Top Scientist Admits Webb Telescope Star Photo Was Chorizo | Hacker News Reader

Top Scientist Admits Webb Telescope Star Photo Was Chorizo

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35 pointsl-lousy26 comments

Incredible he's had to apologise, my kids thought it was funny and now interested in seeing actual pictures of space.

It's hard to make jokes anymore, someone might mistake it as truth and then you are spreading fake news, must protect the sheeple... that or they will chappelle you

Sad and entirely unsurprising that general intolerance in social media is calling for an apology where none is due, IMO.

This seems really misjudged and irresponsible when everyone is trying to push the message, "Trust expert scientists in their field".

"Except when they're joking, but you don't know enough about their field to tell if they're joking, so you just have to hope" is not a helpful message.

Whatever his goal actually was, it could have been achieved without damaging trust in scientists.

while I agree with you, this seems like obvious humor, and actually pretty funny. I push back on the idea that we have to be humorless evermore.

If it were Bill Nye or Neil Degrasse Tyson I might agree with you but I think the context is important: this is a French tweet.

Does the Francosphere have the same issues with trusting science that the Anglosphere has?

Big discussion a couple of days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32355480

Now we get to see how the scientific sausage is made.

I always said chorizo was heavenly.

(I'll see myself out)

The rare HN discussion where reddit-style humorous posts are welcome.

Wait till you hear about the "milky way"...

That was funny.

snickers

Why is there no outrage? He is a scientist and he lied. Why does he still have his Twitter account? How can anyone believe anything ‘scientists’ say about Covid? About climate change?

Can't tell if sarcasm or serious.

He admitted the hoax in the next tweet. He didn't try to get it published or anything.

It was fake news. Some get crucified for behavior like this. I can’t stand the double standard.

Is the double standard that normal people can “tell jokes” but scientists are “spreading fake news”?

> people can “tell jokes”

I think his tweet lacked signaling that is was in fact a joke. That makes a difference.

I think the picture of chorizo was the signal that it was a joke.

Well... sure. If I look at this, something is off for me and I get the cue (I would not say it was chorizo, though), but he released it into the wild. For many this would not be a joke until they see follow up tweet - they are missing this cue. I am not in the camp of delicate snowflakes, but he shouldn't be surprised doing it like this in the wild.

Added - ...and I surely know it's just too big. It's just not so much good of a joke, I think.

> It's just not so much good of a joke, I think.

I suppose that’s why he went into astrophysics instead of comedy.

That’s the joke

It wasn't fake news. It had the opposite intent of fake news. It was designed to get people who wouldn't immediately know it was fake to think for once, a challenging task these days. Nobody who matters, or who cares the slightest bit about astronomy, thought that was a star (Proxima Centauri) or even a planet (compare the recent JWST image of Jupiter). It looks nothing like any other astronomical object other than being round (but oddly dimpled) and reddish. Butchery does not recapitulate astronomy.

Outrage is from Karens who wanted something new to be outraged about.

Get people to think? What are they supposed to think about?

Honestly, it irks me a bit when people repeat the mantra "think for yourself" without thinking. To "think for yourself" about a topic requires a foundation of knowledge -- hopefully based on facts -- about that topic.

When I read an article about the trouble drilling holes through certain types of rocks, no amount of "thinking for myself" will help me discern the accuracy of the article. When I read an article about the impact of Russian military culture on political decision making, no amount of "thinking" will help me determine how biased it is. When I see a tweet about a star with an image, no amount of "thinking" will help me determine if it's real or not.

I simply lack the expertise to "think" about these fields. I guess I could fool myself into believing that with a few hours of browsing around, I could make an informed assessment. But I stopped thinking that way as I grew older (and hopefully at least a tiny bit wiser).

"Why is there nothing of significance in the background?"

"Why are there no diffraction spikes? When do diffraction spikes occur?"

"Why is this showing surface detail vastly more detailed than any previous image which only showed vague shapes of even the closest stars (other than Sol)? How much better can the Webb image stars compared to Hubble?"

"Why does this have so little noise compared to the recent Jupiter image?"

"Why is the border not perfectly round?"

"Why does part of the surface look shinier than the rest? Is there some odd effect going on with false-color or color grading?"

"What's with the odd features on the surface? Why don't they look anything like our sun's sunspots?"

And of course the most important thing...

"After looking at it for 30 seconds, and really trying to categorize it, what does my brain tell me it looks like?"

Here's the thing. The post was a joke for other scientists.. ON Twitter. It's not like they were trying to advance their scientific career with fabricated findings.

The target audience got a kick out of it. I'm certain.

A predictable percentage of onlookers are predictably salty that they got fooled by a figure of authority.. I don't think an apology is really warranted. But they handled it well.

That said, in a world that is constantly trying to maliciously misinform a person, it's understandable that the audience is a bit touchy about being fucked with .

Reply on news.ycombinator.com