The one crackpot I interacted most strongly did have experimental results, and trumpeted them loudly. The experiment turned out to be a notoriously finnicky one (not quite down to Millikan experiment territory) done in slipshod fashion. This was utterly predictable, given purely theoretical considerations and examination of his style, even before it came to the observations—his theory contradicted, say, the existence of comets.
Experiments can be wrong. Maybe even most attempts at experiments are wrong. What makes a scientist a scientist instead of a crackpot is the debugging and validation. Trying to exclude every way the results might not mean what it seems like they mean—not just doing control-experiment comparison and saying you’ve done your duty.
Crackpot experiments, lacking these extra checks, are worthless.
Experiments can be wrong. Maybe even most attempts at experiments are wrong.
This wouldn’t surprise me much, at least in physics. There are probably more physics students than professional physicists, and those students do lots of tabletop experiments, badly. (My own old lab books document a refractive index measurement of −19.6, a disproof of the equivalence principle, and a laser beam that travelled at (1.05±0.01)c.) Nonetheless...
What makes a scientist a scientist instead of a crackpot is the debugging and validation. Trying to exclude every way the results might not mean what it seems like they mean—not just doing control-experiment comparison and saying you’ve done your duty.
...this is a bit too strong a distinction between crackpots & non-crackpots, though your basic point is right. The way I’d put it: a non-crackpot confronted with a bizarre result immediately wonders, “what did I do wrong?”, but a crackpot confronted with the same result immediately gasps, “I knew it!”.
I guess I’m just paraphrasing Dear Leader, really: one’s strength as a non-crackpot is one’s ability to be more confused by bizarre, inexplicable results than predictable results.
What makes a scientist a scientist instead of a crackpot is the debugging and validation. Trying to exclude every way the results might not mean what it seems like they mean—not just doing control-experiment comparison and saying you’ve done your duty.
On a completely unrelated note, screw the Millikan experiment. That one lab where we had to replicate it in undergrad with the world’s shittiest equipment is probably the only reason I’m a mathematician and not a physicist.
My high school physics class took the Millikan experiment to a new level: we installed a calculator program in which oil drops were simulated by pixels moving down the screen, and you could press buttons to vary the simulated electric charge.
I wonder if I can blame becoming a mathematician on that, too.
The one crackpot I interacted most strongly did have experimental results, and trumpeted them loudly. The experiment turned out to be a notoriously finnicky one (not quite down to Millikan experiment territory) done in slipshod fashion. This was utterly predictable, given purely theoretical considerations and examination of his style, even before it came to the observations—his theory contradicted, say, the existence of comets.
Experiments can be wrong. Maybe even most attempts at experiments are wrong. What makes a scientist a scientist instead of a crackpot is the debugging and validation. Trying to exclude every way the results might not mean what it seems like they mean—not just doing control-experiment comparison and saying you’ve done your duty.
Crackpot experiments, lacking these extra checks, are worthless.
This wouldn’t surprise me much, at least in physics. There are probably more physics students than professional physicists, and those students do lots of tabletop experiments, badly. (My own old lab books document a refractive index measurement of −19.6, a disproof of the equivalence principle, and a laser beam that travelled at (1.05±0.01)c.) Nonetheless...
...this is a bit too strong a distinction between crackpots & non-crackpots, though your basic point is right. The way I’d put it: a non-crackpot confronted with a bizarre result immediately wonders, “what did I do wrong?”, but a crackpot confronted with the same result immediately gasps, “I knew it!”.
I guess I’m just paraphrasing Dear Leader, really: one’s strength as a non-crackpot is one’s ability to be more confused by bizarre, inexplicable results than predictable results.
This would make most modern professional scientists crackpots which sounds a bit noncentral—they may be no true scientists, but they seem very different from the crackpots I’ve met.
There’s a bit of a gap between what ordinary not-very-good scientists do to make sure the experiment is right and what they should be doing.
There is a colossal gulf between what crackpots do and ordinary not-very-good scientists do.
Certain branches of physics are nowhere near as bad as medicine when it comes to that.
On a completely unrelated note, screw the Millikan experiment. That one lab where we had to replicate it in undergrad with the world’s shittiest equipment is probably the only reason I’m a mathematician and not a physicist.
My high school physics class took the Millikan experiment to a new level: we installed a calculator program in which oil drops were simulated by pixels moving down the screen, and you could press buttons to vary the simulated electric charge.
I wonder if I can blame becoming a mathematician on that, too.
/me stares in horror.
Undergrad. Millikan. Oil. Drop. Experiment.
shiver