[Steuard]

I've been a lot more impatient this go-around than I've generally tried to be in previous incarnations of this topic. It just gets frustrating. It feels like I've tried patient education, over and over, and it falls on deaf ears. Clearly the blunt approach goes over even more poorly, and I've known that, too, but I'm running out of ideas for things to try.

I do not consider any significant number of people who are actively engaged with mainstream science to be crackpots, so you needn't worry on that score. (Goodness knows that with my specialty, I'm living in a glass house on that one.) So (as was my point earlier) I have no idea why NASA is continuing to lend their funding and their credibility to what is to my eye a clear crackpot project. My whole point is that this case is an exception to my usual expectation that (at least) scientific work that receives mainstream support deserves at least the benefit of the doubt. (The crackpots I'm talking about are usually very much on the fringe of mainstream conversation, with only tenuous connections to any sort of active, mainstream lab or university or research group. But their ideas still occasionally go a bit viral among non-expert physics enthusiasts. I'd much rather see that wonderful enthusiasm directed in support of halfway viable ideas, even if it means acknowledging that our sci-fi dreams are farther away than we wish they were.)

So maybe I'll ask you for advice. Set aside this specific case, if you'd like, and consider a hypothetical situation where a fundamentally flawed idea for some reason gets a lot of press and generates a lot of public excitement. You're an expert in the subject, and you recognize fundamental flaws in the idea. You see other experts whom you respect reaching the same conclusion (and none on the other side, expressing support). How would you recommend communicating that to non-experts?

(As previously linked, here's what I tried last time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9473209 You can see today all the good it did. I'd really love to know how to communicate this sort of thing successfully.)

[saosebastiao]

I think the explanation is pretty simple.

There is a (very likely) crackpot idea floating around that has gotten a lot of press. This crackpot idea, if it is what is claimed, would have immense value in NASA's primary field of operations and expertise. And this idea has gone through a couple rounds of experimentation where thrust has been measured, but is likely experimental error.

Here is the important part: NASA is investigating this because they are being pressured to investigate this. And they have succeeded in proving the existence of a few sources of experimental error. But not all of them, because there is still some measurement of thrust. And as long as the testing is relatively cheap and the pressure to validate is relatively strong, they will continue to test it. It is entirely likely that not a single physicist at NASA believes this thing works, but they are still getting paid to prove their intuitions as correct.

And I don't buy that testing this is a waste of money. It has already done some good: they've been able to identify and control for sources of measurement error of thrust at the near zero bounded end of thrust magnitude. That experience and capability is still valuable in designing and testing new ion thrusters.

[sanderjd]

> It is entirely likely that not a single physicist at NASA believes this thing works, but they are still getting paid to prove their intuitions as correct.

This, to me, is a key point. I'd rather some of my tax money go toward proving scientific stuff than a lot of the rest of what it goes toward. Maybe there are other scientific pursuits that are more worthy, but an imperfect prioritization of the importance of funding science doesn't seem like it should rate very high on the outrage-o-meter.

[Swannie]

Surely in testing this device, NASA will develop techniques in how to test the efficacy of similar extremely low power propulsion devices?

Or put another way, in testing this device, NASA are refining their ability to conduct a "control" experiment, whilst at the same time debunking some crackpot science that seems to be the subject of discussion every time they talk to senior politicians??

[PopeOfNope]

Read Rhetoric by Aristotle. You're using what he calls Dialectic (facts and figures) to convince people. Most people either don't care about facts and figures or can't understand them. You need to make appeals to emotion, or rhetoric. As for how to effectively communicate in Rhetoric, if I knew that I'd be far more popular than I currently am. :) Maybe ask tptacek for some pointers?

Something else to keep in mind: speaking from a place of authority might help as well. On this matter, you have a serious disadvantage. An anonymous person on the internet will never be able to convince most people that NASA is wrong about space. Unless you're literally a rocket science and can prove you're an expert in the field, most people will believe NASA because they trust NASA.

[grovulent]

Well - I'm struggling to understand what your beliefs about the scientific community actually are. You very clearly stated - in no uncertain terms - that the scientific community had significant numbers of crackpots... You're now backing away from this claim... and are now stating that this em-drive situation is just an isolated anomaly from an institutional point of view and that your real frustration is with the untrained public that won't listen to what you say.

Okay - I'm happy to roll whatever direction you're rolling - so long as we signpost the forks in the road clearly along the way. We're no longer talking about professional, institutional crack-pottery - we are talking about the untrained public. Signposted.

I won't abstract away from this particular example just yet - as there is a clear point of dis-analogy between your hypothetical and this em-drive case... in this case there is a prestigious institution backing this research. It is impossible for non-trained people to make an independent assessment of the cost vs benefits of this research. So it's entirely reasonable for them to be interested and excited when they see such an institution running experiments on what otherwise seems like a moonshot.

Even if other institutional voices like yours are arguing against it - in such cases - it's still quite reasonable for a layperson to shrug and say - well, I see the institutional powers that be disagreeing, but the outcome would be so cool if it turns out to be correct. So meh - let's give it a shot.

And I contend that this is an entirely reasonable response of the layperson in this SPECIFIC case. If it turns out to be the case that this was an egregious waste of money, then the public shouldn't be blamed. And if it is also true that this is an isolated case of institutional failure (as you now seem to believe) - i.e. something which was not a result of systemic flaws in the institution of science - then it's just one of those things... a fuck-up that couldn't be helped because you can't control everything in complex science, and giant institutions.

So in THIS case - just chill. It's not a big deal.

Turning to your hypothetical case - which seems to assume that there is no institutional disagreement whatsoever... well that's a different story. Here your frustration with the public is understandable... although I would tend to diagnose that you have a bad habit of taking it out of your colleagues and the public in cases like the em-drive one where they probably don't deserve it. I probably shouldn't have been so hard on you for that - I'm certainly guilty in the past of having been less than generous to my opponents.

So in the interest of all round good mental health - since this is likely the TRUE source of the frustration... perhaps it's worthwhile thinking it over a little bit for both if respective sanities.

Here is what I believe to be the UR-FACT of public/scientific(academic) interaction.

UR-FACT: It is IMPOSSIBLE to communicate modern science to lay people - unless they go through a significant number of the same hoops required to become a scientist.

Let me qualify this. You can communicate its results, models and data in various high level, poetic and metaphorical language. But you cannot communicate it in such a way so as to enable a layperson to examine a particular result and make an independent and accurate judgement as to whether or not that result is true or not... unless you start from scratch and properly induct that person into the institution of science.

I'm not going to argue at length for the UR-FACT unless you challenge me on it. It's prima-facie true.

Let's now evaluate your frustration in light of the UR-FACT. You mention that you are getting frustrated because you have tried "patient explanation", but people still don't agree with you. Well - given the UR-FACT, it's clear that patient explanation was never going to get you anywhere.

So here's a question you need to be asking yourself VERY SERIOUSLY. I'm going to call this question the UR-QUESTION of public/scientific(academic) interaction.

UR-QUESTION: If the public is in general incapable of any genuine understanding of scientific practice as per the UR-FACT, why do scientists (like yourself) take the time out to give ANY sort of explanation at all?

I can't overstate the importance of this question... because if it turns out that there is NO value to this process of engagement between science and the general public, then this has very broad and extreme implications for human progress and its political organisation. If the progress that science makes possible must be protected and if we can't protect this progress through engagement with a democratic polity - then the democratic nature of that polity will have to be eradicated, and the institution of science defended through force.

This would be a nightmarish scenario - so until we are really SURE that engagement has NO value, we had better start coming up with some good models of what the value of that engagement might be, and start applying those models in practice so that we can realise whatever value is there.

But what possible value is there in engagement with the public if it's not to produce understanding?

Here's one possible hypothesis I think is worth considering. Public engagement derives its value not from any understanding it produces, but in the signalling act between scientist and layman.

What do I mean by "signalling act" - well it's a long story. It derives from the concept of signalling in evolutionary biology - which has since been applied to behavioural economics and other domains. The gist is - people employ signals to covertly convey information to other humans about things like status, tribal loyalty, mate fitness and reliability - stuff that was basic to survival back in the day. So we drive fast cars to signal status... we buy expensive rings to signal mate reliability.. etc.

So what is going on then between scientist and layman when they get into arguments about funding priorities in science? If it isn't about actually exchanging understanding, then what explains the behaviour? Why would humans have evolved to waste THAT much time on such a waste of time? The signalling hypothesis suggests that what is going on is a status game between scientist the layperson. The scientist demands to be agreed with - i.e. requests a signal of his/her status, and when the layperson refuses to give that agreement, it is taken by the scientist that their status is being challenged.

Status was important back in the day. Those at the bottom of the tribe status-wise faired poorly. So we evolved psychological mechanisms to motivate us to seek status. That frustration you feel when you "patient explanations" didn't work? That's negative affect that your brain evolved to make you feel miserable at your perceived loss of status.

So if this hypothesis is true - and it is just a hypothesis (google "costly signalling theory" and go nuts). What advice would it suggest in terms of managing relations between scientific institutions and the public?

Well - I think it would suggest that you as Scientist should do better to control your own signalling behaviours driving you to seek recognition of your status and start thinking about what the public's own signalling behaviours imply they need and want - what will placate them?

And what they want - is the same thing you want. Status. So just give it to them. It's the EASIEST thing in the world. Rather than hitting them over the head with your technical, long winded "patient" explanations - that ring in their brains as nothing more as another status play by the know-it-all scientist... instead, praise their passion, tell them that you scientists are indeed working on every conceivable angle - really show that you are engaging with their suggestions - no matter how crack-potty they may actually be. And maybe at the end of your comment just throw in something like: "but of course we need to be really cautious, because of concerns x,y,z..." - so that your comment has a little educational value as well.

And if this means blowing a few million here or there on some dumb projects so the public feels like the things it cares about are being looked at - then it's probably worth the cost - insofar as we interpret that as a signalling act that conveys the idea that they do have status, they are part of the process... etc.. I'm sure that with practice - we could get the costs of these faux labs/experiments down to a minimum, while getting maximum signalling yield out of them.

But doing what your doing - self-deceptively going about on forums with your so called "patient explanations" as if you don't actually care about your status being ignored, when you clearly do, given how you erupted to accuse not just the public, but the whole institution of science of being guilty of crack-pottery - this behaviour is incredibly harmful when you view it from the point of view of the status signalling that is in play.

This is my advice to you OH PROFESSOR OF PHYSICS! Take it or leave it. :)

[Steuard]

Thanks for writing this. There's a lot to think about here, but just for starters, your very first paragraph finally helped me to understand what failure of clarity on my part led to the hostility that we've been going back and forth with this whole time. So in the interest of improving that clarity, let me try to rephrase my original comment about crackpots to do a better job of conveying what I intended:

----- If your mental model of "the set of people who publicly discuss science" doesn't include "There exist a whole lot of crackpots out there", your mental model of scientific discourse in our society is wrong. The odds of radical new ideas being crackpottery are far greater than the odds that some unappreciated genius has upended the well-tested laws of physics. -----

I'm not sure whether it was carelessness or generosity that led me to use the term "the scientific community" in a way that included those working at (or beyond) the far fringe of respectability. On reflection, I think that I've done them that courtesy before; I'm often careful to specify a label like "mainstream" when I intend a more narrow definition of "the mainstream scientific community". My comment "Believe me. I get their emails." was very much meant to refer to the non-mainstream theories that folks out there seem to regularly send to active physicists in any related field (not as a backhanded slap at the handful of professional peers and colleagues who occasionally write to me). So from my perspective, I haven't made any shifts in intended meaning over the course of this conversation that would merit your signposts, but I can definitely see how my words could have given the other impression. (And now you get to judge whether I'm piling lies upon lies in a scramble to retract a broad insult to my peers, or whether I've been expressing a consistent belief system this whole time. Darned if I know any way to make that judgement easy for you.)

As for your broader points: One of the things that troubles me in the discourse between professional scientists and the public is that it's painfully common for us to wind up disappointing the very people who are the most fervent supporters of what we do. This is no doubt a reflection of your UR-FACT. A scientist who gets gleefully excited about an unexpected discovery or a strikingly elegant theoretical model is still constantly aware of the tentative nature of science: her enthusiasm is a measure of how rare even the possibility of transformative progress can be. But when that enthusiasm spills over to the public at large (by whatever channels), most listeners don't have the training and experience to recognize just how tentative the underlying idea inevitably still is. So when, nine times out of ten, the early promise of the discovery either fizzles or gets mired in technical details with no clear end in sight, the science enthusiasts in the public wind up feeling betrayed. (Even mundane things like the seemingly constant flip-flopping of nutrition warnings is a part of this.)

I don't know how to fix this. As you say, it may be truly impossible, though I'd like to think that better early and ongoing education about the process and nature of science could help a little. But I think that's what is behind my attempts to dial back the enthusiasm I see for this EM Drive work. What they're claiming is something that so many of us long to be true! (I certainly wish it were, both for the thrill of the new physics to explore and for its impact on the future of humanity.) But this isn't even a case where justified scientific enthusiasm has wound up being oversold to the public: the science here is just wrong, and the people directly involved in the work (or at least in publicizing it: http://emdrive.com/faq.html) seem to not even know the science well enough to recognize that it's wrong (or if you were inclined toward conspiracies, they could be knowingly obfuscating its flaws with technobabble). It's a case where it's all but certain that a big chunk of the enthusiastic public is getting set up for a fall. This goes beyond the challenges of your UR-FACT: something is clearly wrong in how this piece of science is being communicated to the public.

And at that point, if I as an expert see someone selling snake oil (regardless of whether they believe in it themselves), don't I have some sort of obligation to warn people not to buy into their so-appealing patter? The human cost here is clearly far less than the "vaccines cause autism" scam turned out to be, but they feel fundamentally similar to me. (As do the "bomb detectors" purchased at great cost by various government agencies in Iraq, as do the "magnetized water" devices that get sold to insufficiently skeptical farmers, as do...) Again, maybe you're right and the cost in this case is a drop in the bucket of legitimate research, but isn't one big purpose for society in training and supporting experts to ensure that there's someone around who can police this sort of thing? (And, more philosophically, isn't a big part of society's purpose in supporting experts the hope that we'll help to uncover and disseminate fragments of Truth, whatever that may mean?)

Clearly, we (and especially I, it seems) do a pretty poor job of it, if so, as illustrated today by the perennial popularity of this story. I really don't know how I or we can do better (clearly today's angle hasn't gone over as well as the last one did). Maybe it's all some sort of status-driven signalling, as you suggest, and my chatter about the public good is just so much self-deception. There may be value to the recommendation that you've made on that basis. But I'm not sure that I could live my life (or any life) with that framework as my premise.

[grovulent]

>And now you get to judge whether I'm piling lies upon lies in a scramble to retract a broad insult to my peers, or whether I've been expressing a consistent belief system this whole time. Darned if I know any way to make that judgement easy for you)

Well kudos for updating your self-presentation on this matter. It's the example I thought that set which was the most concerning thing. As for your soul... well - establishing authenticity of an individual is hard enough in real life let alone on the internet. But I'm not all that interested in your soul anyway. You and god can sort that out later. :)

>It's a case where it's all but certain that a big chunk of the enthusiastic public is getting set up for a fall. This goes beyond the challenges of your UR-FACT: something is clearly wrong in how this piece of science is being communicated to the public.

It doesn't go beyond the UR-FACT though. The UR-FACT is what prevents your patient explanations from being successful in changing people's minds, and helping them realise the nature of this mis-representation.

>And at that point, if I as an expert see someone selling snake oil (regardless of whether they believe in it themselves), don't I have some sort of obligation to warn people not to buy into their so-appealing patter?

Well - I don't envy you the responsibility of having to overcome a fundamental constraint in human communicative ability. There is no solution to the UR-FACT... period. Even if we embark on a massive education campaign... institutional science is too big. There is simply too much to know. And therefore, on most scientific questions, EVERY individual is in the position of not being able to know for themselves if a given result is true or not. It just takes too much time.

Of course - you don't believe the UR-FACT, or you wouldn't express this responsibility, nor have any hope that you could ever meet it.

There is only one way you can to any degree meet this responsibility - and that is by expending the time in inducting new people into the institution of science. You can't bridge the gap to lay people - but you can convert a small number of them into professionals. As a professor you are in a privileged position to do that. If you are research only, and have no PhD students - get one. Pay for that time by staying off hacker news.

>but isn't one big purpose for society in training and supporting experts to ensure that there's someone around who can police this sort of thing?

Well - this goes back to the UR-QUESTION. If engaging with the public has no chance to change their opinions because of the UR-FACT, and if the public ultimately determines scientific funding via democracy - how can we protect the authority of scientific institutions? The problem is that lots of you guys are taxpayer funded - so these lay people are your boss. And imagine showing up for work every day at a job where your boss barked commands at you that were literally impossible to fulfill? Yeah - that's your nightmare...

That's a problem universities are increasingly facing. Right now scientific institutions are reasonably insulated - but they are already starting to shut down liberal arts degrees like philosophy... but science won't stay insulated forever. Politics is getting increasingly polarised - and more and more extreme nutters from both the left and the right are getting closer to real power. When science outputs things they don't want to believe - you better believe they'll try to shut you down.

As a bulwark against barbarism, if you have any responsibility whatsoever - it is to protect yourself. And as you have admitted, naive attempts at engagement aren't getting you anywhere. So - why aren't you being more scientific about it? Find a better model of human communicative interaction and apply it.

>Maybe it's all some sort of status-driven signalling, as you suggest, and my chatter about the public good is just so much self-deception. There may be value to the recommendation that you've made on that basis. But I'm not sure that I could live my life (or any life) with that framework as my premise.

Oh dear lord... now it's my turn to be frustrated. If the signalling hypothesis I suggested is correct - but implies a reality that is so abhorrent that you couldn't bear to live in it... then why would you be so upset about folks wanting to believe in the fantasy of em-drives? That's like being disappointed in a child for believing in Santa when you are unwilling to accept that unicorns might not exist.

Look - I'm not saying I know my hypothesis is correct. I don't. But you're hitting a brick wall by your own admission. So your model is likely wrong. Holy crap - your a scientist... run some damn science!

I really wonder why outside their specific domain of expertise - it's so common to see scientists throw all their training out the window. And trust me - I've met a LOT of scientists. This is common.

When I worked in university admin, I used to watch scientists come down to our office to send faxes... and many would just stand and stare at it doing nothing... and eventually - without trying anything - they would come and interrupt one of us admin folk and ask us for help. We didn't mind helping of course - but it always astonished me that all their training as scientists just flew out the window when faced with the simple task of sending a fax. Here is a bunch of people trained to run experiments, isolate variables and determine causality... the very bedrock of existence - and they can't find the self-confidence to just press a button on a machine to see what happens.

I kinda feel that way with you right now. You know your approach is not working. So do some research! Find an alternative. You don't have to accept mine - but if you take your responsibility seriously, then you DO have to find your own - and it has to get results...

Note - it has to serve as a better model for your own behaviour as well... you need an answer to the UR-QUESTION... why are you expending all this time speaking to lay people? You know that it doesn't achieve anything. But then you express this hope that somehow you're making a little bit of a difference - all the while feeling this frustration.

And as for the signalling idea, it aint so bad once you get used to it. I know - it'sis not particularly appealing. It's not what we want to believe about ourselves. But if that's what's stopping you from considering it - you're not so different from the people wanting to believe in em-drives afterall. (There are plenty of good scientific reasons to challenge it - mind you).

Anyway - I'm quite happy to admit that I'm at least partly expending all this energy in the hope that a Professor of Physics out there somewhere thinks I'm bright chap. But I'm cool with this... who doesn't want to be regarded well by bright people?