British geologist Herbert Henry Thomas’ seminal study on Stonehenge was wrong
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Re: British geologist Herbert Henry Thomas’ seminal study on Stonehenge was wrong
#2Wow, this story leaves quite an impression on me on what it means to be a celebrated expert who is quite uncontested. You can basically meddle with the knowledge we humans have on that front and it will take quite a while for people to uncover it. I feel immediately more critical on our scientific and academic leaders and more responsible myself -- despite having no position in academia.
Re: British geologist Herbert Henry Thomas’ seminal study on Stonehenge was wrong
#3Once we realized he got everything wrong, we went back to the material he used, the specimens he used, the thin sections he used, the maps he used. And we could see that time and time again, he slightly changed this — or let's say he forgot," Ixer told Live Science.
One of these is a far more serious charge than the other. Scientists don’t fabricate data. At least, not if their work matters. And even then, the fabrications are usually discovered.
I guess the article feels strange because it’s stopping short of saying he was an outright fraud, but strongly hints at it. And that kind of conclusion seems to require more substantive evidence than they showed.
Old work is mistaken and superseded constantly. In physics, it’s only possible to falsify a theory, not to prove it’s true. So scientists can only be sure they’re wrong (or approximately correct, if you’re feeling glass-half-full about it).
But creating fake data reduces science to nothing more than an efficient method of converting money into mistaken ideas. It undermines everything science stands for.
Could anyone dig into the paper to find out whether he did in fact make changes to any data? Either he did and was lying, or didn’t and was mistaken. It’d be interesting to know precisely which.
Re: British geologist Herbert Henry Thomas’ seminal study on Stonehenge was wrong
#4Once we realized he got everything wrong, we went back to the material he used, the specimens he used, the thin sections he used, the maps he used. And we could see that time and time again, he slightly changed this — or let's say he forgot," Ixer told Live Science. One of these is a far more serious charge than the other. Scientists don’t fabricate data. At least, not if their work matters. And even then, the fabric…
Upvoted, but citation needed for "the fabrications are usually discovered." Basically the state of any research that nobody has tried to replicate yet is unknown.
Re: British geologist Herbert Henry Thomas’ seminal study on Stonehenge was wrong
#5Wow, this story leaves quite an impression on me on what it means to be a celebrated expert who is quite uncontested. You can basically meddle with the knowledge we humans have on that front and it will take quite a while for people to uncover it. I feel immediately more critical on our scientific and academic leaders and more responsible myself -- despite having no position in academia.
Old mate’s been dead for 85 years.
You’d think if someone had a better idea they’d have come forward with it earlier.
I find it hard to believe no one spoke up because old dead guy is so renown.
Re: British geologist Herbert Henry Thomas’ seminal study on Stonehenge was wrong
#6Wow, this story leaves quite an impression on me on what it means to be a celebrated expert who is quite uncontested. You can basically meddle with the knowledge we humans have on that front and it will take quite a while for people to uncover it. I feel immediately more critical on our scientific and academic leaders and more responsible myself -- despite having no position in academia.
Old mate’s been dead for 85 years. You’d think if someone had a better idea they’d have come forward with it earlier. I find it hard to believe no one spoke up because old dead guy is so renown.
The whole thing reminds me of the Piltdown man
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piltdown_Man
A friend of mine, who is an archaeologist once explained me there are topics in archaeology you cannot touch without risking your career.
Re: British geologist Herbert Henry Thomas’ seminal study on Stonehenge was wrong
#7Wow, this story leaves quite an impression on me on what it means to be a celebrated expert who is quite uncontested. You can basically meddle with the knowledge we humans have on that front and it will take quite a while for people to uncover it. I feel immediately more critical on our scientific and academic leaders and more responsible myself -- despite having no position in academia.
The expert was largely uncontested as the explanation he gave was adequate given the question being asked. More evidence was needed for a better explanation, and there wasn't a strong push to fund more research to answer "where did the stone for Stonehenge come from?"
Though there can be some examples of scientists unwilling to question past experts, the bigger obstacle is the limited amount of evidence that scientists are able to collect.
Re: British geologist Herbert Henry Thomas’ seminal study on Stonehenge was wrong
#8Wow, this story leaves quite an impression on me on what it means to be a celebrated expert who is quite uncontested. You can basically meddle with the knowledge we humans have on that front and it will take quite a while for people to uncover it. I feel immediately more critical on our scientific and academic leaders and more responsible myself -- despite having no position in academia.
Reminds me of Brian Wansink, the Cornell professor who was a "world-renowned eating expert for over 25 years". When statisticians finally started looking at his lab's work, they noticed absolutely extraordinary amounts of errors. Like, 150-errors-in-just-4-papers level of extraordinary.
http://andrewgelman.com/2017/06/15/pizzagate-gets-even-ridic...
Re: British geologist Herbert Henry Thomas’ seminal study on Stonehenge was wrong
#9Wow, this story leaves quite an impression on me on what it means to be a celebrated expert who is quite uncontested. You can basically meddle with the knowledge we humans have on that front and it will take quite a while for people to uncover it. I feel immediately more critical on our scientific and academic leaders and more responsible myself -- despite having no position in academia.
You should. It happens all the time, and more often than not whitewashed later so if you read the history later all looks dandy and nothing more than a minor healthy disagreement.
Dan Shechtman had to wait for Linus Pauling to die to be unlabeled as fraud (and later receive a nobel). Turns out he wasn’t the first to observe the supposedly impossible 5-fold crystal symmetry - but he was the only one willing to risk his name and career to make it known (and was not far from being pushed out as a fraud).
Barbara McClintock had a similar story with jumping genes. Semmelweis with washing hands.
There are cranks, of course, and they likely outnumber the real discoverers 100:1 - but the price of knowledge is eternal vigilance against prevailing dogmas, especially those of deferring everything to leaders of the field.
Re: British geologist Herbert Henry Thomas’ seminal study on Stonehenge was wrong
#10Wow, this story leaves quite an impression on me on what it means to be a celebrated expert who is quite uncontested. You can basically meddle with the knowledge we humans have on that front and it will take quite a while for people to uncover it. I feel immediately more critical on our scientific and academic leaders and more responsible myself -- despite having no position in academia.
The abstract for the study (which is behind a paywall) states of Thomas's work "While respectable for its time". The article doesn't feel like it reflects this sentiment.
The title also seems unfairly overstated, claiming Thomas was 'spectacularly wrong'. He correctly identified where the rocks came from, to within a few miles of the location identified in the study.