Last month, a friend pointed me to an article entitled, "In Physics, Telling Cranks from Experts Ain't Easy". It's true. Here is my response:
Anyone who advances the frontiers of human knowledge
must, almost by definition, be "heretical" to some extent (according to
the common wisdom of the day). But that does not imply that all (or
most, or even any) wild theories are therefore correct. Most are just
imaginary; many are plausible but wrong; some may have more than a grain
of truth; finding the very few that change our understanding of some
important aspect of our world is a very important, and extremely
difficult, task. I am not aware of any reliable means to accomplish
it.
So we rely on proxies, any of which may fail: Does this
person have relevant credentials (education, professional experience,
peer reviewed publications, endorsements, etc.)? Has this person
distinguished him/herself in this or a related field previously? Does
this person stand to financially profit by this assertion (patents, getting paid by
companies/special interest groups, etc.)? Is the person mentally stable?
For
those that get through these (arbitrary, perhaps useful) filters, read
the details of the hypothesis closely. Is it coherent? Does it make sense? Is it
self-consistent? Are its promised results readily observed?
If so, test them in more detail. If that passes, replicate. Eventually, adopt it into the generally accepted view of the world.
Then repeat with new outlandish hypotheses.
The
problem is that it takes time and energy to validate claims; which ones
do you look at? If none, we'll never progress - new advances require
challenging existing assumptions. If all, we'll never progress - the
number of cranks out there exceeds the number of qualified professionals
(and the effort required to come up with a potentially revolutionary theory is usually less than the effort required to [in]validate it).
It's a perennial problem.
Fortunately, history provides us with many examples of challenges to scientific orthodoxy that were accepted fairly quickly because the evidence was there.
ReplyDeleteHarvey's theory of the circulation of the blood was contrary to centuries of anatomical thought but Harvey's case was incontrovertible. The geocentric view of the universe quickly collapsed after Copernicus challenged it, and, more recently, the theory of plate tectonics, initially a fringe theory with little supporting evidence, quickly became the accepted model once the data started piling up.
There are indeed several examples of scientific orthodoxy being overthrown in the face of compelling evidence.
DeleteThe key phrase in your comment is "once the data started piling up." In order to collect data, you need to know what you are looking for. Given dozens or hundreds of fringe but plausible theories, which ones do you spend time, money, and scarce resources attempting to [dis]confirm?
It's easy in hindsight to determine that one person was nuts and the theories inaccurate, while another was eccentric with deep insights. But making that initial evaluation takes time and energy, which is one reason why many advances take decades or generations to be incorporated into common wisdom.