Scientist Who Oversaw OPERA's Faster-Than-Light Neutrino Study Resigns 186
New submitter Big Hairy Ian writes with this news from the BBC:
"The head of an experiment that appeared to show subatomic particles traveling faster than the speed of light has resigned from his post. Prof Antonio Ereditato oversaw results that appeared to challenge Einstein's theory that nothing could travel faster than the speed of light. Reports said some members of his group, called OPERA, had wanted him to resign. Earlier in March, a repeat experiment found that the particles, known as neutrinos, did not exceed light speed."
Re:That seems weird to me (Score:2, Informative)
Contrary to what romantics believe, science is a rat race, and a pretty intense one at that. First off, you compete for funding. Scientists are always famously working on grant proposals and follow-ups like politicians in an election year. Heck, during my first postdoc interview, I was seated in a room for an hour and asked to write a two page grant proposal on any topic of my choosing, to ascertain how well I could write proposals under pressure. Gaining a reputation for "being wrong" negatively affects your ability to win grants.
Secondly, you compete with your colleagues. When I was in the game, about 1 in 6 graduate students trying for a tenure track position in particle physics made it. In that kind of environment, your friendly and reasonable colleagues are not very forgiving if you make a mistake. You have limited chance to recover, because almost all criticism occurs behind your back, and appears in coded form on the recommendations. "He's the best I've ever seen" == he's a winnner, and "He's very good" == he's a loser.
Thirdly, in a big particle physics collaboration, you know from the outset that discoveries ** will be made **, and the main trick is to manouver yourself into the big seat when the right discoveries get announced. Ereditato's choice was tough: sit on the result and possibly forfeit a big discovery to the next OPERA spokesman, or take a risk and announce and try to weather the storm if it turns out wrong. He gambled and lost. That's what happened.
Science ain't beanbag. "Never say anything wrong."
Not the press: OPERA (Score:5, Informative)
The members of the mainstream press who blew things out of proportion and dumbed down the story...
Sorry but this time the press are most certainly NOT to blame. OPERA was by no means "scientifically fine" and they did not present it as "odd data" they specifically made the claim that neutrinos were travelling faster than light and asked for help to verify this. Read the paper [arxiv.org] if you don't believe me - it is there in the abstract. They specifically claim than the anomalous timing was consistent with faster-than-light neutrinos. This is NOT the paper you write if you have some data which seem crazy and you are not sure whether they are correct.
Something like "I have odd data but I can't figure out what I did wrong" was the start of many scientific discoveries.
Correct. However this does not mean that the moment you have some odd data you rush to publish. First you talk it over with colleagues and see if they can find fault (and OPERA did this internally which is fine). After that you could publish a paper explaining every single timing correction systematic error you have considered in full gory detail and at the end say that your final measured time of flight "appears to be" inconsistent with relativity. Better yet, for data with massive implications like this, you could invite a pannel of external reviewers to go over the data and experiment to look for mistakes with an agreement that if it is confirmed by them that they will publish their findings after the first paper laying out the full gory details.
What you do NOT do is publish an initial short paper with most of the details left out in a rush which claims the data are due to faster-than-light neutrinos. The mistake OPERA made was not in publishing but in HOW they published.
Some churches OK with science (Score:4, Informative)
... turning to church-based learning is the answer ...
FWIW some churches may be doing OK with respect to scientific education. The Catholic church has stated that scientific discovery is not in conflict with faith, this includes discoveries with respect to evolution. They do a bit of real cosmological science. One of their priests formulated the currently accepted origin of the universe, the big bang theory. Our western tradition of the scientific method originated with various medieval bishops. I believe various other churches have similar perspectives. Not all Christian churches are of the opinion that the universe snapped into existence, as we see it now, on a wednesday six thousand years ago. The later group just gets more TV time and create a misleading impression of Christianity.