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Oxygen atoms discovered in most distant known galaxy

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Re: Oxygen atoms discovered in most distant known galaxy

#131

Post by mmooss »

borgdefenser wrote: post #114
lordnacho wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think I've ever been on a forum that doesn't have comments to that effect regularly. "It was better a few years ago, it's all going to hell now, we're becoming Reddit/4Chan/Slashdot" It's the internet forum version of "the youth has gotten lazy, it weren't like this when I were a lad"

I was on usenet in 1995 but I have heard that was too late and usenet already sucked then. In all fairness too, my 17 year old self who knew basically nothing about the world ,really did add absolutely nothing of value to the usenet discussions I participated in besides noise. Of course, at the time I thought the complete opposite. The thing that amuses me most is at the time there would have been a lot of "pro commu…

If you live long enough, you might look back at your understanding now and say the same thing. Maybe what we should learn is not to be so certain about our current knowledge.

Re: Oxygen atoms discovered in most distant known galaxy

#132

Post by mmooss »

gosub100 wrote: post #127
mmooss wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Science cannot be trusted anymore. Journals don't validate anything they submit. Departments are rewarded by how much money they wring out of the government, not by whether what they say is true. Next week they'll publish another paper about how they were wrong. What do you feel when you post that?

I feel like my tax dollars are wasted and the college students are being lied to with their ever-increasing tuition that somehow promises them a future when their departments are led by liars.

Those are not emotions. What I meant is (I don't mean to ask twice, I'm just clarifying), what drives these comments? Anger? Hate? Is it for the lolz?

Re: Oxygen atoms discovered in most distant known galaxy

#133

Post by umeshunni »

analog31 wrote: post #121
hsnewman wrote: post #120

I would be shocked if it were not found everywhere.

I'd be more worried if there was a whole bunch of carbon dioxide.

Funny you say that because this article just came out the other day

https://www.sciencealert.com/jwst-detects-carbon-dioxide-out...

Re: Oxygen atoms discovered in most distant known galaxy

#134

Post by nimish »

Hikikomori wrote: post #122
nimish wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They are pretty much by definition highly intelligent people who could earn a lot more by working for FAANG or hedge funds Having interviewed many failed priests of higher education, this is not true. It might have been true 50 years ago, but if you are smart and intelligent you typically do not spend 5-7 of the most productive years of your life getting a PhD. >but prefer to take lower paid work on the off chance…

Spend your prime making ads more effective instead.

Just as useless except you make 10x more and can spend your spare time doing everything a grad student can, so what's the problem?

Re: Oxygen atoms discovered in most distant known galaxy

#135

Post by umeshunni »

acdha wrote: post #90
dvt wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I second this, and it tends to be a sitewide issue. HN has really changed over the past 5+ years: went from healthy or interesting skepticism to reddit-style snarkiness and shitposting.

There’s always been some of that but it does feel like it’s getting worse. I think there’s a general shift in how people approach Skinner-ized apps and social media, where a couple of generations have been trained to prioritize a number going up, but also something about how politics became both post-factual and unavoidable even in communities which used to avoid it, all of which has driven a lot of former contributo…

> Skinner-ized

What does this mean? A quick Google search didn't help me

Re: Oxygen atoms discovered in most distant known galaxy

#136

Post by lz400 »

gosub100 wrote: post #91
gentle wrote: post #85

I'm always fascinated by the posters here who insist on second-guessing the writers and the scientists who spend their whole lives studying a topic like this. No one needs to read your post fessing up to your profound ignorance and the fact that you didn't really read the link.

Science cannot be trusted anymore. Journals don't validate anything they submit. Departments are rewarded by how much money they wring out of the government, not by whether what they say is true. Next week they'll publish another paper about how they were wrong. Also you don't sound "fascinated", so if you're complaining at least be honest about it. There are many more descriptive words than "fascinated".

I think this is a real problem but your post is an exaggeration. There are cases of fraud in science. There is a reproducibility crisis in some areas. There are political angles and rent seeking wrt grants. But how widespread is it? You're assuming it's close to 100% without evidence. I don't claim to have the exact number but intuitively yours is extraordinary (so it would need extraordinary evidence). I think these issues affect some areas much more than others and some regions more than others. I still believe science is the best way of enquiry for the natural world.

Re: Oxygen atoms discovered in most distant known galaxy

#137

Post by nimish »

MattPalmer1086 wrote: post #105
nimish wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They are pretty much by definition highly intelligent people who could earn a lot more by working for FAANG or hedge funds Having interviewed many failed priests of higher education, this is not true. It might have been true 50 years ago, but if you are smart and intelligent you typically do not spend 5-7 of the most productive years of your life getting a PhD. >but prefer to take lower paid work on the off chance…

Everyone I've met with a PhD was intelligent. Maybe not genius, but yeah, pretty damn intelligent. If you want to spend your life in the pursuit of knowledge rather than mere money or status, it's kind of a prerequisite to demonstrate you can perform original research. I honestly don't get the analogy with priests. They still seem utterly different to me.

Organized religion ordains priests to read the sacred texts (papers, theses, books) and then anoints them to be the only ones allowed to do ministry and theology. Then they fight among themselves to be allowed to get resources and rise up the ranks of the church.

The analog is with forcing promising researchers to go through 5-10 years of thankless "training" to be granted a doctorate, so that they can be taken "seriously" by granting institutions, and have them fight among themselves so they can get resources and rise up the ranks of academia.

It's the same institutional structure, not anything to do with the content, and this is by design since academia and the Church were one and the same centuries ago!

Of course the idea that you don't need institutional approval to do something is alien to someone steeped in this worldview, but this is the news site for YC, most famous for telling people no, in fact you don't have to waste a decade working before doing something interesting.

Re: Oxygen atoms discovered in most distant known galaxy

#138

Post by slwvx »

From [1] and [2] we read that the CMB was created around 380 million years after the Big Bang, and that hydrogen atoms were created at the same time. The original article above [3] says that this galaxy was created when the universe was about 300 million years old. These seem to be in conflict; am I misunderstanding something, or is there really a conflict there?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_microwave_background#Pr...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang#Timeline

[3] https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2507/

Re: Oxygen atoms discovered in most distant known galaxy

#139

Post by mlekoszek »

umeshunni wrote: post #135
acdha wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s always been some of that but it does feel like it’s getting worse. I think there’s a general shift in how people approach Skinner-ized apps and social media, where a couple of generations have been trained to prioritize a number going up, but also something about how politics became both post-factual and unavoidable even in communities which used to avoid it, all of which has driven a lot of former contributo…

> Skinner-ized What does this mean? A quick Google search didn't help me

Arranged like a Skinner box -- something which dispenses reward stimuli for desired behaviours with the aim of maximizing those behaviours.

Interestingly, a Skinner box can be made to dispense rewards randomly after a while, or stop dispensing them entirely -- but the desired behaviour is likely to continue. Think doomscrolling, slot machines, loot boxes, dating apps, etc.

A worthwhile survey of this I was introduced to in my undergrad: https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691160887/ad...

Re: Oxygen atoms discovered in most distant known galaxy

#140

Post by mlekoszek »

booleandilemma wrote: post #126
dvt wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I second this, and it tends to be a sitewide issue. HN has really changed over the past 5+ years: went from healthy or interesting skepticism to reddit-style snarkiness and shitposting.

This is refreshing to hear compared to all of the "HN is becoming Reddit, omg!" comments and threads that pop up every couple weeks. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=380385 From 2008 :)

Unless, of course, it continually has been becoming Reddit, but Reddit has been constantly changing too ;)
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