Ask Slashdot: Why Are Scientists Constantly Surprised By What They Discover?

Slashdot reader dryriver asks about "the sheer number of times scientists consider something to be 'scientifically impossible', are badly disproven by some kind of new finding or discovery a few years later, and then express 'surprise' that 'X is indeed possible'." If you do a Google News search for the keywords "scientists were surprised" or similar, a huge number of science-related news articles contains a passage about "scientists being surprised" by what they discovered. There seems to be a great disparity between the mindset of inventors -- who always try to MAKE new things become possible -- and the mindset of many scientists, who seem unable or unwilling to consider that what "science holds to be true today" may not turn out to be quite so true tomorrow.

Here's the question: Why do many scientists, having knowledge of the fact that surprises in science happen all the time, continually express "surprise" when they find something unusual? If surprises in scientific research are so common, why are scientists still "surprised" by "surprise findings"?
"The surprising stuff is what we hear about, and there has to be some reason why it is surprising," argues gurps_npc in response to the original submission. "A common answer is that current state of science thinks the surprising stuff was impossible."

"The whole premise is flawed," counters long-time reader Martin+S. "Natural skepticism is an essential component of science." And long-time reader UnknownSoldier supplies a one-word answer: "Ego."

But how would you answer the question? Share your best thoughts in the comments. Why are scientists constantly surprised by what they discover?

Comments

It's a trick to get your papers published

[invalid_user]

In many scientific fields, especially mathematics (which is of course not technically a science but that's not the point here so let's not argue about that), results are often not interesting unless they are "surprising". Hence the tendency to exxegerate things.

There are also the occasions when scientists are pessimistic about certain results, and when these turned out well, they become pleasantly surprised.

So are scientists lying when they say they are surprised? No, they are indeed surprised. However, the level of surprise is low. It's a figure of speech.

For us to be alarmed, we would have to be "shocked" and "in disbelief".

Journalists and headline editors, not scientists

[skoskav]

This is a common joke in the skeptical community. To quote Steven Novella, paraphrasing Christopher Hitchens:

Journalists tend to have a limited pallet of story themes from which they choose, and then they conform the story to the chosen theme. Stories always need to be about something, such as corporate greed or government malfeasance, so that is the story that is told – regardless of the pesky facts.

Bad science journalism works that way also. That is why we can joke about common cliches, such as “Missing Link Discovered,” “Scientists Baffled,” and “It turns out everything we thought we knew was wrong.”

That's what we call selection bias.

[Sique]

All the expected results don't stir so much attention, as they were expected anyway. But as we know, the most exciting phrase in Science is not "Heureka!", it's "Well, that's odd." (often attributed to Isaac Asimov).

Things going according to plan don't make for exciting news. Discoveries that were planned for don't make for exciting news. Only the unexpected gets attention. If you find something you were expecting anyway, then there is nothing to be excited about.

You could even cite Claude Shannon: Information is the inverse of probability. If the Improbable happens, you get much more information than from an event highly probable. Thus yes, important discoveries are often not expected.

It's amazing they aren't constantly surprised.

[Mal-2]

The universe is under no obligation to make sense to primates that evolved for life on the savannahs of Africa.
It's rather amazing that natural laws are amenable to logic, mathematics, and thought experiments, and that scientists so often guess right.
In other words, this is the wrong question. The question should be "Why is the natural world predictable in such detail, and why are we getting it right more often than not?"

Re: Because it gives you more funding

[wooferhound]

The Scientests aren't actually surprised
It's the Reporters writing the news stories that are surprised

Re:God continuously invents science.

[PsychoSlashDot]

You should zip up your pants; your agenda is showing.

What is interesting about science it that science - at least today - KNOWS very well that there is A LOT that we have yet to explain fully or discover. Science KNOWS that we humans, basically, know only how SOME of how the universe we live in functions. And yet many scientists are SO CERTAIN that there is no God, or any kind sentient intelligence that created or designed the vast universe that we are a tiny part of.

Your language is sloppy, and it suggests your analysis may be as well. Yes, science accepts that it is not yet "complete". There are explanations for a few observed phenomenon that are not yet incorporated into the existing body of scientific understanding. Introduction of a God or multiple Gods into the discussion is pretty much irrelevant to the "completeness" of scientific understanding. Why? Because statistics. So far, zero of observed phenomenon that have been explained have required the involvement of a God or multiple gods. Zero. None. Nada. Zilch. Bupkiss.

More, the obscurity of the few observed phenomenon that have not yet been incorporated into scientific understanding continues to become increasingly massive. Invocation of God or Gods used to be required to "explain" such trivial experiences as fire, disease, earthquakes, lights in the sky, and pregnancy. Now we understand these things, to such a degree that God or Gods are no longer required for any of them. We now live in a time where "don't share needles" is all the wisdom required, and "go ahead and share needles with another junkie but you'll be fine as long as you pray" is laughable. It's comedic. Even among the religious community, reliance on scientific understanding is widespread enough that they would view someone who just prays they don't contract AIDS from unprotected sex with a carrier as delusional.

To recap, the utter and total lack of requirement for God or Gods in 100% of what we know - which is vast - makes the lack of belief in God quite understandable. And mostly, sensible.

This is not just contradictory, but downright dangerous.

You're going to have to demonstrate that. There's no contradiction. At all. "I don't know everything, but nothing I do know - which is virtually the entire scope of my observed experience - even remotely suggests there is a God or Gods, so I suspect there is no such entity or entities." Not contradictory. Or dangerous.

Basically, scientists who know VERY WELL that they only UNDERSTAND PART OF FUNCTIONING THE UNIVERSE and HAVE NO IDEA WHATSOEVER WHERE OUR UNIVERSE CAME FROM are ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN that there can be no such thing as God.

Oh. You don't understand atheists or scientists. Let me help. First, yes, atheists believe there are no Gods. But... were there evidence or - Heaven forbid - proof of the existence of such, they'd be willing to accept they had been mistaken. Second, scientists are even more willing to accept change. That's how science works. If a theory or working model of a situation is tested and demonstrated by further data to be false, the theory or working model is either invalidated or updated to incorporate the new data. Neither atheists nor scientists are - as a rule - certain they are right. The believe, according to the evidence at hand, that they are. But certainty is not part of their worldview.

WTF? That's about as logical as saying "I have never actually physically travelled to Ethiopia, but I know everything everything there is to know about Ethiopa nevertheless."

False. It's exactly as logical as saying "to date virtually everything humanity has observed has had a non-deity explanation and every day more of the incredibly obscure observations we haven't explained are explained, and continue to have non-deity explanations, so the unanimous body of evidence predicts the non-existence of deities."

Eh .... no.

[Freischutz]

The Scientests aren't actually surprised It's the Reporters writing the news stories that are surprised

No, scientists do not operate in absolute certainty of what they will discover, they are regularly surprised by what they discover. It is the religionists who have absolute certainty because they are the only ones I have met that claim they can explain everything in the universe, ... with a collection of ancient religious texts and the fickle opinions of their clergy.

Re:Eh .... no.

[ceoyoyo]

It is a silly question, but I think not (exactly) for that reason.

You *hear* about scientists being "surprised", because that means they've discovered something. They might not actually be surprised, but as others have pointed out, journalists like to say they are.

You don't hear about everything scientists (and everyone else) do every day that works out exactly, unsurprisingly, as it should. Although if you're comparing science to religion, that's the part that really matters. Science is fundamentally the pursuit of models that can be used to make reliable predictions.

The goal of science is boring reliability. The exciting part of science is surprises, because that means you get to contribute something to achieving a future lack of surprises.