The Gravitational Wave proof is bullshit, that is all.
The Gravitational Wave proof is bullshit, that is all.
I passed Botheration so I can be a Reconsideration
Since getting back from my last job, I haven't been able to stay awake for more than 12 hours at a time. I've also been sleeping anywhere from 10-14 hours every night. It's been almost a week, this is wild.
People think they understand their own mortality, even when that understanding has just changed.
--Meditations on Uncertainty Vol ξ(x)
Funny, I was just discussing this today with my supervisor and asked what I thought.
I said I didn't know much about it, hadn't looked at it, but from what he's telling me about it, it's probably bull.
Why? How can I say that without even looking at it?
Well, assuming his anecdotal story as to its context, money spent, sensitivity and complexity of equipment required is true, I said its basic stats that to be confident of a very small signal, you need many observations. They've reported quite early on very expensive equipment that needs justification for its investment, there's social/institution pressure to do bad stats and find an effect asap, the tech stack is so complex I doubt anyone could really understand it, and the gravitational waves from colliding black holes just happen to coincide with them turning it on.
A reasonable and skeptical mind would conclude the most likely outcome is that they are in error/it's a false positive. A given that there is practically no consequence to me being right or wrong and how it won't effect anything about my life and how I'm not going to look into it further, that would be my suggestion for a working assumption![]()
It seems easy to imagine that El Nino is a sentient Trinity of Air, Water, & Fire Elementals driven by the malicious intent of Stabbing South America in the Back.
You'd fit in most nicely with the Liberals here in the US. Especially given that it would be incredibly easy and quick to douse the flames of prejudicial presumptions with just a smidgen of research.
You'd also fit in nicely with the far-right nuts here in the US by completely disregarding the significance of an astoundingly overwhelming consensus of the learned scientific community working in the field in question.
They played Devil's Advocate with the data for 5 months, in the best tradition of rational scientific endeavor, trying to find flies in the ointment. Because damage to their personal careers and scientific interest, from getting this wrong, would far exceed any sort-term benefit to the LIGO project by having released a hasty press-release back in September of last year.
The separate signals received at Hanford & Livingston closely fit the predictions about what a Singularity Death-Spiral Tango would look like.
Overlaid, one is a nigh perfect fingerprint of the other (After you account for the fact that the signals were not received simultaneous).
A time delay that is fully consistent with a signal traveling at 'The Speed of Light' and reaching the more distal Interferometer accordingly delayed.
Creativity is the residue of time wasted. ~ Albert Einstein
I was also unable to find any data driven dissent anywhere that I looked. The data looks good to everyone who has the credentials to read it, and the paper simply reports and interprets the data with confidence p=0.1 (for it's fit to expected). I'm sure they'd rather have had .05, but given the infancy of our ability to do these detections at all, 0.1 is a robust finding. But not an overstated one. As with all science, as more data comes in, we'll be able to say more and with more surety. To imply that they should not have published their data and the by-far most-likely interpretation of these data until they've got more is ridiculous. The word "proof" isn't one any scientist is comfortable with, but scientists don't get to write their own headlines.
The only thing these scientists have said so far is, "We got these readings and they fit what we expect a reading of a "singularity death-spiral tango*" to look like with p=0.1 confidence." Given such a fit, it is logical to conclude that the data support the hypothesis. More support would be ideal, but we are going to have to be patient.
(*because I love OzR's phraseology so much)
Last edited by Sistamatic; 02-16-2016 at 06:41 PM.
Insults are effective only where emotion is present. -- Spock, "Who Mourns for Adonais?" Stardate 3468.1.
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. -- Aristotle
Ah, but here's where I wouldn't fit in with the US liberals or conservatives.
I said my most reasonable conclusion was that it was bunk. Not that research should stop, or that they shouldn't have published. Or that it IS definitely bunk. Or that because the current most likely outcome is bubcus that they should stop, yada yada yada...
This is where I don't fit in with either American or popular science culture. I am a finely tuned reason machine with no emotional connection to ithem being right or wrong, or indeed to the possibility of my own opinions being right or wrong either. I know, ego, hear me out at least.
Indeed, far from saying the evidence doesn't support the hypothesis, nor did I say or imply they shouldn't publish, nor that their reputations should be tarnished if they are wrong, neither do I think that negative findings from expenditure in pure science necessarily a bad thing. I basically said that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and given the institutional and social pressure these people are under, the bias in current scientific reporting (and dare I say, supported by people's emotional reaction on here and in real life to reports most of them have neither studied nor able to understand) to report positive findings vs negative ones, and the sheer complexity of the tech/method stack they're probably working on (common amongst scientists and researches to do their analysis without control for such in complex environments), and the known fact that this stuff is all still new and experimental, and the sheer lack of impact on most of us day to day if the hypothesis is true or false, the most reasonable conclusion is still that the data is insufficient to suggest this should be held as a true belief. Perhaps that is a better word than bunk.
But I still think it is the most reasonable conclusion is currently falsity. Given that this is the kind of science that can theoretically be put through replication methods, unlike some climatology or economics for example: the most sensible thing an impassioned observer could do is say it is interesting and that we should wait for replication confirmation.
As I also said to my work colleague, in stats, and observation of one does not a reliable trend make.
/Jesus, the feels!
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