Avi Loeb Says Meteor Analysis Shows It Originated Outside Our Solar System (usatoday.com) 86
In late August the blog of Harvard professor Avi Loeb declared he had "Wonderful news! For the first time in history, scientists analyzed materials from a meter-size object that originated from outside the solar system."
In July Loeb retrieved parts of a meteor that landed in the waters off of Papua, New Guinea in 2014. A local New York newscast describes the find as "metallic marbles, less than a millimeter in diameter," while Loeb called them "beautiful spheres that were colored — blue, brown or gold."
Now USA Today reports: Early analysis shows that some spherules from the meteor path contain "extremely high abundances" of an unheard-of composition of heavy elements. Researchers on the team say the composition of beryllium, lanthanum and uranium, labeled as a "BeLaU" composition, does not match terrestrial alloys natural to Earth or fallout from nuclear explosions. Additionally, the composition is not found in magma oceans of Earth, nor the moon, Mars or other natural bodies in the solar system.
Other elements are thought to have been lost by evaporation during IM1's passage through the Earth's atmosphere, researchers said, leading them to theorize that the spherules could originate in a magma ocean on an exoplanet with an iron core outside the solar system.
Long-time Slashdot reader Okian Warrior writes that "Technical details can be found here, and a readable accounting of the analysis and results can be found on Avi Loeb's blog." Loeb writes that the exact composition of those spheres are now being studied at three separate laboratories, including one at Harvard.
In July the New York Times published reactions to Loeb's claim that "It's most likely a technological gadget with artificial intelligence." "People are sick of hearing about Avi Loeb's wild claims," said Steve Desch, an astrophysicist at Arizona State University. "It's polluting good science — conflating the good science we do with this ridiculous sensationalism and sucking all the oxygen out of the room." Dr. Desch added that several of his colleagues were now refusing to engage with Dr. Loeb's work in peer review, the process by which scholars evaluate one another's research to ensure that only high-quality studies are published... "What the public is seeing in Loeb is not how science works. And they shouldn't go away thinking that."
Last week Salon also had a few questions for Loeb: In your book, you called Carl Sagan's adage that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" a "logical fallacy." How and why do you think that statement is somewhat flawed or a logical fallacy?
It's used as an excuse for people who don't want to deal with an exciting possibility. They don't seek the evidence and they argue, "Well, we don't have any evidence...."
If or when we encounter extraterrestrial life, do you think we'll find it or it will find us? Why?
I think we will find it near us because most stars [formed] billions of years before the sun, so it's more likely that some other civilizations preceded us because their star, if it's like the sun, already went through what we in the future might go through. We just need to be humble and modest, not assume that we are unique and special — that Albert Einstein was the smartest scientist who ever lived since the Big Bang — and engage in the search.
That's what I'm trying to do, and the pushback is really strange under these circumstances because the people who argue against it have very strong opinions. But if you look at the history of science, they were very often wrong: the people [who] thought that the earth was the center of the universe, for example.
From Loeb's blog post: During my routine jog at sunrise on the deck of Silver Star, I was asked: "Are you running away from something or towards something?" My answer was: "Both. I am running away from colleagues who have strong opinions without seeking evidence, and I am running towards a higher intelligence in interstellar space."
In July Loeb retrieved parts of a meteor that landed in the waters off of Papua, New Guinea in 2014. A local New York newscast describes the find as "metallic marbles, less than a millimeter in diameter," while Loeb called them "beautiful spheres that were colored — blue, brown or gold."
Now USA Today reports: Early analysis shows that some spherules from the meteor path contain "extremely high abundances" of an unheard-of composition of heavy elements. Researchers on the team say the composition of beryllium, lanthanum and uranium, labeled as a "BeLaU" composition, does not match terrestrial alloys natural to Earth or fallout from nuclear explosions. Additionally, the composition is not found in magma oceans of Earth, nor the moon, Mars or other natural bodies in the solar system.
Other elements are thought to have been lost by evaporation during IM1's passage through the Earth's atmosphere, researchers said, leading them to theorize that the spherules could originate in a magma ocean on an exoplanet with an iron core outside the solar system.
Long-time Slashdot reader Okian Warrior writes that "Technical details can be found here, and a readable accounting of the analysis and results can be found on Avi Loeb's blog." Loeb writes that the exact composition of those spheres are now being studied at three separate laboratories, including one at Harvard.
In July the New York Times published reactions to Loeb's claim that "It's most likely a technological gadget with artificial intelligence." "People are sick of hearing about Avi Loeb's wild claims," said Steve Desch, an astrophysicist at Arizona State University. "It's polluting good science — conflating the good science we do with this ridiculous sensationalism and sucking all the oxygen out of the room." Dr. Desch added that several of his colleagues were now refusing to engage with Dr. Loeb's work in peer review, the process by which scholars evaluate one another's research to ensure that only high-quality studies are published... "What the public is seeing in Loeb is not how science works. And they shouldn't go away thinking that."
Last week Salon also had a few questions for Loeb: In your book, you called Carl Sagan's adage that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" a "logical fallacy." How and why do you think that statement is somewhat flawed or a logical fallacy?
It's used as an excuse for people who don't want to deal with an exciting possibility. They don't seek the evidence and they argue, "Well, we don't have any evidence...."
If or when we encounter extraterrestrial life, do you think we'll find it or it will find us? Why?
I think we will find it near us because most stars [formed] billions of years before the sun, so it's more likely that some other civilizations preceded us because their star, if it's like the sun, already went through what we in the future might go through. We just need to be humble and modest, not assume that we are unique and special — that Albert Einstein was the smartest scientist who ever lived since the Big Bang — and engage in the search.
That's what I'm trying to do, and the pushback is really strange under these circumstances because the people who argue against it have very strong opinions. But if you look at the history of science, they were very often wrong: the people [who] thought that the earth was the center of the universe, for example.
From Loeb's blog post: During my routine jog at sunrise on the deck of Silver Star, I was asked: "Are you running away from something or towards something?" My answer was: "Both. I am running away from colleagues who have strong opinions without seeking evidence, and I am running towards a higher intelligence in interstellar space."
Bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
That's what I'm trying to do, and the pushback is really strange under these circumstances because the people who argue against it have very strong opinions. But if you look at the history of science, they were very often wrong:
Such bullshit. There are a small number of well publicised cases where "they" were wrong. You only hear about them precisely because they were rare.
99.99999% of the time it's just someone being wrong and "dumbass is wrong" is not a great story outside of politics. In 20 year's time no one's going to be recounting the story of "heh remember the stupid reactionless EM drive/accidental perpetual motion machine, remember how everyone said they were wrong and they were hahaha everyone's so good". The most you'll get is stories of people suckered into the hype train like cold fusion and any of a number of other schemes.
But even those won't be popular stories like "everyone laughed at Einstein", because they are not especially rare. The other thing about "everyone laughed at Einstein" of course is it is not true.
Re: Bullshit (Score:3)
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Well, I think it comes down to what Sagan said about evidence. The evidence for washing hands *was* extraodiary compared to the evidence supporting the status quo position, which wasn't supported by *anything*.
It's not that extraordinary claims backed by inadequate evidence are necessarily false. Every foundational idea in science started its life this way, but then managed to pass the "extraordinary claims" test.
This shows the remarkable importance of crackpots in advancing science. Some day Avi Loeb's
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"This shows the remarkable importance of crackpots in advancing science."
No it doesn't. No crackpots are needed at all.
"...if that day comes it'll be because the conservative scientific establishment *forced* him to prove his leap of faith."
No, it will be because a crackpot was involved. It would be just as likely that "extraterrestrial artifacts within the Solar System may become the scientific consensus" without a crackpot claiming it without evidence first.
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Crackpots play an essential role in the scientific discourse -- as long as they're bound by the rules of a refereed scientific forum. Without them you wouldn't have, say, *plate tectonics*. Without them you wouldn't have anthropogenic cliamate change, although of course the crackpots now are on the *other* side of that question. A few years back some tried to repeal conservation of momentum in their reactionless drive experiments, and though they were quickly proven wrong, their activity was legitimately
Re: Bullshit (Score:4)
Crackpots play an essential role in the scientific discourse -
I think you're using a different definition of "crackpot" than others in this conversation. For example, with continental drift, the proponents were not crackpots. They did good science. They were rejected by the scientific community because they did not have an all-encompassing theory on how plate tectonics happened. Just like with Semmelweis who empirically demonstrated the value of washing hands and tools in between dissecting corpses and delivering babies, but did not have a satisfactory theory for why it worked. If anything those stories demonstrate that there was a little too much crackpottery among the more conservative scientists. Too much of a tradition of sophistry and deference given to wise masters. In many ways, it was probably an artifact of the Socratic educational methods used.
Consider that Semmelweis was fired and replaced with someone who abandoned the handwashing regime and installed a ventilation system to remove "miasmas" instead. One of the main problems with acceptance of continental drift was the history of literal biblical interpretation in geology and geography. Serious investigation of heavier than air flight was held back by Lord Kelvin declaring it impossible, with most scientists afraid to cross him. Discussion on the age of the Earth was stifled for years by Lord Kelvin as well due to back of the envelope calculations Kelvin had done which incorrectly modeled the temperature of the subsurface.
I would say that most of those you're thinking of as 'crackpots" who broke the mold were actually scientific thinkers who were rebelling against crackpots who were dominating science. You may wonder if that means that I'm calling people like Lord Kelvin crackpots. The answer is, yes. One of the important things to remember about crackpots is that they can be brilliant and quite correct in other areas. Fred Hoyle is a great example. A respected astrophysicist who showed that higher elements were created in cosmic events, he also insisted that archaeopteryx was fake. So he was a celebrated genius in astrophysics, but a crackpot in paleontology and several other fields he stuck his nose into. He wrongly thought that his genius in one area made him a genius in all areas. The same is true of Lord Kelvin, legitimately a polymath, he was, nevertheless, not always right. He tended to assume that he was always right, however. There's a long tradition of sophistry in the history of science and natural philosophy. It goes back to at least the ancient Greek philosophers like Plato, Aristotle, etc. They came up with a lot of interesting ideas that have influenced science for thousands of years, but they also came up with a lot of ridiculous nonsense that has, unfortunately, also influenced science for thousands of years. How many people has the concept of imbalance of the four humors killed over the years, I wonder? There are still traditional medical practices that many people use instead of real medicine that rely on those concepts.
That's why so much emphasis is placed on the scientific method in modern science. It's an attempt to avoid the mistakes of the past and work around human fallibility.
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I'm less interested in arguing over definitions than I am in how things actually work.
The problem with most definitions of "crackpot" is that you only know really if they fit someone after history has judged him. So I am *ironically* pointing out the problems of the concept of "crackpot" *a priori*.
A less loaded term would be "heterodox". Heterodox thinkers are the ones that end up advancing orthodox thinking by doing -- as you say -- good science. But at first blush a lot of them look like crackpots; a
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The problem with most definitions of "crackpot" is that you only know really if they fit someone after history has judged him. So I am *ironically* pointing out the problems of the concept of "crackpot" *a priori*.
To a degree that may be true, but I hold that someone can be a crackpot and still be right. They can also have a revolutionary idea that's simply wrong and be judged a crackpot, but not be one because they went about it the right way. Even if it turns out that there is alien life and they visit Earth, people like Loeb will still be crackpots. Heck, once introduced to his theories, the aliens will probably think he's a crackpot. This is because he is clearly so overwhelmed with his enthusiasm for evidence of
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pan out. But it's not *necessarily* harmful; they're just making themselves unpopular with their colleages.
Bringing this back to Loeb, I don't see what he's doing as harmful to science or the public understanding of science; he's just saying the quiet part out loud.
Extraordinary claims requiring extraordinary evidence as a logical fallacy is the quiet part? Seems like it is the wish. Should we just eliminate evidence?
So many scientific breakthroughs on places like Youtube, and even here - Let's just accept them. The rules of physics were made to be broken, I guess.
We are on the very cusp of "personal belief based science, where if you think Aliens built the pyramids, then that is the truth.
It's more religion than science. And if I believe in the biblical floo
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The quiet part is "I'm right, and the rest of you suckers are too unimaginative to see it."
The point I'm making is that irrational personal conviction has *always* played a role in science. It's place, however, is behind the scenes. This private / public dichotomy plays an important role in expunging confirmation bias from science while still allowing imaginations to run free, by defining a public debate space where personal conviction is not allowed to enter.
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The quiet part is "I'm right, and the rest of you suckers are too unimaginative to see it."
The point I'm making is that irrational personal conviction has *always* played a role in science. It's place, however, is behind the scenes. This private / public dichotomy plays an important role in expunging confirmation bias from science while still allowing imaginations to run free, by defining a public debate space where personal conviction is not allowed to enter.
Of course. That's because scientist are human too. They have all of the foibles and faults that real people do. That's why you document your work, and whenever possible, have others verify it.
The problem is when people like Loeb demand that a fundamental principle of science, that the more extraordinary the claim - the more extraordinary the proof needed to accept that claim is needed is a logical fallacy - he's demanding either no proof or very little proof.
Which is all I have to do is claim that I h
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That's a big misunderstanding of both science and history.
It's not like scientists were saying "there's no need to wash your hands", or that people were and scientists told them not to. it's that no one had considered that there was a reason to suddenly and for no reason start doing something that no one had routinely done before. Scientists weren't telling people to wash hands for the same reason they're not telling people to hop places instead of walk. Why would you suddenly start talking about that in th
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It's not like scientists were saying "there's no need to wash your hands", or that people were and scientists told them not to. i
Actually, it is like that was happening. Ignaz Semmelweis implemented a handwashing regime in his obstetrics hospital and did a detailed empirical study that clearly demonstrated its efficacy. He was fired and replaced by a prominent doctor who quickly scrapped the handwashing regime and put in a ventilation system instead. Infections quickly went back up to their previous levels.
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Oh yeah, good point!
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"...an excuse for people who don't want to deal with an exciting possibility."
The trick is to have an open mind, but not so open that your brain falls out.
Re:Bullshit (Score:5, Informative)
I don't understand why Slashdot is platforming this nutjob.
For anyone who actually cares about his "evidence" on this, the latest of his "ALIENS!" claims, here you go [twitter.com].
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He has calmed down considerably. His latest interview was quite sane. Never claimed to be a victim or mentioned alien space ships. Answered all answers scientifically.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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Do you have something like that on a readable platform? The kind that doesn't force one to log in just to read that info.
Re:Bullshit (Score:5, Informative)
It does? Man that platform sucks these days.
Sure, here's what it says:
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Thanks for the info dump.
Personally, I find this part is more than enough:
Loeb claims the chemistry of 5 spherules is unprecedented, even giving them the name âoeBeLaUâ. Their Figure 10a shows they have huge excesses of Th, U, La, Nb, Ce, Ba, and depletions in Co, Zn, relative to presumed asteroidal material. 12/20
It took me 20 minutes to find a similar example in the literature. Figure 2 of Rudraswami et al. (2016; MaPS 51, 718) shows scoriaceous S-type spherules in the Indian Ocean with huge excesses of Th, U, La, Nb, Ce, Ba, and depletions in Co, Zn. 13/20
Why this chemistry? Because over tens of thousands of years, spherules react with sea water and sediments with these elements (Prasad et al. 2015; MaPS 50, 1013). Loebâ(TM)s spherules simply have sat on the seafloor for tens of thousands of years. 14/20.
But a detailed argument is always better.
For a detailed breakdown of Loeb in general, I'd recommend this.
Seen it. Even linked it a few times here. :)
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I don't understand why Slashdot is platforming this nutjob.
because odds are it will collect a lot of triggered replies, aka "community engagement", which is what slashdot's business model is about? in a sense they're trolling their own forum, and surely appreciate your contribution :-)
Re:Bullshit (Score:5, Informative)
That's what I'm trying to do, and the pushback is really strange under these circumstances because the people who argue against it have very strong opinions. But if you look at the history of science, they were very often wrong:
Science is adversarial - it is systematic skepticism, which means that science does not deliver certainties, but propositions that remain open to falsification. Claiming persecution, as Loeb is doing, is to place oneself outside of science, and firmly inside of religion - which of course is certain.
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The scientific method allows for cranks and faddists among the ranks. A claimed fact has to pass all the filters from peer review on before it becomes an established fact.
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You are completely wrong. ...
You will be remembered for ever with your claim that an EM drive is a perpetual motion machine.
To late to change your sig
Internet archive
Internet time machine
And so on
You made an idiot out of yourself, and it will never be forgotten ...
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Oh you're the guy who can't do basic highschool physics.
I quote the kinetic energy equation and put some numbers in, you fling poo. Yep your poo is as good as physics.
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Oh you're the guy who can't do basic highschool physics.
I quote the kinetic energy equation and put some numbers in, you fling poo. Yep your poo is as good as physics.
Molten poo will form spherules upon dropping into water. So maybe poster is on to something! 8^)
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Molten poo will form spherules upon dropping into water. So maybe poster is on to something! 8^)
Indeed! He is a pretty classic crackpot. I posted a few pretty straightforward equations and git a blizzard of said spheurles in response. I tried a second time with more or less the same results.
I think one aspect of crackpottery which is shared is not really understanding that everything is connected together, and you can't scrap one pillar of your logical framework without the entire thing coming tumbling down
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I think one aspect of crackpottery which is shared is not really understanding that everything is connected together, and you can't scrap one pillar of your logical framework without the entire thing coming tumbling down because it isn't modular.
So much this!
So many people do not realize that connection aspect. We get the disconnect in many things. The CO2 greenhouse gas issue. There are some physics involved that are validated by the radiative forcing on other planets jibing with earth.
So they want special conditions for gaseous radiative forcing on earth. Then again, they ted to shut up when I ask them for the physics that invalidates that 100 percent observable effect, from other planets like Mars and Venus, to actual greenhouses all over
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Yes, you put up random formulars and random numbers.
So: where does the infinite preputium mobile energy come from? And where does it go?
Unlike you: I have a degree in Physics.
Stupid idiot.
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The concept of science is that the determiner of truth is evidence, and evidence alone. A meteor with an unusual molecular composition is not evidence of aliens. The end.
If it ducks like a quack, it's a quack. (Score:5, Funny)
That is all.
ho, hum (Score:2)
Spaceship crashes, totally disintegrates except for the ball bearings. Probably part of their... uh... mechanical FTL drive. Or mechanical matter transporter. Or maybe their slave robots' yarbles.
At any rate, we now know the ingredients for unobtanium.
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Extraterrestrial:Maybe. Product of inteligence?:No (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe the isotope ratios ( or other SCIENCE ) show that these things do come from outside the solar system.
That is surely not that controversial?
But nothing about them I can see shows that they are the product of intelligence.
That is surely bullshit and has no science behind it?
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( The headline was incorrect, should have read "Interstellar" not "Extraterrestrial" )
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The text of my comment is correct.
Fallacies (Score:5, Insightful)
Carl Sagan's adage that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" is not a "logical fallacy". It is better thought of as a statement about (Bayesian) inference.
For example, supposing that I have an a priori belief that the probability of life on Mars is one in a million. Loeb finds a rock that he claims has a 99% chance of being made by a Martian and and a 1% chance of being made here on Earth. I would update my belief to one in ten thousand, which is still a long way from being persuaded.
A better example of a logical fallacy is 'They don't seek the evidence and they argue, "Well, we don't have any evidence...."', which misrepresents his opponent's position and is a example of the straw man fallacy.
Just making sh*t up (Score:2)
What actually could possibly be the fallacy in Sagan's claim? Formally, there is nothing wrong with it - it is a perfectly fine implication (x->y). I also see nothing wrong with it informally speaking. How can it be an unjust presumption, for instance, that evidence be proportional to the claim?
Loeb is just using words, but wrongly. He should have written: "I disagree."
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Loeb does not seem to understand the significance of burden of proof in the sciences to begin with. He does not seem to comprehend that the one who makes a claim needs to back it up by evidence in order to validate it and that you can't just go on "hasn't been proven wrong yet" with
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Loeb is fun to read, he is clearly a bit mad and I think everyone know this. Let's just move on.
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What actually could possibly be the fallacy in Sagan's claim?
Well it means people are less likely to believe in Loeb's aliens... so it's a fallacy which is something I dunno, people on the internet say "fallacy" a lot and it means they don't like something. Carl Sagan doesn't like Loeb's aliens so it's a fallacy.
Or something, I dunno. Dude's a crank. Don't look for sense where there is none.
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A simple claim need simple evidence to be proved.
An extraordinary claim needs extraordinary evidence to be proved.
In fact a claim only needs evidence to be proved.
Has nothing to to with simple, extraordinary, absurd or what ever.
You prove what ever level of extraordinarytillity a claim has: done. Proved.
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It's not about proof, it's about acceptance. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence to be accepted as plausible.
I hear a buzzing behind me. I turn to look and nothing's there. I claim that there's a fly in the house. This is not at all an extraordinary claim. We know house flies exist, we know they make buzzing noises, and we know they're small and move fast. The ordinary level of evidence is fine for this ordinary claim. I haven't *proven* that the buzzing was from a housefly, but it's rea
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It's not about proof, it's about acceptance. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence to be accepted as plausible.
No, they don't.
They only need evidence.
Just like anything else.
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Extraordinary claims are rife with snake oil. That is why they need better evidence.
Sagan was speaking from a skeptic point of view, which deals with Nessie, big feet, fairies, psychics, perpetual motion, and yes, UFOs.
cue robert parker (Score:5, Insightful)
"Alas, to wear the mantle of Galileo it is not enough that you be persecuted by an unkind establishment, you must also be right."
Re:cue robert parker (Score:5, Interesting)
The fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown. Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were.
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To be fair to the unkind establishment, as I understand it the Catholic Church and the Pope were less pissed off at his endorsement of heliocentrism, which was actually proposed well before Galileo, but by Galileo putting a forward in his book that insulted the pope.
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To be fair, Bruno was a rogue employee who started criticizing the company, so they fired him.
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I was pleased to see this quote from the famous wine critic, but it turns out to be from the physicist Robert Park.
Loeb as celebrity (Score:2, Interesting)
Loeb reminds me of the "famous for being famous" kind of celebrity; those that don't do anything except the sort of provocative thing that continues to get them talked about endlessly, because of a media that can leverage scandal (real or imagined) as a source of steady cash flow.
Any context a reader might hope to gain from reading such supposed reporting of astronomy gets buried by both the most garish opportunist leveraging it for self promotion (here: Loeb) and a media outlet leveraging Loeb for scandal
Re: Loeb as celebrity (Score:2)
Yes. But if he were making equally groundless claims about global warming and microplastics ending the world as we know it in 12 years, the reactions would be much more muted and possibly confined to fox news and the like.
But he's talking about ET so it's okay to point out the pathologies of modern American academia with him as the poster child.
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Microplastics ending the world as we know it within 12 years is a much more likely claim than this meteor that might have come from outside our solar system is actually some sort of alien technology.
We have convincing evidence that microplastics exist. We have convincing evidence that microplastics pose problems for people and the environment in general. It's still an insanely massive jump to say they will cause so much damage we could consider the world has "ended" within 12 years, but it's at least severa
Re: Well ... (Score:1)
Never interrupt your opponent when he is making a mistake.
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What's with this fellow? (Score:2)
Re: What's with this fellow? (Score:1)
"Recently" is doing a lot of work. He started ranting about aliens no later than 2017 when oumuamua was discovered and unambiguously identified as being in an unbound orbit.
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I suspect he was always crazy, he just didn't have enough of an outlet and hadn't worn out his welcome with enough peers to become a poster boy for it until he got all worked up about Omemee and the media amplified it.
Holy hell not this shit again (Score:2)
I'm with the Arizona guy. Loeb's poisoned his own well. Even if that meteor came from outside the solar system (plausible, but no way to prove it given lack of long-arc astrometric observations), the fact that it's the guy screaming "Alienz!" at every turn does make it look like an episode of ghost hunters. And people will treat it as such.
Maybe not ... (Score:2)
Avi Loeb went too fast into the deep end ...
The micrometeorites may have originated in the solar system [youtube.com] after all.
And, more generally, it looks like he belongs to the crackpot category [youtube.com].
Well known aliens guy (Score:3)
Dude is a well known "aliens" guy. Quick test is I always do to any aliens guy is show them a pictures of large granite blocks at ancient sites like Sacsayhuaman and ask if ancient humans can cut out those blocks. When they say "no way" that's when I know they're crazy, because splitting granite into blocks is very easy with a basic tools. In fact there's plenty of videos on YouTube showing people manually splitting granite blocks using ancient tools. Same thing with drilling or polishing it using an abrasive such as corundum or quartz sand.
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Just as it always was (Score:2)
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The beryllium sphere, of course (Score:2)
Model Validated (Score:2)
Avi's grad student came up with a model to use existing NORAD datasets to find interstellar meteors' impact locations.
There's nothing controversial about that idea.
This seabed raking seems to have validated the model by finding unique alloys exactly where predicted.
Separately Avi hopes some of them will be pieces of discarded technology and we'll have a chance of a techno-signature delivery.
That's a long shot but it's more likely now than sending an interstellar probe, so why not look, since the model tells
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These people have already abandoned anything that even remotely resembles a normal human life. To them, 10 or 20 million to Loeb is basically a 5-buck lottery ticket, where the long shot payout is an “altered carb
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Fundraising might be easier than you think. No “legit” foundation is likely to write a check to him.
Harvard made him the head of the Department of Astronomy.
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Either that or they're looking for big charitable donations to declare on their tax returns and don't really care if anything comes of it. Of course, they'd be thrilled if his research pays off, but that's not their main goal here.
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If he had "validated" his model, then he'd also have performed "raking" experiments at least twice in areas distant from his projected interstellar meteorite impact site, before and after his experiments in the area of interest. Preferably three "control" runs, in three locations, so you get a handle on the mean and variability of the count (and composition of magnetic micrometeorites on the seabed. That wo
Can we stop posting stories about quacks? (Score:1)
The bits they use pollute the planet.
About as scientific as the National Enquirer (Score:2)