Stephen A. Lawrence wrote:
Jed Rothwell wrote:
> Below are some quotes from Collins & Pinch, which I find disturbing.
Disturbing, why? Because they reflect badly on Collins & Pinch?
That is a complicated subject. It is a difficult to judge whether
they agree or disagree with the attitudes they describe, or whether
they are merely reporting the attitudes. As I said, I am not happy
with their conclusions regarding cold fusion, in the next chapter.
Gene was more willing to cut them slack than I was.
Miller was taken quite seriously. Sufficiently seriously, in fact, that
a lot of others have run experiments looking for an ether wind, in part
because Miller seemed to have found one.
There is something which all modern day amateurs need to keep in mind:
When Miller did his work, he was TRYING TO SUPPORT THE MAINSTREAM VIEW.
Miller was part and parcel with the "mainstream cabal" which resists new
and disruptive theories.
The last sentence is disturbing regardless of Miller's status as
inside the establishment or outside it:
"The meaning of an experimental result does not, then, depend only
upon the care with which it is designed and carried out, it depends
upon what people are ready to believe."
That is true, but it should not be. People should try to evaluate
experiments strictly according to the instruments and techniques,
without regard to theory, expectation or other experiments. If you do
not do that expectation or bias may hide an important result.
Of course it is impossible to ignore other results completely, and
this would lead to an atomized view in which you could draw no
conclusions. The overall weight of evidence from many different
experiments is meaningful. But it should not be used as an excuse to
disregard anomalies or to consider them "annoying." They should be
"puzzling" or "unresolved," not annoying.
It is a difficult balance.
- Jed
