[ve55]

When opponents think about how 'damaging' papers like this are, they should also consider how damaging things like this are to the field in general, and how they may cause a lot of second-order harm.

Many that I know have begun to distrust areas of academia much more recently, and when they see scenarios like this over and over it doesn't help. We all know that no one will support you for saying the truth if it won't go down well politically. The end result of this is that Academia will only publish the 'right' results, but it will not matter as few will trust them to begin with.

After reading the full article I find it funny they decide to critique the paper by calling it 'pseudoscientific'. I'd like to play the same game back at them and simply call their beliefs 'pseudoscientific' and proceed to pretend like they are discredited and don't warrant further inspection.

If you keep crying wolf, eventually no one will believe you when you really need them to. You can't go against truth forever.

[api]

It's a tough issue because both sides are right. Recent political and social events show that the general public is not yet able to discuss issues like this rationally and maturely. Yet at the same time science must be free to inquire without political restriction. I do not have an answer.

[WillPostForFood]

Just consider that by oppressing the truth, science, and free inquiry, it adds to the inability to discusses issues rationally and maturely, it doesn't protect them.

[antidesitter]

You are ambivalent about whether this article should have been censored in the way it was?

[whatshisface]

At least the controversy about string theory has been in the public eye for a while now. It seems like physics hit the worst of it in the 90s and the public trust we have now is relatively sturdy.

[nopinsight]

The public trusts most areas of physics because we use them to build many artifacts, some quite amazing, we interact with everyday and also because there are solid experiments that repeatedly confirm them. Some may extend this trust to the most modern areas yet without experimental confirmations, but not everyone does.

The situation is quite different for many softer sciences for which neither of the above conditions is true. If the public found out they have been misled by a whole field for decades, the trust in that field could be shaken to a great extent. Even adjacent fields could be affected as collateral damage.