method.

In medicine, likewise, people will prove things conclusively (p 0.01!!) only to have another study show the exact opposite. Sometimes they'll go back and forth on a subject for years (consider the cell phone/cancer question, or if echinechea is good for you). And nobody really notices that by the statistics they throw around, it should be relatively impossible to get 10 different high confidence level studies all disagreeing on a subject (as long as we can assume there weren't 1000 studies that were being tossed in the trash to cherry pick the best ones). But people still toss around these high confidence factors as if they're meaningful.

It's actually a very serious problem in science right now. Either the above fields aren't science (or "scientific"), or the mathematical foundations of experimentation are all wrong. However, since we've doing quite well, thank you very much, people don't care very much, even if it floods us with anti-scientific health warnings on our soda cans and places of work, and results in a huge industry for people selling nonsensical "radiation barriers" for cell phones.

Re:Fantastic idea

[Culture20]

Stripped to its bare, ideological minimum, science is nothing more than observation. You can extrapolate the implications of those observations, but in the end everything we know in science can be traced down to an observation. That is why intelligent design fails at being a science: while it technically might be true, it is not an observation, it is a guess. FSM is not an observation it is a (silly) guess.

All the trappings of science, the double-blind experiments, the peer review, etc. are merely ways to improve the accuracy of our observations. It is really beautiful, actually, to realize that for any fact in science you can say, "how do we know this?" and get back to the original observations that show it to be true. This is not something you can do with religion, or philosophy, or literary criticism.

Without philosophy, observation is only historical cataloging; mere correlation. Recognition of Causation requires something outside of observation: "silly" guesses. Even after doing hundreds of observations, we'll never know if any of the silly guesses are true, but we'll know which ones turn out false. But, pure philosophy has one on science: certain things can be proved true with mere thought experiment.
Oblig. XKCD: http://xkcd.com/435/ But he forgot the logician on the far right telling the mathematician to stuff it.

Re:Fantastic idea

[AndersOSU]

I think you're a little too picky about your definition of science.

You don't need to do a double blind experiment for your observations to become science. Geology, astronomy, and evolutionary biology are definitely science even if we can't try out two different methods of creating granite, initiating the big bang, or applying selective pressures to dinosaurs. Likewise with climate science. You're dealt a problem with a long history and a series of facts. Now try to figure out what will happen if variable x changes. Just because changes are harder to observe than dropping apples doesn't mean there isn't science to be had.

In medicine, the caveat is always "assuming our study represents a random sample of the population." Which is almost never true. Finding different results in different populations with high levels of confidence is easy, figuring out how those two populations differ is hard. In this way medicine suffers from the same problems as economics and political science - but because they're steeped in observation and statistics they are science. It's just that science sometimes isn't as unambiguous as we might like - and the only reason we ever started thinking that science was unambiguous was because our entire scientific education consists of a series of neatly solved problems and contrived experiments. Now that I know how, I can make brass really easily - but once upon a time a metallurgist couldn't figure out why he'd add the same amount of the same rocks to copper every time and sometimes he'd get nice hard brass and other times he'd get crappy contaminated copper (the reason is the concentration of zinc in ore is variable).

Re:Fantastic idea

[Mr. Slippery]

Do you think "Climate Scientists" have the ability to run scientific experiments?

No, but neither do astronomers, cosmologists, epidemiologists, paleontologists...

The ability to run experiments is not a necessary condition for a field to be a science.

Re:Fantastic idea

[phantomfive]

I think I included that in my original post actually, when I talked about extrapolating the implications of those observations. Further observation will verify whether the extrapolations are correct or not.

I think what you are saying is that if a model accurately predicts something, then the model is accurate; in reality all you know is that it accurately predicts something. The rest of the model may be completely in error, it hasn't been verified yet. A simple example of this is when Columbus presented the hypothesis to some natives that "God is angry, therefore he will remove the moon from the sky." Indeed, the prediction proved accurate, and the natives accepted the model, when in reality all they knew was that Columbus was able to predict when a lunar eclipse would happen (and a single lunar eclipse at that).

In essence what I am saying is that a model being able to accurately predict something does not mean anything other than this: we have observed that it reliably predicts something. Further observation can be helpful to verify other parts of the model.

Re:Fantastic idea

[phantomfive]

Thought experiments are always based on observation. They are mental extrapolations of things thought to be true.

Re:Fantastic idea

[Culture20]

"I cannot be deceived into thinking that I don't exist, for by thinking, I must exist, else who does the thinking?" Cogito ergo sum. Yes, I suppose distinction between oneself and the rest of reality might be an observation, but probably not the variety you meant.

Re:Fantastic idea

[phantomfive]

Yeah, I would say that an observation of one's self is very much an observation, although it is not a double-blind experiment which would give you more accurate results, in some cases a double-blind experiment is not possible.

In this particular case, I've always thought Descartes was making a rather large assumption, not an observation.....how does he know he is thinking and not someone else's dream?

Re:Fantastic idea

[ShakaUVM]

No, but neither do astronomers, cosmologists, epidemiologists, paleontologists...

The ability to run experiments is not a necessary condition for a field to be a science.

Alternative explanation: they are not science, but are science-y, and so people label them science. And I wouldn't even give epidemiology that much credit.

Personally, I think our current definitions are insufficient. Perhaps we need a new term, like "Statistical Science" to label things like climate science and epidemiology. There's indistinguishable in practice from what stats-based psychology and sociology people do, if you think about it, but you can't call them "Social Science" because they study the real world, instead of people.

Re:Fantastic idea

[ShakaUVM]

If you go with that definition, then economics and psychology are science.

In other words, if you're going to admit anyone that uses logic, observation, and rigorous statistics (but no experimentation) into the club of scientific disciplines, then you either have to admit nearly every discipline at a university, or nearly none of them.

As I said in my previous post, our current definitions are severely flawed. People who get a degree in Math at my university, get a Bachelor or Master of Arts, not science. But I'd argue that math guys use logic and, well, rigorous math more than nearly anyone else. Likewise, Philosophy people spend more time studying logic itself as a field than most science degrees, and likewise quite a bit of time making observations about the real world? Why is Philosophy not a science? People in economics do the same sort of modeling work, math, and observation that climate science people do, but they have an advantage in that they can often find natural experiments to prove or disprove their theories, whereas things like climatology, evolution, geology, etc. often have a hard time coming with actual experimental evidence.

Re:Fantastic idea

[TapeCutter]

"I think what you are saying is that if a model accurately predicts something, then the model is accurate"

Nope, I'm saying it's usefull. The Earth centric model lasted so long because it accurately predicted the motion of the moon and planets.

Re:Fantastic idea

[phantomfive]

True, I cannot dispute that usefulness is a good measurement of usefulness.

Re:Fantastic idea

[TapeCutter]

You have a talent for over simplifying.

Re:Fantastic idea

[phantomfive]

Oh, I'm not really trying to simplify, more trying to find common ground. I like looking at models as being derived from observation, and you like to look at them in a slightly different light. In practice, doing real science, I think it makes absolutely no difference whatsoever, but I think my way is pretty. :) Of course having a good model is useful, even if it is not entirely accurate, I can agree with that. And I think you can agree that observation is the 'bones' of science. The exact way they fit together is less important, I think.

Re:Fantastic idea

[TapeCutter]

I can agree that observation is a necassary but insuffient foundation. I like the Asimov quote - "The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' but 'That's funny'"

Even embarrassing ones?

[Asadullah Ahmad]

I hope they get some courage and post even the embarrassing results and experiments. Will remove the illusion that "Scientists" and "stupidity" can't appear in one sentence.

Re:Even embarrassing ones?

[crispytwo]

I would be willing to bet some witnesses or by-standards will have some stories... Sometimes those results are great memories!

Re:Even embarrassing ones?

[Asadullah Ahmad]

I doubt they will have the authority to get those stories published though. But they might get encouraged to post and discuss those somewhere else on Internet....

Problem is

[JanneM]

The problem with any change or reform of the publishing system is that publications are so important for the individual scientist. A paper isn't just a neat way to disseminate results. They are your work evaluation and your CV; they are keeping the score as it were. Where you publish and how often you publish directly determines where - or if - you work another year or two down the road.

And even a short paper takes a lot of time and effort to write. For an informal "don't do that; we tried and it didn't work"-email to a colleague you could just jot down three or four paragraphs after lunch. Make a paper out of it and you have weeks or more of work ahead of you - looking up other previous published reports on the same kind of experiment; doing your best to figure out and explain the exact causes; square your (lack of) results with the apparent success of other groups that did something similar; make neat, clear graphs and illustrations as needed; get formal permission from your lab and your funding agency (and your co-authors labs and funding sources) to actually publish the thing. Then revise and edit the paper multiple times after comments from your co-athours and reviewers.

So, getting good publications is vital for your ability to make rent and buy food for your family. Writing publications take a lot of time and effort - time that is pretty limited. So, even though the will to spread the word on a negative result may be there, chances is, writing it up will be relegated to the "when I've got a bit of spare time"-pile, where it will likely sit until well after retirement.

Technique X fails on problem Y.

[Anonymous Coward]

an article for the first issue? covers all questions

So are we talking:

Technique X fails on problem Y.

Sue all music downloads fails to stop piracy?

Hypothesis X can't be proven using method Y.

All music downloaders can't be proven to be pirates

Protocol X peforms poorly for task Y.

Suing all music downloaders performs poorly for stopping music piracy

Method X has unexpected fundamental limitations.

Forcing people to buy music only on CD / Tape / Vinyl doesn't appeal to all customers

While investigating X, you discovered Y

While trawling torrent log files for music pirates we also found some great porn

Model X can't capture the behavior of phenomenon Y.

Current Music Business Model can't capture the behaviour of generation Y

Failure X is explained by Y.

Failing to increase revenue is explained by $0.99 tracks on Apple (damn iPod users) an music pirates too (arrrgh!)

Assumption X doesn't hold in domain Y.

Assuming independant music stores will be profitable doesn't hold in the .com domain

Event X shouldn't happen, but it does.

People shouldn't want to listen to music for free (damn radio stations, ipods, internet)

Awesome! It's about time!

[Fantastic Lad]

This is a fantastic idea! It takes a great deal of strength to do this; one has to learn how to have fun and ignore the pangs of the ego.

James Burke's Connections was based on similar philosophy. Non-linear thinking is a very powerful method of moving through time. Many geeks live in the clutches of an obsessive desire to control everything so that they don't get hurt by being wrong. If they could just relax and roll with the ups and downs and not be so hard on themselves, not care if they are laughed at, then they would find their power and perhaps start living lives of consequence.

One university professor described an enormously powerful way of doing research; When you're up against a wall, seeking fruitlessly to find a specific title to continue your line of thinking, instead just pull out some random book nearby. Doesn't even have to be from the same shelf or Dewey code. It will have the answer. -But only if you're tuned to your inner Jedi.

Those who deny their inner Jedi are forever lost. But the upside, I guess, is that nobody will laugh at them.

-FL

Signal to noise

[LockeOnLogic]

Most failed results have no useful knowledge in them. Having a huge amount of them is less useful that it sounds.

Re:Signal to noise

[dex22]

Just like your post, then. ;)

Re:Signal to noise

[Ignatius D'Lusional]

Sometimes the noise is the result of too many signals at once; if you can't decipher the meaningful data from the meaningless, the transmission will often be ignored completely. Seeing that other people have already done what you have done helps you to determine the overall accuracy of your experiment in terms of relative experiences, and may even spark people to do *only* things that have not yet been tried yet. It's just a matter of collecting and sharing all of the "negative" data that has and will be published.

This is a great idea!

[Dr_Ish]

One of the things that many scientists lack, is a good grounding in the Philosophy of Science. The public version of science, largely pushed by science teachers has an origin in the Vienna Circle of Logical Positivists. This is now largely known to be problematic, but is still the prevailing view. Folks should read Feyerabend's *Against Method* , or Ravetz's *Scientific Knowledge and Its Social Problems* for a more realistic view.

As a scientist, I can also tell tales about how the scientific method gets distorted by ideology. When I was in grad school, I was working on a complex set of problems that were a horror -- a week doing eight hours a day pumping numbers into a scientific calculator is not my idea of fun. However, back then, it was a necessary evil. So, I was about to have to do another horror week with the calculator, which I did not want to do, so I was wasting time and did something silly. It turned out to be a great idea. It gave a whole new method to solve the problem type at hand. A number of other people had a hand in the final paper, but I got to be first author. Unfortunately, as only one author amongst many. The paper made claims about the hypotheses that was being tested, I objected very strongly to this -- there was no hypothesis, but we just got lucky. However, there is a paper with my name on in, published in the 20th Century, that contains claims about what we discovered which are false, at least with respect to hypotheses and all that stuff, in order to ensure that we were following someones idea of the scientific method. It irks me even today. Fortunately, a book about the issue now gives a more accurate account. However, there is no doubt that scientific ideology can drive out the truth. Thus, what is proposed here is a good idea. Telling the truth (even if it does not conform to the ideologically driven official method) is something I teach my grad students even today.

Re:This is a great idea!

[AthanasiusKircher]

One of the things that many scientists lack, is a good grounding in the Philosophy of Science. The public version of science, largely pushed by science teachers has an origin in the Vienna Circle of Logical Positivists. This is now largely known to be problematic, but is still the prevailing view.

Thanks so much for pointing this out. It never ceases to amaze me how many scientists seem to believe blindly in some sort of simplified method taught in middle school or the interesting, but ultimately useless, Popperian epistemology.

Is it really that complicated to understand that "falsifiability" is only a useful concept (and a somewhat limited one at that) for describing the process of testing hypotheses that are already formulated, but it gives almost no guidance about how to come up with such hypotheses in the first place? With such a "method," how could scientific progress ever happen?

Such a "method" is not supported by any reasonable empirical study of the history of science. It's sort of ironic that with all the data available about how scientific advances actually seem to work, scientists believe in a paradigm of their own discipline that doesn't describe the evidence.

Re:This is a great idea!

[khallow]

Thanks so much for pointing this out. It never ceases to amaze me how many scientists seem to believe blindly in some sort of simplified method taught in middle school or the interesting, but ultimately useless, Popperian epistemology.

An alternate hypothesis here is that you are wrong in some important way. Given that Popperian epistemology isn't ultimately useless, I'd start with that.

Re:This is a great idea!

[ShakaUVM]

>>Thanks so much for pointing this out. It never ceases to amaze me how many scientists seem to believe blindly in some sort of simplified method taught in middle school or the interesting, but ultimately useless, Popperian epistemology.

Yeah, I've never understood why people prefer Popper's fetishistic focus on falsifiability to define what is "scientific", especially given what a large percentage of our knowledge is not falsifiable.

Consider:
I observe a comet through my telescope and I see it explode as it gets near the sun. Nobody else was watching it at the time.

Most people would claim this is a "scientific observation". However, by Popper, it's not falsifiable (there's no way of proving that I'm not just lying about it), so it's not a "scientific" statement.

Therefore, I conclude that Popper's definition is full of shit.

Re:This is a great idea!

[Shipud]

"Philosophers, incidentally, say a great deal about what is absolutely necessary for science, and it is always, so far as one can see, rather naive, and probably wrong. For example, some philosopher or other said it is fundamental to the scientific effort that if an experiment is performed in, say, Stockholm, and then the same experiment is done in, say, Quito, the same results must occur. That is quite false. It is not necessary that science do that; it may be a fact of experience, but it is not necessary. For example, if one of the experiments is to look out at the sky and see the aurora borealis in Stockholm, you do not see it in Quito; that is a different phenomenon. 'But,' you say, 'that is something that has to do with the outside; can you close yourself up in a box in Stockholm and pull down the shade and get any difference?' Surely. If we take a pendulum on a universal joint, and pull it out and let go, then the pendulum will swing almost in a plane, but not quite. Slowly the plane keeps changing in Stockholm, but not in Quito. The blinds are down too. The fact that this happened does not bring on the destruction of science. What is the fundamental hypothesis of science, the fundamental philosophy? We stated it in the first chapter: the sole test of the validity of any idea is the experiment." -- (Lecture 2, Basic Physics, from the Feynman Lectures on Physics)

Re:This is a great idea!

[AndersOSU]

Watching something isn't scientific observation.

Saying I saw a comet explode isn't science.

Saying I saw a comet explode as it neared the sun is getting close because now you're hypothesizing that the sun had something to do with it.

Saying, "the comet exploded due to the melting of water ice as it neared the sun, similar comets should explode as they near the sun as water ice appears to be a fundamental structural element" is science because now you're making testable and falsifiable statements about the comets in general. Now scientific community didn't have to see your comet, they just have to see a comet with similar conditions.

All we have to do is wait for a comet that matches your description fly close to the sun and see if the same thing happens again. What's more future observers can do more detailed observation and get a better sense of the comets composition before it explodes - maybe it wasn't water but thermal stresses due to heating of dissimilar materials that broke it up, but because you made a scientific statement, now the scientific community knows at least to watch for comets as they get near the sun, because something interesting might happen. Even if you're wrong, it's still science. This is important, the public ought to realize that science is a process, not The Ultimate Truth.

It gets a touch harder with historical sciences like evolution, "the raptor evolved into the chicken," is a scientific statement because I can test it with DNA for example, but I can't say why evolution chose that particular course, nor can I say if under the same conditions something resembling a raptor will evolve into something resembling a chicken. What I can say is that the two are related and when I make my Jurassic Park lets use chicken DNA instead of african frog DNA to fill in the missing pieces, it's a closer match and if anything is going to work chicken DNA will (also chickens don't spontaneously change sex - although I am concerned with the possibility of raptors with wings.)

The hallmark of science is the development of models that yield useful information, but the only way to know if the model is right is to test it - which is why Popper and everyone else is so obsessed with falsifiability.

Re:This is a great idea!

[AthanasiusKircher]

Given that Popperian epistemology isn't ultimately useless, I'd start with that.

Have you read the philosophy of science stuff mentioned by the GP (or other similar stuff)? If not, take some time to do that before assuming I'm just a troll.

I'm not saying that Popper's falsifiability criterion isn't a helpful simplification, or that there aren't other aspects of Popper that don't have great insight. What's I'm saying is that if you try to use Popper as the sole basis for your epistemology, i.e., the complete theory of how you get your knowledge about the world, you'll find his theories are hopelessly incomplete... not to mention (as I said) an inaccurate fit when you look at the way science actually develops in practice.

There have been hundreds, if not thousands, of books written on the philosophy of science in the past century, most of them since Popper. Obviously if the issues were all resolved by one simple idea from Karl Popper, people would have stopped writing. They haven't.

Re:This is a great idea!

[AthanasiusKircher]

Thanks for a very good explanation of a lot of these things.

The hallmark of science is the development of models that yield useful information, but the only way to know if the model is right is to test it - which is why Popper and everyone else is so obsessed with falsifiability.

Exactly. I think people misunderstood my previous post as saying that falsifiability is useless. (Because that's all people tend to know about Popper.) It's not. It's a simple model, and the way things actually work is more complicated, but it's not a bad place to begin.

Instead, what I said is that Popper's epistemology isn't ultimately enough for us to understand the world. It isn't enough to make scientific advances or to predict which theories will win out within science. You touch on a similar point when you say, "the public ought to realize that science is a process, not The Ultimate Truth." I completely agree. And that process is a very complex social one, and one that requires creativity, political wrangling, not to mention dealing with competing research programs that may believe in different assumptions. Popper's simple criterion may be a good place to start understanding how science works, but in practice it is much more complicated.

Re:This is a great idea!

[khallow]

Have you read the philosophy of science stuff mentioned by the GP (or other similar stuff)? If not, take some time to do that before assuming I'm just a troll.

No, but I will.

I'm not saying that Popper's falsifiability criterion isn't a helpful simplification, or that there aren't other aspects of Popper that don't have great insight. What's I'm saying is that if you try to use Popper as the sole basis for your epistemology, i.e., the complete theory of how you get your knowledge about the world, you'll find his theories are hopelessly incomplete... not to mention (as I said) an inaccurate fit when you look at the way science actually develops in practice.

I guess what bugs me here is the rhetorical exaggeration. An "inaccurate fit" seems an appropriate description. "Hopelessly incomplete" does not. Nor does the phrase "ultimately useless" which triggered my original complaint. I'm not claiming that Popper doesn't have problems, I'm merely pointing out that his ideas remain useful. I imagine any serious discussion of knowledge-seeking descendants of the scientific method, millennia from now, will still include Popperian ideas in there.

There have been hundreds, if not thousands, of books written on the philosophy of science in the past century, most of them since Popper. Obviously if the issues were all resolved by one simple idea from Karl Popper, people would have stopped writing. They haven't.

There have been thousands of books written on introductory calculus in the past few decades, which hasn't significantly changed in the past century (it's not until you get to differential forms and Lebesgue integration that you start to cover relatively new ground). A subject doesn't have to have significant issues in order for books to continue to be written.

Re:This is a great idea!

[ShakaUVM]

>>Saying I saw a comet explode isn't science.
>>Saying, "the comet exploded due to the melting of water ice as it neared the sun, similar comets should explode as they near the sun as water ice appears to be a fundamental structural element"

And this is where the general public would disagree with you, and (I'm guessing), most of the scientific community. Experimentation and observation are key components of what most people would define to be "science". If you go back to the grade school model of the scientific method, what you're focusing on is hypothesis development, to the exclusion of experimentation and observation. However, if this is the first time anyone saw a comet explode, I don't have enough facts to claim that it blew up for whatever reason. I publish a paper on my observation, and, over time, perhaps enough evidence will be collected that a hypothesis can be generated. This is how science actually works. You start with experiments and observations and generate theories from there.

The trouble with Popperism is that by fetishistically focusing on falsifiability as the criterion for scientific statements, this means that claiming "I saw a comet explode" is not a scientific statement, even though, as we just established, it is a critical part of the scientific process. And if it's unusual enough (I saw a burst of gamma rays before the star went supernova!) it is worth a scientific paper on its own.

>>It gets a touch harder with historical sciences like evolution, "the raptor evolved into the chicken," is a scientific statement because I can test it with DNA for example

Right, evolution is also not science, by Popper. It is a verifiable theory (I can see if DNA matches up in ways that would be predicted by evolution), but it is impossible to falsify.

That's why I think that the whole Popper thing is nonsense - I think both verifiability and falsifiability should be used, not just falsifiability.

>>The hallmark of science is the development of models that yield useful information, but the only way to know if the model is right is to test it

And by this statement, I think you agree with me.

Re:This is a great idea!

[AndersOSU]

Experimentation and observation are necessary, but not sufficient for an activity to be science. (Note: experimentation can include so-called "natural experiments" a la darwin)

I'm not excluding observation - if you don't actually watch the comet explode, but try to develop a model you're not doing science either - i.e. my post wasn't science.

Under no circumstances is saying, "I say a comet explode" science. There are tons of comets, and you have to give us some idea of why this one exploded - even if you were just watching on a whim I bet you have some data you can use to piece together a theory. Was the tail getting brighter immediately before the exploded, did the comet just emerge from a planetary shadow, can you calculate the trajectory and determine if it's ever passed the sun without incident? Saying that an apple fell from a tree is really mundane observation. Noticing, for the first time, that the all objects accelerate toward the ground at a constant rate is a pretty phenomenal scientific discovery.

evolution is also not science

Really? What kind of experiment did you perform on your comet watching expedition that makes you so sure it's science? More important than the double-blind experiment is the theoretical framework. Science absolutely must have either explanatory power or must make a general statement. "Some comets explode" isn't science. "Some comets with composition x explode when heated" is. "All comets contain water even though I don't know why" is also science. "Some birds have big beaks" isn't science. "Some birds evolved large beaks when presented an abundance of hard nuts" is.

Re:This is a great idea!

[AndersOSU]

if you don't actually watch the comet explode, but try to develop a model you're not doing science either

Just to clarify, science must rely on observation - you don't actually have to be the guy watching the experiment to do science.

For an interesting edge case vis-a-vis observation, consider Einstein. Some of his important predictions were only observed and confirmed well after the theory was established, sometimes well after he died (e.g. frame dragging). Does that mean that Einstein wasn't a scientist? Hardly. But this is so much more the exception than the rule that we can carve out a special case for him.

Re:This is a great idea!

[ShakaUVM]

>>Under no circumstances is saying, "I say a comet explode" science.

It's part of science, it is not the entire scientific process. The standard Kuhnian model goes something like this:
1) We have a theoretical framework
2) Observations and experiments are conducted. If they agree, nothing changes. If they disagree with theory, pressure builds up
3) When enough pressure builds up, a paradigm shift occurs, and people reject the old framework (luminiferous aether, whatever) and adopt a new framework.
4) Repeat

You're just focusing on the theoretical framework part of it. As you said, Einstein developed a theoretical framework based solely on a thought experiment about "what if the speed of light is the same in all reference frames" and developed his whole theory using math from there. Which was an amazing achievement. But if the Michelson/Morely experiment had come out as people expected, relativity would have been rejected. So you really need both.

The point is, a lot of what we call "science" don't do experimentation in any real sense, but rather just look at stats and try to extrapolate conclusions from them. If you call Climate Science science, then you have to call Economics science. Contrawise, if you claim Economics is not science, then you have to say that Climate Science is not science. I don't think you can have it both ways.

I think there's something inherently contradictory about our current notions of science, and what I consider the false division between sciences and the arts. What Einstein did back in 1905 was an entirely mathematical activity, devoid of any experimentation and observation at all, so I'd classify it more as math than physics. So he should have been (by our current bizarre way of dividing up fields in universities) a Professor of the Arts, instead of a Professor of the Sciences. And if it sounds wrong that the father of relativity should be considered not a scientist, well, that's exactly my point.

Re:This is a great idea!

[hicksw]

... although I am concerned with the possibility of raptors with wings...

like owls? eagles? falcons?

Re:This IS a great idea, and the cause of our fail

[plover]

If we ONLY publish and peer review our successes, our failures and errata is discarded.

In this data could be a LOT of really amazing potential, given peer review and continuance.

No wonder we don't have a theory of everything yet, we're not looking at nearly all the data.

Hmm. With the additions of Facebook and Twitter, the web is now essentially a compendium of 99% failures and errata. And according to your hypothesis, we should still find some amazing potential in it. I think you're on to something.

Bravo!

[CranberryKing]

A refreshing perspective in a world of agenda oriented science. Anyone who's ever had a hunch that turned up false knows such disappointment. Less we forget that the spirit of science is about discovery, knowledge and truth first. Being right, dead last.

Great scientists weren't very scientific

[syousef]

Einstein wasted the last half of his life on wishful thinking "God does not play dice". Well turns out we're pretty sure he does. See Bell's theorum which shows that it can't just be hidden variables. And by all accounts for a theoretical physicist he sucked at advanced math.

Isaac Newton was a horrible little man. Ill tempered, neurotic, and did wild experiments that he was lucky didn't blind him. Let's not forget the nastiness with Leibniz.

Galileo had the social skills of a village idiot which led to the suppression of his work and his imprisonment by the authorities that he angered. (They were idiots too but that's beside the point)

They're three of the greatest but I could go on.

We like to pretend our scientists are great men with a couple of eccentricities that are way too smart to socialise or tolerate fools but the fact is their thinking isn't so superior OR logical OR scientific EXCEPT in their areas of expertise. THAT is why they are remembered. Not because they were above being unscientific.

Re:Great scientists weren't very scientific

[Anonymous Coward]

So much truth I almost want to cry.

Re:Great scientists weren't very scientific

[Evelas]

God does not play dice with the universe, he plays Go. - W. Taylor

Re:Great scientists weren't very scientific

[Anonymous Coward]

which shows that it can't just be hidden variables

Einstein may still have been correct.

Bell's Theorem proved that the effects of quantum physics cannot be both deterministic (hidden variables) AND adhere to the Principle of Locality. There are indications that the Principle of Locality is incorrect.

Re:Great scientists weren't very scientific

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet everyone knows who those people are, but nobody knows who you are. Why is that?

Re:Great scientists weren't very scientific

[syousef]

Einstein may still have been correct. Bell's Theorem proved that the effects of quantum physics cannot be both deterministic (hidden variables) AND adhere to the Principle of Locality. There are indications that the Principle of Locality is incorrect.

It doesn't matter if he's right or not. His belief was not based on science. It was based on him being unable to look at other possibilities. Ironic for a man that revolutionised physics.

Re:Great scientists weren't very scientific

[ShakaUVM]

>>See Bell's theorum which shows that it can't just be hidden variables.

No, it means there's (probably) no NON-LOCAL hidden variables. Given that nobody really understands what happens during wavefunction collapse (or rather, the mechanism behind it), it's hard to say that he's necessarily wrong. Quantum Mechanics are deeply weird, and science has been getting by describing how they work, rather than why.

I'm not sure why you're trying to claim that scientists can't use intuition in science - if that were the case, nothing would ever get done. He put forth the EPR Paradox, and experimentation eventually proved it wrong. That's how science is supposed to go.

On the other side, Hoyle famously rejected the notion of the Big Bang because he believed it would imply God existed, and he fought tooth and nail against it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hoyle#Rejection_of_the_Big_Bang

>>Isaac Newton was a horrible little man. Ill tempered, neurotic, and did wild experiments that he was lucky didn't blind him. Let's not forget the nastiness with Leibniz.

Scientists can't get into nasty academic arguments? Really.

>>Galileo had the social skills of a village idiot

Scientists have to have social skills, now? What planet do you live on?

Your claim that these guys were not scientific may be valid (Galileo ignored evidence in favor of his theory), but your arguments against them have nothing to do with anything.

Re:Great scientists weren't very scientific

[nine-times]

Well I might argue that the people you're talking about weren't even "scientists" in the modern sense. What they practiced might be better described as natural philosophy. It's not as though Einstein was remembered for his lab experiments. Essentially his innovation was that he re-imagined what it meant to "measure" something.

Re:Great scientists weren't very scientific

[nine-times]

It doesn't matter if he's right or not. His belief was not based on science.

Well how on earth is your belief supposed to be "based on science" when there isn't adequate scientific proof?

Re:Great scientists weren't very scientific

[pclminion]

Your argument might have smelled more honest if you had included at least one counterexample, for instance Richard Feynman. Beyond his sheer brilliance, the man was committed to thinking scientifically in every one of his life endeavors (except maybe his divergences into art) and worked diligently to communicate the principles of scientific thinking to every student he ever came in contact with.

Re:Great scientists weren't very scientific

[syousef]

Well how on earth is your belief supposed to be "based on science" when there isn't adequate scientific proof?

Your belief shouldn't blind you to other possibilities, and should be consistent with the known facts.

Re:Great scientists weren't very scientific

[syousef]

No, it means there's (probably) no NON-LOCAL hidden variables. Given that nobody really understands what happens during wavefunction collapse (or rather, the mechanism behind it), it's hard to say that he's necessarily wrong. Quantum Mechanics are deeply weird, and science has been getting by describing how they work, rather than why.

Why should Quantum mechanics - something well beyond our everday experience - not be weird? You think Relativity is intuitive?

I'm not sure why you're trying to claim that scientists can't use intuition in science - if that were the case, nothing would ever get done. He put forth the EPR Paradox, and experimentation eventually proved it wrong. That's how science is supposed to go. ...and I'm not sure why you're trying to create a straw man. Intuition in science is fine. I'm not claiming that you can't use it. I'm saying that when all the other facts point to your intutition being wrong, you shouldn't spend half your life refusing to investigate the alternatives. THAT is unscientific.

On the other side, Hoyle famously rejected the notion of the Big Bang because he believed it would imply God existed, and he fought tooth and nail against it.

Not the other side at all. It is another example of allowing superstition to dictate what you choose to investigate and which facts you choose to accept. Very unscientific.

Scientists can't get into nasty academic arguments? Really.

Scientists are engaging in petty human squabbles and not science when they do so. Really.

Scientists have to have social skills, now? What planet do you live on?

A good scientist knows how to collaborate with others, and if you extend scientific method into your everyday life you find it's irrational to politically shoot yourself in the foot. All true on earth.

Your claim that these guys were not scientific may be valid (Galileo ignored evidence in favor of his theory), but your arguments against them have nothing to do with anything.

How very unscientific of you. Everything has to do with something. Now put your petty sarcasm away.

Re:Great scientists weren't very scientific

[syousef]

Well I might argue that the people you're talking about weren't even "scientists" in the modern sense. What they practiced might be better described as natural philosophy. It's not as though Einstein was remembered for his lab experiments. Essentially his innovation was that he re-imagined what it meant to "measure" something.

Since when is a theoretician not a scientist? Only an experimental scientist is going to be remembered for his experiments. Most of the time modern experiments are too complex for lay people to understand., and require large collaborative efforts. How many of the scientists and engineers that worked on the Large Hadron Collider do you know by name?

Re:Great scientists weren't very scientific

[syousef]

Enough of your Feynman worship. He was very good at what he did, but was a womaniser and a drunk - certainly after he lost his first wife. Have you read one of the biographies on Feynman? I have. He also took unnecessary risks with his career for a basic ego trip (like showing up security theatre on the military base he worked on for the atom bomb) Furthermore his lectures aren't universally accepted as great. Some people think believe them to be long winded and confusing.

Personally I think he was as good as any other great scientist, but as an example of someone who lived with logical consistency you're not going to find a good one in a scientist.

Re:Great scientists weren't very scientific

[nine-times]

Known facts? You just acknowledged that Einstein may have been right. The facts still aren't known, so I don't see how his view was supposed to be "based on science".

Good scientists base their views on what they think makes sense. Evidence and scientific studies serve to educate that sensibility of "what makes sense," but scientists aren't supposed to go, "Oh, this makes no sense to me, but someone proposed a theory that hasn't been proven yet, so I have to accept it."

Saying "God does not play dice," is a bit theatrical, but his statement wasn't a crazy faith-based assertion. What he's saying is that he can't make sense of a universe based on probability rather than actual existence, and so he doesn't believe that we live in such a universe.

Re:Great scientists weren't very scientific

[nine-times]

Since when is a theoretician not a scientist?

Depends on the level that they're theorizing. Are they working within the framework of "modern science working the way we think it works"? Or are they completely rewriting the way we think it works on a fundamental level?

I'm not saying a scientist's work all takes place in a lab, but Einstein's most famous achievement wasn't so much in his reworking of a mathematical equation, tweaking an existing theory, working in a lab, or going through anything that we would call "the scientific method". His achievement was in taking a step back and asking, "What do we mean when we say two things a 5 miles apart? What are we really doing when we measure things?"

Now you can call that science, but really it fits more into a particular branch of philosophy.

Re:Great scientists weren't very scientific

[ShakaUVM]

>>How very unscientific of you. Everything has to do with something. Now put your petty sarcasm away.

I think you're confusing "unscientific" with "everything that annoys syousef". If a scientist gets into an argument with another scientist over priority (and who published first IS related to science, whether you like it or not) annoys syousef, therefore, by definition, it is not science. Even though it is. Scientists working on their own are not scientists! Syousef says so!

Do you realize how uninformed you sound?

>>I'm saying that when all the other facts point to your intutition being wrong, you shouldn't spend half your life refusing to investigate the alternatives. THAT is unscientific.

Your only valid point is when people ignore conclusive evidence in favor of personal beliefs, that is unscientific.

But you are apparently ignorant of the fact that Bell's Theorem was published a decade after Einstein's death, and actual experiments came even later, so your claim that "Einstein argued the last half of his life against it" is completely fucking preposterous. Arguing for a position before conclusive experimental evidence comes in against it is completely scientific, which you'd understand if you understood anything.

Re:Great scientists weren't very scientific

[syousef]

Now you can call that science, but really it fits more into a particular branch of philosophy.

You can call it rock climbing for all I care. You're wrong, and public opinion certainly isn't with you. Very few people would agree with you that Einstein wasn't a scientist. By the way his work made specific testable predictions and if that isn't part of the scientific method I don't know what is.

Re:Great scientists weren't very scientific

[syousef]

Known facts? You just acknowledged that Einstein may have been right. The facts still aren't known, so I don't see how his view was supposed to be "based on science".

Look again. I acknowledged that a couple of posts ago, but if he was right he was right by accident.

There are lots of facts that ARE known, such as the way sub-atomic particles behave. He refused to accept this. He refused to study theories that could predict it. Instead he isolated himself from everyone and looked for something that's still quite likely isn't there.

Good scientists base their views on what they think makes sense.

Horse shit. They base their views on an understanding, true. But that understanding must be based on evidence grounded in the real world. Refusing to accept something because it doesn't make sense when it's outside your arena of experience is stupid. The irony is that Einsteins own theories weren't accepted because people believed they didn't make sense. However when it was found that the world behaved in accordance to his theory, the theory was accepted. Yet when he was presented with evidence of the world behaving as he did not expect it he came out with drivel like "God does not play dice" and called it "spooky action at a distance".

Saying "God does not play dice," is a bit theatrical, but his statement wasn't a crazy faith-based assertion. What he's saying is that he can't make sense of a universe based on probability rather than actual existence, and so he doesn't believe that we live in such a universe.

Yes. He was denying reality, in preference for how he believes the world SHOULD work to make him feel good. That is the definition of a crazy faith based assertion.

Re:Great scientists weren't very scientific

[syousef]

I think you're confusing "unscientific" with "everything that annoys syousef"

I think you're confusing straw men and ad hominem with an actual counter argument.

If a scientist gets into an argument with another scientist over priority (and who published first IS related to science, whether you like it or not) annoys syousef, therefore, by definition, it is not science. Even though it is. Scientists working on their own are not scientists! Syousef says so!

Lets add a little bit of a straw man to that ad hominem, since you're incapable of an actual refutation that isn't filled with weak drivel.

Do you realize how uninformed you sound?

Do you realise what a sarcastic self righteous prick that can't make a point without getting personal you are? I'm uninformed to masters level, but don't let actual facts get in the way of your arguments.

Your only valid point is when people ignore conclusive evidence in favor of personal beliefs, that is unscientific.

Thanks for acknowledging a valid point, but I think you missed the others that I made.

But you are apparently ignorant of the fact that Bell's Theorem was published a decade after Einstein's death, and actual experiments came even later, so your claim that "Einstein argued the last half of his life against it" is completely fucking preposterous

Talk about uninformed. His own colleagues thought he had isolated himself and wasted his life well before Bell's theorum. I didn't say that they considered that he wasted half his life BECAUSE of Bell's theorum, though that is arguably the consensus now. (Bell's theorum doesn't help).

What would you know about the scientific method. You've proven you can't even argue logically. Nothing but a combination of straw men, reductio ad aburdum and ad hominem. Gimme a break.

Re:Great scientists weren't very scientific

[ShakaUVM]

The EPR Paradox argument was correct. Are you claiming it is not?

Pretending that everyone knew Bell's Theorem 20 years before it was even written means you don't have the slightest fucking clue of what you're talking about.

You're pretending the scientific method has something to do with being nice to people, collaborating with others, and knowing ahead of time which way science will fall out. By this standard, I think you're looking for a nice, socialist, psychic, not a scientist.

Re:Great scientists weren't very scientific

[nine-times]

Oh no, public opinion isn't with me? That must mean that I'm wrong, because public opinion is always right.

His work resulted in testable predictions, but he didn't really do any of the testing. The "scientific method" as we normally talk about it doesn't consist entirely of making a hypothesis.

Re:Great scientists weren't very scientific

[nine-times]

There are lots of facts that ARE known, such as the way sub-atomic particles behave. He refused to accept this.

AFAIK he didn't refuse to believe that they behaved the way that they did, but rather he refused to believe a hypothesis put forward as an explanation for why they behaved that way.

The irony is that Einsteins own theories weren't accepted because people believed they didn't make sense. However when it was found that the world behaved in accordance to his theory, the theory was accepted.

Well that's not quite what happened. People who didn't read his work or didn't understand it didn't accept it because they didn't think it made sense. However, his arguments were quite good, and they do make a lot of sense if you understand them. His theories were accepted (and even praised) well before they were proven with any kind of experiment.

Yet when he was presented with evidence of the world behaving as he did not expect it he came out with drivel like "God does not play dice" and called it "spooky action at a distance".

He wasn't merely presented with evidence of the world behaving as he didn't expect it. Some of his work helped create the field of quantum mechanics. He didn't refuse to believe the phenomena that were observed in these experiments, he merely disagreed with certain hypotheses of what the reality behind the phenomena might be.

And those hypotheses still aren't proven. It's not unscientific to disbelieve unproven hypotheses. It's certainly not "denying reality".

On a side note, I find it funny that the idea of "denying reality" seems to offend you so much while you're in the process of espousing a theory that, if you look closely enough, there is no single "reality" to the universe-- that it's all probability.

Re:Great scientists weren't very scientific

[syousef]

Your dismissal of all theoretical work as not being science is just plain ridiculous. I see no point in arguing further.

Re:Great scientists weren't very scientific

[syousef]

AFAIK he didn't refuse to believe that they behaved the way that they did, but rather he refused to believe a hypothesis put forward as an explanation for why they behaved that way.

AFAIK he refused to even look at the math.

His theories were accepted (and even praised) well before they were proven with any kind of experiment.

Nonsense. He only became famous outside of scientific circles after General Relativity's predicitons regarding the bending of starlight were proven. He then suddenly became an over night sensation.

I really don't see the point in arguing with you further. You have your facts wrong and are basically talking out of the wrong hole. I don't have any more time for you.

Re:Great scientists weren't very scientific

[syousef]

Pretending that everyone knew Bell's Theorem 20 years before it was even written means you don't have the slightest fucking clue of what you're talking about.

Well it would, if that is the view I held. Straw men and ad hominem don't change what I said, and at no point did I say that Bell's theorum was known 20 years before it was written. It's just that you're too obtuse to understand what I actually said.

You're pretending the scientific method has something to do with being nice to people, collaborating with others, and knowing ahead of time which way science will fall out. By this standard, I think you're looking for a nice, socialist, psychic, not a scientist.

So you think it's more logical to be a nasty fuckwit who can't collaborate? That's your vision of a true scientist? Anyone who's nice must be a psychic? That is so completely twisted that it makes you look foolish. Most of science is collaboration and communication. The nutty professor ideal has long had it's day.

Have a nice life. I'm not wasting my time with you anymore.

Re:Great scientists weren't very scientific

[ShakaUVM]

>>The nutty professor ideal has long had it's day.

You know Einstein basically derived all of relativity theory from two basic starting principles:
1) That physics are the same in all reference frames and
2) The speed of light is the same in all reference frames

And why did he start here? Because he had an intuition that the world was a rational, orderly place. It might not have been right about local reality, but if not for this intuition (which you refuse to acknowledge as part of the scientific process) he wouldn't have developed his theory.

>>So you think it's more logical to be a nasty fuckwit who can't collaborate?

I'm saying you're confused. You can be a nasty fuckwit of a scientist, or a wonderfully collaborative scientist. And beating up on Einstein because he was wrong about local realism 20 years before it was proven not to be true is an unrealistic ideal to hold anyone up to.

Re:Great scientists weren't very scientific

[nine-times]

So you're saying that he only became famous *outside of scientific circles*. So a guy develops an amazing theory that completely changes the way we look at the world, though people who understand the theory is blown away and accepts that it's probably right, the laymen who don't understand wait for harder evidence. That's hardly arguing with me.

Re:Great scientists weren't very scientific

[nine-times]

And yet you posted just to say that...? Seems like you have to have the last word even when you don't have an argument.

I'm not saying theoretical work is "not science", I'm saying that science works within an ontological framework, whereas natural philosophy is the development of that framework. If someone is rewriting that framework with thought experiments and abstract reasoning rather than going through the process that we call "the scientific method", then though many people might call him a "scientist", in a much stricter sense he's not.

It's not a novel distinction that I'm making. Look it up.

Re:Great scientists weren't very scientific

[syousef]

You basically just made the exact point I made in my original response to the thread. The scientist is famous and remembered for the contribution they make to their field of expertise. However that scientist can be a complelely unscientific person outside of their breakthrough contribution. My point is that a true scientist doesn't refuse to believe reality or insist that because it feels good to his intuition that something ought to be true he continue to fight the truth, and that a good scientist collaborates (even more so today than before)

Don't fucking lecture me about Einstein's postulates. I've done the basic derivations and understand them. His postulates would have been considered ridiculous based on everyday observation. Someone else would have said "God does not mandate a cosmic speed limit". Then he turns around and is unable to accept other oddities of the universe.

Re:Great scientists weren't very scientific

[ShakaUVM]

>>...a good scientist collaborates (even more so today than before)

>>Don't fucking lecture me about Einstein's postulates. I've done the basic derivations and understand them.

Then why on earth do you think that people working alone are "unscientific"? Was Einstein's work unscientific because he didn't publish special relativity with 20 authors on it? You hold a very contradictory set of beliefs.

Being "scientific" means that you generally make experiments/observations and/or develop theoretical frameworks, all of which in a logical or empirical fashion. That's it. Nothing more. Whether you shower or not, or publish papers with 1 author or 20, or investigate theories that might turn out to be total nonsense (see for instance String Theory), or are a nice person or a total jerk, doesn't have anything to do with being "scientific" or not. I'm sure I'd much rather be around the Feynmans of the world than the Gell-manns, but they're both great scientists.

Re:Great scientists weren't very scientific

[Anonymous Coward]

Einstein's objections to QM were a bit more profound than you give him credit for. His thinking was extremely nuanced and productive, even if he was wrong.

failed experiment

[InlawBiker]

Don't date Wendy from the admissions office. Spectacular failure.

Re:failed experiment

[jamesh]

And you are basing this on one datum? Have you learned NOTHING??? Go back and try again and see if you get the same outcome.

Re:failed experiment

[Anonymous Coward]

And you are basing this on one datum? Have you learned NOTHING??? Go back and try again and see if you get the same outcome.

If the outcome was an emotional black hole, it means everything got sucked into it, and so there's nothing left to repeat it with.

Re:failed experiment

[amicusNYCL]

Sadly, past failures have forever tainted the sample.

Re:failed experiment

[Hurricane78]

Since we haven’t invented a time machine yet (working on it ;)... since Wendy’s state is not resettable, unless there was a massive amount of alcohol involved the first time, which already resetted it (wish I had that option the day after the date with her!)... and since there is only one Wendy just like her (oh thank god for that one!)... going back is not an option. You can only try with the accumulated state.

What would we put up our butts?

[You'reJustSlashFlock]

LED flashlights?

Mod humanity

[shadowbearer]

Redundant.

  Well, duh.

SB

"what not work".

[Tei]

Maybe on that list of things that "not work" are things that never worked because the experiment was not well designed.

Is my undestanding that the democracy world is better because we don't firmly control what people experiment. So people are free to try things that "don't work".

Old Problem

[RobinEggs]

Trouble is, this knowledge is not shared using the usual method of scientific communication: the peer-reviewed article. It remains within the lab, or at the most shared informally among close colleagues. As it stands, the scientific culture discourages sharing negative results.

This sort of complaint goes back a very long ways, and it's certainly as good a time as any to address it head on.

We have a habit in writing articles published in scientific journals to make the work as finished as possible, to cover all the tracks, to not worry about the blind alleys or to describe how you had the wrong idea first, and so on. So there isn't any place to publish, in a dignified manner, what you actually did in order to get to do the work, although, there has been in these days, some interest in this kind of thing.

- Richard Feynman, Nobel Prize Acceptance Lecture, 1965

Call for co-authors

[jbatista]

OK, I have an idea for an article. "Experiments on Seduction: Why 'Just Be Yourself' Is a Bad Idea. Personal Recounts and Anedoctes." Abstract: Friends and relatives often dispense wisdom on the subject of seduction of members of the opposite sex by stating "Just be yourself". In this paper we provide evidence for the failure of this conventional wisdom and provide alternate explanations to its failure. Who wants to co-author?

More of the same?

[Anonymous Coward]

Such a journal already exists for biomedicine:

http://www.jnrbm.com/

Re:This IS a great idea, and the cause of our fail

[Ruke]

You may joke, but facebook is a data-mining goldmine. Never before have advertisers had such free access to the personal lives of the very people they hope to sell their products to.

Re:Mod humanity people by country

[MistrX]

Troll.

Ofcourse.

All the mystery goes to one journal

[physburn]

If it lives up to its title they be to much fun stuff, and to much mystery in this one journal. All the experiments which don't turn out like it was predicting will end up being documented in the JoSaUR. If we're unlucky these strange results will get burried in is ths journal and no one will bother to try to reproduce the unexpected. The serendipitous and unexpected is of course, exactly what moves science forward, so I hope experiments that end up in JoSaUR do get looked at again and hard.

---

History of Science Feed @ Feed DIstiller

Re:All the mystery goes to one journal

[StripedCow]

I don't know if it is such a good idea to bundle unexpected facts from so many disciplines in one journal... I mean, if you're in computer science, would you like reading that such and such method for manipulating the DNA of a fruit-fly produces an anomaly in its social behavior? I think not...

Re:All the mystery goes to one journal

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know if it is such a good idea to bundle unexpected facts from so many disciplines in one journal... I mean, if you're in computer science, would you like reading that such and such method for manipulating the DNA of a fruit-fly produces an anomaly in its social behavior? I think not...

Funny, I thought intellectual curiosity was one of the most basic requirements for an sort of researcher.

This is nothing new

[Anonymous Coward]

The Journal of Unreproducible Results was created in the 60's (really) and the name has become a very common joke among scientists ever since :-)

Just like post-mortem reports in engineering

[Anonymous Coward]

Engineers had similar reports long ago, and they are the most interesting stuff you can find. An educated investigation of failure is much more important for me (for studying purposes), than pure success. There are many interesting ways to fail. Just look at industrial accidents.

Re:Awesome! It's about time!

[TapeCutter]

Great series. I used to read his column, the one that sticks in my mind connected the radius of the space shuttle booster rockets to the width of a horses arse. I don't think real geeks are affraid of what people think, just that inquiring minds are obsessed with knowing.

And then a miricale occurs

[TapeCutter]

Yeah, we've all seen the cartoon but the scientfic method does not claim to offer a method for creativity, to do so would be tautological. What the scientific method offers is a useull way to test the fruits of creativity. The bad fruit tends to complain that there are no instructions for creativity.

some advice

[StripedCow]

never attribute to serendipity what can be explained by science

Is that a so good idea ?

[Yvanhoe]

I can't help but remember Sony founder explaining how they were looking for ways of doing efficient small transistors with various materials and that they had learned from Bell labs that silicium gave very poor result so they spent minimum resources on that.

I can't help also wonder if this is a good use of "peer reviewing" which has a kind of shortage, or so I heard.

conferences and informal communication help

[davros-too]

Not all knowledge is in formal publications, a heck of a lot of information that falls short of the publication threshold is shared at conferences and through informal communication. While rivalries can sometimes reduce communication there is a lot of information shared between colleagues.

In addition there is often a lot of benefit in working things out for yourself - this provides the in depth understanding to base deeper work on which can be lacking if merely following instructions...

Re:conferences and informal communication help

[Trepidity]

Yeah, I agree with that, though it's nice to have things recorded also. As far as informal communication goes, I'm actually increasingly finding blogs actually to be a good source for that. They're more informal (and timely) than journal or conference papers, but still written, sometimes at length, and usually remain online for a while. Not a permanent record, but more permanent than a chance hallway conversation at a conference.

Semantic games?

[hansraj]

I love how people often point out "you can't prove a negative" or "you can't publish negative results". Turns out that you are very wrong if you think that either is true.

At first sight it appears that the idea behind this journal is to share failed attempts. But look at the kind of examples the website would like you to prove: "Prove that method X does not work for problem Y." This is *not* a failed attempt. You succeeded in proving something. Some great papers dealing with P?=NP problem prove exactly this kind of thing. How about the proof that you can't put real numbers into a list and so they are uncountably many?

The usual problem with a "failed attempt" is that something does not work the way you had hoped for. Not that you discover that something won't work generally. Those latter kind of statements require much more sophistication to prove.

Proving the negation of X is not the same as not being able to prove X, and vice-versa.

Good Idea, Not the First

[pz]

This idea was already executed a while ago by the Journal of Negative Results in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, the Journal of Negative Results in BioMedicine, the Journal of Negative Results in Speech and Audio Sciences and probably a few others that Google will help you find, just as it helped me find. But, as I recall, even PLoS had publishing negative results in its charter and specifically PLoS ONE encouraged them, being all-inclusive.

The problem? Most of them (except for PLoS and PLoS ONE) have a very low impact factor because although negative results are important, they aren't sexy in the least. If they were sexy, they would have been published in more mainstream journals. Because publishing a paper requires significant effort, a scientist is unlikely to spend his most precious resource -- time -- publishing a negative result if he can publish a positive one. Positive results get referenced, negative ones, by-and-large, do not. References in important journals lead to advancement as a scientist through grants, promotion, etc. So, unless the result is going to have significant impact -- like contradicting a previous result, or disproving dogma -- there's little motivation for a scientist to expend the effort to write up and publish a negative result, rather than do more research.
   

When will they publish the article...

[rnturn]

... that explains how the whole Mentos+soda thing was actually a failed attempt at cold fusion?

Exhibit N:

[Thud457]

Electron Band Structure In Germanium, My Ass

Re:Exhibit N:

[Mr. Slippery]

Electron Band Structure In Germanium, My Ass

Sounds a lot like my experience in an optics lab class, where I disproved almost every single principle of the field.

CMB is one example

[FibreOptix]

A pretty good idea... The Cosmic Microwave Background was first discovered by 2 engineers who thought they had bird shit on their receiver... Humble beginnings.

Re:CMB is one example

[DZeroStar]

It was two physicists, who were testing their new radio astronomy receiver. And they really did have bird shit in it--the "noise" just didn't go away when they mucked it out.