[telxosser]

"But others say Loeb is tarnishing astronomy and undermining the search for extraterrestrial intelligence"

I mean I think this is all nonsense but the idea someone doesn't have the correct credentials to produce scientific evidence is so distasteful.

We must first put on our properly powdered wig, dance the minuet, then and only then is one capable of collecting UFO evidence!

[dogma1138]

Credentials do matter to some extent or at least actually following the scientific method.

But overall there has been quite a big regression since SETI has pretty much failed to capture anything of even remote interest.

Loeb isn’t Sagan but the fact that you can’t even get funding for simple missions like looking for technological markers in the atmosphere of exoplanet does seem to indicate that there is a lot of stigma these days against anything related to searching for intelligent life.

[jjeaff]

Credentials can help filter out a lot of garbage. For example, some podcast bro spouts something about vaccines that goes against the prevailing wisdom, I'll mostly ignore it. If an ER doc from the University of Barbados says something, I'll probably give it some time and effort. If an immunologist from the mayo clinic says something, I'm going to really give it some serious thought and time researching it.

I wouldn't discount something purely on lack of prestige and education, but you have to be able to filter some based on credentials or you'll spend all your time fact checking things like whether the Sandy Hook school shooting was all faked or whether 9/11 was an inside job or if the government is using 5g to give us all COVID so they can use the vaccine to implant tracking chips in everyone.

[wumpus]

Scientific credibility is a combination of the quality of your current paper as evaluated by peer review and replication, and the same for your previous work.

Notice the lack of "correct credentials" in my sentence.

Just a few decades ago it was the case the a majority of comets, asteroids, and supernovae were discovered by amateur astronomers -- and their work is taken very seriously by professionals. You can still report such discoveries no matter what credentials you have.

p.s. my hobby is dance history and I can dance the Minuet, hope that doesn't disqualify my opinion in your eyes.

[robbedpeter]

Scientific credibility is called reproducibility. If it's not reproducible, it's not credible, and that's got nothing to do with individual scientists, or the quality of their previous work. Peer review, as she is practiced, is an unnecessary social affectation and an increasingly onerous barrier to progress.

Journals are rent extractors targeting the "science news" demographic. Curation is the justification for their involvement, but in practice it amounts to politicized gatekeeping for profit.

Real science communication looks like scihub - the firehose torrent in which the curation is done by individuals seeking information separate from any "proper" authority.