Superficial toxicity is the enemy of curiosity-driven innovation in science
avi-loeb.medium.com
avi-loeb.medium.com
And the bit about grad students too terrified to pursue research because of some ostensibly bad criticism on the internet is comical. You cannot become a good academic if all it takes is a little criticism from somewhere to deflate you, if you need constant validation to function. If you do, you will become, like many academics and people in general, a conformist out of fear of losing approval. This is not to valorize contrarians (who still operate in terms of what others think), but to say that an academic must be honest and pursue the truth and be able to defend his arguments against or ignore bad criticism and concede valid criticism. If you cannot survive the meat grinder of criticism, if you lack the spine and the thick skin, you won’t flourish. It’s not for you, at least not until you mature.
1) Loeb makes a bold claim about some phenomenon and attaches extraterrestrial life to it. He chooses to do this in a way that will attract media attention, like a press release.
2) The press release gets picked up by media, because Loeb is a notorious Harvard professor. At least some of the media will phrase it as "scientists say...".
3) Other scientists, perhaps at universities whose press releases are mostly ignored by media, see this and say "hey, I'm a scientist too, we do not say that". They try to engage Loeb and over time escalate their criticisms from "civil and private discussions" to "public and somewhat insulting". They might feel justified in doing this because they see Loeb's mass-media communication as being at approximately the same level of technical detail; at a certain point, a technical argument is not going to attract attention or understanding of the seriousness of the claim being made, but a blunt criticism will ("this guy is nuts and does not represent his field").
4) Loeb describes 3) as a bunch of overly conservative cranks holding back scientists and directly analogizes himself to Galileo, predictably frustrating his critics further.
Like I said, I can't say anything useful about the technical details. But it seems like an important detail here is that Loeb has repeatedly chosen to try and fight this out using public opinion, and his opponents have found themselves somewhat awkwardly picking up and using similar weapons for maybe the first time in their careers, and are not enjoying it. This seems to happen a lot in modern science!
Actually the Funding for studying the Higgs Boson famously got secured by making a really simple explanation.
Obviously Loeb might have gone a bit over the top given the odds of his theory but as you mention if reaching out to the public was more common nobody might have blinked an eye.
The new thing is the tools that enable massive groups to mob together and fulfill their worst impulses. Most institutions have not developed a robust immune system for this novel disease.
That's not censorship, that's just science. Yes, it's important that everyone is able to share their iconoclast ideas. And Loeb did. And it's likewise important for people to be able to tell you you're wrong when you are.
The fact that he's gone all loopy recently is absolutely the most important context for deciding if you want to take his word on faith or not.
Which is completely fair. He's done it to himself. No quarrels from me. But there's also a understandable urge to toss everything and that's an overreaction. Pauling being a crank is his late career doesn't mean he didn't deserve the Nobel for his earlier career, and likewise Loeb is/was very important to modern cosmology, you just have to ignore most of what he's published since 2017 or so.
Yes, it has few properties which are unusual for natural objects, so it can be an alien artifact. Probability is very low, but non-zero.
> Here's a nice exposé on him and his shoddy work
I have no time for this audiobook.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heckler%27s_veto
The problem is more pervasive and frequently more subtle than the specific discourse context the article illustrates. A counter example is software where an open source project typically requires no funding or approval to initiate, but equivalent initiatives in professional settings are frequently vetoed due to the emotional insecurity of a select few vocal participants. In the world of software this is frequently referred to as Invented Here Syndrome.
Often motivated by https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tall_poppy_syndrome.
Is that true, though?
"Equivalent initiatives in professional settings" require resources being allocated to projects that bear no relation with company goals. By definition, this means these types of projects require a company to fund a project that is not aligned with the company's purpose. Why would anyone pay for something that they don't need or want or care about?
Resource allocation is not silencing or vetoing projects. Just because your employer doesn't pay you to work on your pet project that does not mean you're being censored.
When internal initiatives are killed or directed for purely selfish motivations, such as comfort attainment then it certainly becomes toxic. This is why I believe the scenario is exceedingly pervasive, especially in software, because comfort attainment is typically not just the primary consideration, but the only consideration.
I'm sorry, I didn't understood a word of what you tried to say. I'm even suspecting this is machine-generated word salad.
He's been steadily pushing into at the very least fringe territory, and at the worst outright pseudoscience and quackery. He's mad people are pointing that out. That's what this all stems from.
Still waiting for you to delve into the details of the argument against Loeb's claims rather than using broad and easy categorization (which etymologically means accusation).
We need many more scientists who are willing to look at far out ideas while remaining very rational and scientific about it. We have plenty of stick to the tried and true conservative scientists and plenty of cranks.
Edit: if we see another object like Oumuamua I would love it if we had a “chase probe” ready. It was going so fast at such a weird trajectory intercepting would have been extremely hard but having something ready to send on a flyby seems reasonable. Some great close up photos and spectroscopy would go a long way.
The harm, as I see it, comes from engaging with the mob. I believe that an honest scientist convinced of evidence of alien tech will know in their bones what an uphill battle it will be to convince anyone of this, and the fact that making such a claim will inevitably come with certain (unfair) labels and attacks. To make such claims and then get angry about those labels being applied doesn't make sense, to the extent that the anger itself reads as evidence of some kind of fraud. Is it possible for a scientist to be naive enough to not realize what this claim would mean for his reputation and career? Maybe. But the more likely scenario is simple fraud and attention seeking, and the anger another layer of performance.
Although as far as I know that usually requires the others to have wronged you in some way.
What exactly does he mean when he says Harvard astronomy department postdocs are being "terrorized" by "aggressive" criticism?
Some of his claims are, um, out there.
But indeed, all those just trying to pull him down are quite cowardly.
Given the historical context of the CIA infiltrating and spying on UFO groups[0] and what can only be described as an active political fight around the Schumer Amendment [1] it makes me wonder if at least some of this is orchestrated by political/national security Circles
[0] https://sgp.fas.org/library/ciaufo.html [1]https://www.democrats.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/sch...
https://www.military.com/history/why-first-us-jet-fighter-pi...
But that doesn’t mean looking into aliens is silly. The Fermi paradox is genuinely mysterious and one potential answer is “well actually, they are here…”
What is necessary is to just ignore all the crazy bullshit in the UFO field including all the new age wackos. Unfortunately even renaming it to UAP didn’t do the trick. There’s a whole grifter infrastructure here.
I don’t think you need to involve the CIA. There’s plenty of grassroots insanity here. If there is or was CIA involvement I’d suspect it was gorilla masks for secret aircraft.
Just to be clear, I didn't involve them, the CIA historically has involved themselves in this subject in a most questionable manner. It seems reasonable to assume they would do it again.
Though I personally believe they don't have to. The whole debunking-Industry is able to do that alone.