191–200 of 216 posts
The paper has been written, let it go through peer review. Lets hear the reports from more labs about the samples--heck, send some more scientists out there to see if they can find more samples and whether the results are reproducible.
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Please don't post in the flamewar style to HN. Better options are either (1) to make a substantive point thoughtfully; or (2) refrain from posting. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Guess I've gotten somewhat thin-skinned given the volume of faux / overblown science news of late.
For those reading this, there's yet another post here (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37327330) that links to a harvard.edu article that gives more details on why the collectors of the spherules believe they have reason to assume that (1) they are really from the suspected meteorite, (2) the material's composition doesn't resemble materials known from other meteorites.
Many questions remain though; for those interested in spherules from outer space, there's yet another earlier post (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37317442) that links to a video that shows how excrutiating it is to collect and sort out teeny meteorites from the environment. Having seen that and a clip about the expedition's method of collecting (lowering a strong magnet to the seafloor) I wonder how often they lifted the thing up to collect material because otherwise they could not produce statistics about abundance in relation to the asteroid's flight path.
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Some things to keep in mind about these UFO hearings: 1. The reports are all second- and third- hand. To my knowledge, no DoD employee has testified to anybody in Congress that they personally witnessed extraterrestrial technology or "biologics". 2. The exception here is a "Jonathan Grey", who hasn't testified before Congress, or, for that matter, been identified; he's one of David Grusch's sources, under a pseudonym…
> 4. We know about Grusch's testimony because the Pentagon cleared it, where "it" refers to what would be the single most significant military secret ever held by the government of any country. Source for this? I haven't heard that one before.
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Im totally unqualified to judge the science going on in this paper, but a quick summary of the control: "The spherules, significantly concentrated along the expected meteor path, were retrieved from seafloor depths ranging between..." "with control areas north and south of that path."
Yes, those were the two paths outside the area I mentioned. They called those controls, but I listed issues with that assumption. What are the odds that picking any region of the Indian Ocean would result in a similar pattern? Are the two so-called "control" runs outside the area enough to establish good sampling statistics? Also, how well does the sampling replicate? The have cases where they have multiple sled runs…
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No. Artificial alloys exist; we know because we make them all the time. Since we don't know what natural process might yield this particular material (yet) there's always the possibility that it's artificial. You're demanding the proof before the investigation.
Consider that "possibility" as it's used here is really a synonym for "hypothesis". Do you really think it's unreasonable to criticize a research paper for presenting an unsubstantiated hypothesis ? Do you think including snippets like this serves more to advance scientific understanding, or Loeb's profile in the media and podcast circuit?
This is the actual quote (citations omitted for readability):
The “BeLaU" abundance pattern suggests that IM1 may have originated from a highly differentiated crust of a planet with an iron core outside the solar system. In that case, IM1’s high speed of ∼ 60 km s−1 in the Local Standard of Rest of the Milky Way galaxy and the extremely large number of similar objects per star, ∼ 1023±1295, inferred statistically for the population of natural interstellar objects it represents, are challenging to explain by common dynamical processes. The “BeLaU" overabundance of heavy elements could perhaps have instead originated from r-process enrichment and fragmentation of ejecta from core-collapse supernovae or neutron star mergers. However, the “BeLaU" pattern also displays s-process enrichment which must have a separate origin, such as Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) stars. Another possibility is that this unfamiliar abundance pattern may reflect an extraterrestrial technological origin.
These interpretations will be considered critically along with additional results from spherule analysis in future publications.
Quit with the pearl-clutching.
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You absolutely have to substantiate possibilities; otherwise we could just list off anything that comes to mind endlessly. There must be a reason why this possibility is worth mentioning but not all of the other unsubstantiated ones.
No. Artificial alloys exist; we know because we make them all the time. Since we don't know what natural process might yield this particular material (yet) there's always the possibility that it's artificial. You're demanding the proof before the investigation.
Because alchemy doesn’t support his little pet conspiracy. In academia it’s important to maintain credibility, and with one line at the end he tosses his in the garbage.
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Consider that "possibility" as it's used here is really a synonym for "hypothesis". Do you really think it's unreasonable to criticize a research paper for presenting an unsubstantiated hypothesis ? Do you think including snippets like this serves more to advance scientific understanding, or Loeb's profile in the media and podcast circuit?
It's not a hypothesis, which asserts something may be true and proposes tests. It's just conjecture, enumerating a variety of possible explanations for a puzzling discovery. IT's restrained and not conclusory. Scientists are allowed to have imagination and speculate. Y'all are making out like he's arrogantly asserting this is the only possible explanation. This is the actual quote (citations omitted for readability):…
It's not that I have a problem with scientists being imaginative. It's that I have a problem with anyone running a grift, regardless of their background. It certainly isn't pearl clutching to judge his intentions by the broader constellations of actions and statements that he's made.
I'm confused why you seem to be taking offense and have begun dispensing insults. I don't think anyone is criticizing you. I'm certainly not. I'm disagreeing with you about this matter in particular, and that is the beginning and the end of it for me.
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It's not a hypothesis, which asserts something may be true and proposes tests. It's just conjecture, enumerating a variety of possible explanations for a puzzling discovery. IT's restrained and not conclusory. Scientists are allowed to have imagination and speculate. Y'all are making out like he's arrogantly asserting this is the only possible explanation. This is the actual quote (citations omitted for readability):…
I think the difference of opinion stems from others seeing this as a continuation of a pattern of behavior, whereas you seem to be considering this in isolation. I'd certainly feel differently about it if he hadn't done something similar with 'Oumuamua, leveraged that for a media tour, and framed any criticism of him as evidence he was the only person researching the possibility of extraterrestrial intelligence. The…
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I think the difference of opinion stems from others seeing this as a continuation of a pattern of behavior, whereas you seem to be considering this in isolation. I'd certainly feel differently about it if he hadn't done something similar with 'Oumuamua, leveraged that for a media tour, and framed any criticism of him as evidence he was the only person researching the possibility of extraterrestrial intelligence. The…
I haven't insulted you. By 'pearl clutching' I refer to your use of italics to emphasize words for purely rhetorical effect, like it's a Daily Mail scandal. I'm well aware that he has made bold claims on this topic in the past, some of which I found more persuasive than others. I'm fine with him doing that as long as he's not fabricating evidence, and nobody is suggesting such.
That's all well and good if you are okay with what he's doing, I personally think he's skirting the edge of professional ethics while attacking the people who are actually doing this work, and I think that's pretty crummy.
Frankly if you want to tell me that I'm "pearl clutching" and that my rhetoric is "like the Daily Mail" in an exasperated tone, but that you aren't being insulting, then I don't think you're being entirely honest with me. (For what it's worth I don't take offense.)
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> What is Loeb's reputation among astrophysicists? Not an astrophysicist but several friends are. The consensus seems to be that he was a good scientist at one point but has turned into a sensationalist attention monger. > He's written "over 800 scientific papers". Is that... a good thing in his field? He's been an author on over 800 scientific papers: that includes his work, work he's been a significant collaborator…
Authorship can be weird. A physicist on a big LHC project will be the author on over 1000 papers after a decade or so (they average around 100 papers a year). In all likelihood they haven't read the vast majority of them, and have contributed directly to around 1% of them. High energy physicists got sick of bickering over who was on the list and added everyone who had contributed to the experiment infrastructure. The…