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The Moment of Truth For BICEP2
StartsWithABang writes: Earlier this year, the BICEP2 team shook up the world by announcing the discovery of primordial gravitational waves: a signal from the earliest stages of the Universe, going all the way back to before the Big Bang! By looking at the photon polarization data, they claimed to have surpassed the gold "5 Sigma" standard for announcing a discovery in physics. But recently, that's been walked back, as there could have been a systematic error at play: simple emission from our own Milky Way. Later this month, the Planck team will release their results, and either confirm or refute BICEP2. Here's where we stand on the eve of that announcement.
Whenever I read articles about astrophysics, it always sounds very detached from reality. This work usually ends up making big assumptions based on radio waves that were supposedly detected in some way. We aren't talking about ones that are visible to humans, either, like light from stars. Then there's often talk about how it's the "remnants of the Big Bang" or something vague like that. And then they start throwing around numbers that we couldn't possibly be sure that we're measuring correctly. Even after reading into this subject in depth, and even taking college courses on it back in the day, it's still almost a religion in many ways.
That's right. All those fancy-pants "scientists" are actually idiots and frauds. Nothing they say can be trusted.
Have you ever seen a neutron or muon? Experienced time dilation? Put a particle into a superposition of states? I suppose you can call most of modern science religion if you doubt what you can't perceive with your own senses. That's actually what a significant percentage of the population is starting to do, unfortunately...
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
Whenever I read articles about astrophysics, it always sounds very detached from reality.
It's not but I can see how it might seem that way. A lot of the physics is pretty out there and not all of it can be experimentally confirmed, at least not directly. The logical underpinnings and evidence used are fairly sound but there is a LOT we don't really know. There is a lot of "if A is true then B must be true" going on but sometimes we're not actually sure A is really true. It's not faith but much of it is very theoretical. Almost everything relating to stuff like black holes should be taken with a huge grain of sodium chloride.
And then they start throwing around numbers that we couldn't possibly be sure that we're measuring correctly.
Sometimes that is true and sometimes it isn't. There are plenty of measurements we are quite confident about. Others not so much. Unfortunately for the lay person it can be hard to tell the difference. Apparently sometimes it can be difficult for those in the field to tell the difference too sometimes.
The funny thing is that there is a meeting in Italy this week to discuss the Planck polarization result. Except that the Planck team doesn't have the result ready yet, for reasons they are not explaining. To make matters worse, there is no internet access at the venue, so the rest of the world is hearing about it primarily through Twitter feeds. The Planck team should be seriously embarrassed to cock up a major announcement as badly as they have.
Regardles, Planck is releasing its polarization measurements in three weeks, on December 22. Get back to us then.
Most theists probably wouldn't want to believe that their god died in an explosion billions of years ago.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
They reason they're no longer trusted is because they make big announcements of amazing results and then... later have to admit that they were wrong. Or, worse, they don't admit they're wrong, and we have to wait for someone else to retry the experiment and find that out for themselves.
What you're describing as the "reason they're no longer trusted" is called the scientific method: science is trustworthy precisely because when people are wrong, they admit it. Either that, somebody else proves them wrong.
Do you expect this shit to sprout from the head of Zeus or something?
All scientists outside the massively politicized field of climatology know this.
Climatology has only been politicized by people who aren't climatologists. The actual scientists get along just fine.
[...] a signal from the earliest stages of the Universe, going all the way back to before the Big Bang!
God!?
No, silly. Before the Big Bang was the Big Seduction.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
guess they needed to generate some traffic.
In any event, even "inflation" (in the cosmological sense) is not a certainty and has taken on a life of its own similar to the legions of string theorists (who have so much invested they can't just walk away).
They reason they're no longer trusted is because they make big announcements of amazing results and then... later have to admit that they were wrong. Or, worse, they don't admit they're wrong, and we have to wait for someone else to retry the experiment and find that out for themselves.
Trustworthy or untrustworthy as applies to scientists is much more closely related to Political, Religious, or financial outlook of the people who don't trust scientists
Because scientists tell them things they don't want to hear. As an example, If my entire outlook on life was based on a book that other believers in that book determined that the universe was created in 4004 b.c.e., I'd not trust some silly pants liberal who told me differently.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Do you expect this shit to sprout from the head of Zeus or something?
Why yes, yes they do. They demand something written down they can accept without thinking about it. Which leads to this thread. Arguments from personal incredulity.
One of the funniest arguments that springs from the mouths of those who hate science is personal incredulity.
"Because, since I don't understand something, it cannot be correct. Therefore: God, or ancient aliens, or that guy on Youtube that heats his entire house using a couple clay flowerpots and two tea candles".
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Not quite. We mock them when they believe their priests/pastors/whatever tell them bold-faced lies that can't possibly be true. You know, things like a 6,000 year old earth, jesus riding dinosaurs, faith healing, speaking in tounges, transubstantiation, and how their souls are going to be harvested by that alien space-ship hiding in Hale-bop's comet tail. Stuff like that is laughable, and if you believe in it, yeah, that's an easy laugh.
There are also the people that mock the religious sorts for trusting priests/whatnot on matters that are unknowable. The afterlife, who/what kickstarted the big-bang, and why we're all here. And philosophical issues. Yeah, those people are kind of dicks and I don't find that sort of humor all that productive. I see where they're coming from though, I mean, if the thing is unknowable.... why trust that guy over any of the other people preaching their flavor?
As for us expecting everyone to trust scientists, hey man, we have a pretty robust system of NOT trusting those scientists until they have a pretty good argument. If someone finds reason to question them, that is perfectly acceptable and even encouraged, whereas the religion side usually responds to questions with excommunication and damnation. Some of the religions have demonized the idea of being a skeptic. And skeptics can believe in things, you know. It's not like they're in a perpetual state of untrust. They can approach something, be skeptical, look at the facts, and then accept it.
Anyway, all that aside, you're fighting against people who believe in the scientific method. Good luck with that.
You might say "this is how science works," but the people at BICEP2 and the faster-than-light neutrino people should have know better than to make such a big announcement so prematurely. The press aren't technically competent so scientists need to self-police about what makes it to the top of the CNN science segment.
On both counts you mention, I guess I disagree. The faster-than-light neutrino people were very clear that they expected it to eventually be resolved by something mundane, which it of course eventually was. The jury is still out on BICEP2, although it sure isn't looking good. If you believe the tweets, Planck puts an upper limit on tensors that would be strongly incompatible with the BICEP2 claim.
In any case, isn't it a good thing for the press to show scientists getting really excited about a potential new discovery, and then eventually finding out that it was a false alarm? This gives a much better picture of how science actually progresses than portraying it as an unbroken series of perfect truths. And if the scientists themselves are a little vain, a little hungry for fame, a little fractious with one another, that reflects the fact that science is done by actual people, and manages to arrive at the truth despite that. I wish more science reporting made the sausage making more evident to the general public. I think scientists tend to be a little too afraid that if scientists as a group are portrayed as anything less than heroic examples of a detached and objective stereotype, that somehow public perception of science will suffer, when in reality what that does is project a false image and create unrealistic expectations.