To give an example of what might be an ignored anomoly....
In the last few years Konovalov in mosow has published papers that
appear to show that when you do serial dilultion of certain solutes then
structures persist in the water that can be seen in the water (and
therfore might be the basis for some homeopathy like effects). He uses
DLS to do the measurements, and when I spoke some people who work on DLS
they told me they occasionally see much the same thing and assume that
it means that impurities have got into the water, so will restart the
experiment.
Nigel
On 10/01/2014 05:36, Eric Walker wrote:
On Thu, Jan 9, 2014 at 5:45 AM, Alain Sepeda <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Unlike some critics against mainstream scientist,
my main feeling is that many scientists share with
pseudo-scientists a love for theory, teleology, coherence, and
when facing reality, serendipity, anomalies, they refuse to accept it.
I like teleology. But I try not to mix teleology with my (hobby) science.
for those pretended scientist, if you observe an evidence of
something that should not exist, you should...
IGNORE IT... and keep being sure about the theory.
I think it can be a little hard to decipher the behavior of scientists
with regard to a new discovery. If the discovery is benign and falls
under Kuhn's "normal science," there's not much to the matter and
there is no controversy. With discoveries that do not fall under
normal science, perhaps there are three groups of scientists,
classified by their reaction to the anomaly under investigation:
* Scientists who take a passive or fleeting interest in it, and are
open to chalking it up to something we don't understand yet,
whether they are optimistic or skeptical. They may even have
something of an opinion, but they reserve the option to change
their mind. Meanwhile they're busy doing other things and are
happy to let other people worry about it. (Perhaps the vast majority.)
* Scientists who take an active interest in the anomaly and champion
further research (a small minority).
* Scientists who are outspoken in their criticism of the science
giving rise to the anomaly (a small minority).
The behavior of the last group can be the most challenging to
understand, and it is easy to misinterpret. In their criticisms they
seem to be addressing the scientists who have produced the anomaly and
the hobbyists who follow it on message boards and mailing lists. In
fact, they are more likely to be addressing potential funders who
might be listening in on the conversation. In years of tight budgets,
perhaps they do not want to see part of the limited funding going to
their research diverted to the deluded group that is inveigling people
with the alleged anomaly. The takeaway here is that it seems like
they are arguing that the science is bad, but this is only a
half-hearted effort. Really what has happened is that they knew all
along that the science was bad and they just don't want the funders to
waste their attention and limited analytical ability on the matter,
because they could end up confusing themselves and extravagantly
spending money on the wrong thing.
Who can blame the funders for being liable to confusion? They did not
study the science involved for years and years and acquire the crucial
insights. You have to protect them from themselves, and that might
mean taking a little bit of a roundabout approach and revealing little
snippets here and there about why the science is bad. But this type
of demonstration would neither stand up to the scrutiny of one's
peers, nor is it expected to. It is polemics. In other contexts and
on other topics, these people, or some of these people at any rate,
are capable of dropping the whole "psuedosceptic" tack and providing a
solid, scientific argument.
Eric
