Those are definitely unfortunate examples and I can see how those environments pushed them to their limits. But if we're talking large-scale systematic thinking about what kind of data would be necessary to show that there's such a thing as a typical, characteristic civilization scale negative reaction to scientific revolutions, these don't demonstrate that this is the usual case. Obviously they're important in their own right.
But also the book doesn't suggest that scientists going missing was just a function of humanity's customary response to scientific progress. In the book, it's a very intentional sabotage campaign.
The point being made is about the general reaction to weird results. The original supposition was that it would be implausible for scientists at large to have an adverse reaction to results that defied their current worldview. Given that we have seen this play out, there is in fact nothing implausible about it at all.
The specifics (proton-scale supercomputers sabotaging scientific experiments by altering the outcomes into incoherent results, the adverse reaction being suicide) aren't important here, because that's obviously the realm of fiction -- we don't need an actual instance of scientists committing suicide to suggest that it's plausible, because we don't have an actual instance of proton-scale supercomputers sabotaging results[1]. We just need to acknowledge that adverse reactions to unexpected results do happen, so plausibly in a fictional story if you have very unexpected results then your scientists could have very adverse reactions as well.
> The original supposition was that it would be implausible for scientists at large to have an adverse reaction to results that defied their current worldview.
Indeed that is highly implausible. I daresay that anyone stating otherwise fundamentally lacks an understanding of the sort of people that are attracted to and work in the sciences. Paradigm shifts are a form of progress and progress is the raison d'etre.
Note that one or two outliers do not contradict a larger trend. Also that the examples given so far, in addition to being highly unusual, follow from social phenomena downstream of the new results rather than being a direct personal reaction to them.
That said, as noted by others that isn't what's going on in the book being discussed. So the plausibility of that plot point needs to be judged on its own merit as an entirely separate sort of thing.
> Note that one or two outliers do not contradict a larger trend.
The listed cases are not outliers in the scientific community. The individuals were outliers, but the scientific community, in a mode of behaviour that was not outlier-ish, shunned them. This tendency of scientists is well-established:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck%27s_principle
At the end of the day, humans are largely egotistical, self-centred creatures, and scientists are no exception. When you say that scientists believe that progress is their raison d'etre, you may not be incorrect, but their belief in progress is grounded in a self-centred way. Perhaps the ideal is "progress for humanity", but the reality is more like "progress for my career" or "progress for my worldview", in which case results challenging everything you hold as a foundation are a threat to you, being regressive rather than progressive in matters important to one's ego. People really, really don't like being told they're wrong. Even scientists.
You're trying to shift the goalposts rather than concede the point. We weren't speaking of cliquish behavior or resistance to new ideas which are indeed (unfortunately) common enough even in the scientific world. Rather the point under dispute was individuals experiencing markedly adverse emotional reactions to the point of harm in direct response to results that challenge their understanding of how things work.
So there are two problems here. First, that the listed examples are social in nature as opposed to being directly due to scientific results thus they are irrelevant to the point being argued (but importantly not necessarily irrelevant to the plot point in the work of literature that led to this line of discussion). And second that they are very much outliers in that individuals came to direct physical harm which is not at all the expected outcome for the typical participant when a paradigm shift occurs in the sciences.
Despite the drama surrounding it, the way the discovery of quantum mechanics ultimately played out is a clear counterexample to the position you seem to be attempting to advance. Many participants expressed bitterness or frustration regarding some of their peers but there was not (at least in aggregate) a large scale negative reaction to the new results themselves. Physicists did not generally spiral into depression or develop drinking problems or whatever else upon being exposed to the new information. (Do note that disagreement and doubt are not a negative thing in the sciences but rather an essential part of the process.)
On a more personal note, your view of the sciences seems to me to be myopic and overly cynical. You are (to my eye) cherry picking only the worst behaviors you have witnessed and then painting the entire endeavor with those colors. No worthwhile scientist is overly bothered by being wrong because it is an almost daily occurrence when you are exploring topics at the edge of human understanding.
> You're trying to shift the goalposts rather than concede the point. We weren't speaking of cliquish behavior or resistance to new ideas which are indeed (unfortunately) common enough even in the scientific world. Rather the point under dispute was individuals experiencing markedly adverse emotional reactions to the point of harm in direct response to results that challenge their understanding of how things work.
I wasn't shifting goalposts; I think we had a fundamentally different reading of this thread from the beginning. I was not considering the examples of individuals coming to harm in the same way you did. I took them as a point of evidence that scientists (the community, not individuals) can behave in a reactionary manner against findings that undermine their beliefs. I didn't necessarily think an actual example of self-harm was necessary to justify the plausibility of scientists committing suicide under sufficient scientific duress, if the fictional grievance against their worldview were sufficiently large. I believed it's simply enough to establish that in the real world, scientists are in fact frequently not "thrilled" at new discoveries at all, to establish plausibility. Given how the scientific community has reacted to new ideas in the past, it does sound plausible to me that a minority of scientists might commit suicide if their entire education, career, and life's work were upended by sabotaged "discoveries" they couldn't make any sense of, certainly more plausible than pure fascination as you would expect from the naive platonic ideal of a scientist.
> On a more personal note, your view of the sciences seems to me to be myopic and overly cynical.
My view isn't particular to the sciences. I am very, very cynical towards humanity as a whole. I simply think scientists, as a bunch, are no different.
> No worthwhile scientist
That's the catch, isn't it? How many would you estimate are worthwhile? There are undeniably great scientists who wouldn't get caught up on learning more about the world, even if their preconceptions about it were wrong, but my cynical reading of humanity is that the majority of people in most professions that can't be reduced to rote work are actually not worthwhile members of their profession, in terms of both skill and personal ethics.
We saw two examples, definitely unfortunate for what they were but well short of a built in civilization level reaction to scientific progress writ large. I don't think there's a single by and large way that people react to scientific revolutions, negative or otherwise. Feels like it depends on a combination of how it impacts most powerful stakeholders, things about culture, and things about the zeitgeist of a particular moment.
>we don't need an actual instance of scientists committing suicide to suggest that it's plausible, because we don't have an actual instance of proton-scale supercomputers sabotaging results
Right, the specifics of the science fiction don't matter here. And plausibility counts for something though it's a dramatically lower threshold. And the person above who is appealing to scientific revolutions writ large seem to be attempting a general level inference to human reaction to scientific revolutions, which is a huge inference to make on the back of a pair of one-off examples.
Possibility counts for something, but I would say it only goes as far as explaining contingencies of particular circumstances and doesn't explain trends, and what happens within the fiction of the book is a trend, and it's explained by a sabotage campaign rather than by an appeal to the stresses of day-to-day science.
> well short of a built in civilization level reaction to scientific progress writ large
if I remember correctly, the plot point wasn't a "civilization level reaction" to bad particle physics experiment results, but rather a very narrow reaction by less than 1/10,000,000th of civilization.
which makes sense: the vast majority of the members of "civilization" could not even accurately define "particle physics", much less understand the field, much less comprehend experimental results, much less understand the correctness of them, much less experience anguish over their correctness.
>if I remember correctly, the plot point wasn't a "civilization level reaction"
Your memory is exactly right. But in this instance, what I'm reacting to is not the book but to an HN commenter who glibly claimed that "the history of scientific revolutions" demonstrated that scientists would be suicidal in response to negative data, a pretty extreme claim, followed by a different commenter attempting to support this claim with two examples of scientists frustrated by lack of acceptance of their work that did not die by suicide, massively underestimating the kind of data necessary to support the notion that of scientific revolutions demonstrate the self destructiveness of scientists in response to uncooperative data.
But you are right, that's completely unrelated to what happens in the book, which is all the more reason why appealing to it to explain the behavior of scientists in the Three Body is beside the point. The book doesn't even make that argument! You are not asked to believe that there's some baked in tendency of scientists toward self destruction, it's explained an entirely different way: they are subjected to a campaign of sabotage, harassment, and worse.
The whole detour into whether scientists in the usual case would off themselves is a frustrating non sequitur born of short attention spans, that's not even true (and certainly not at such a level of generality that it's a characteristic response to scientific revolutions throughout history) and it's not even applicable to the events in the book.
Yeah, I think we're agreeing. The breakdown of scientific progress in the book is due to an actively malicious campaign that scrambles data, intimidates researchers and worse.
> wound up in an insane asylum for suggesting surgeons should wash their hands.
Was rejected and mocked by the medical community for his idea, developed a drinking problem and eventually committed to an asylum by his colleagues after having a nervous breakdown. While in the asylum he was beaten by the guards and died from a wound infection ... yikes!!
The person you replied to was clearly asking of examples where some large paradigm shift caused large scale instances of suicidal thoughts, self harm, or otherwise, as a direct result of these new ideas.
Providing two cases is, first of all, certainly not anything like "large scale". Second, these two cases are in complete and total isolation of each other, so not evidence of people getting riled up over the same new idea. And third, these seem like extreme reactions to people not believe their OWN ideas, not reactions to other scientists presenting new ideas.
Someone who gets it! This whole branch of comments is like a comedy of errors of distractedness in multiple directions. The wrong theory, dramatically inadequate evidence in support of that theory, and a lack of applicability of that theory to the book even if it were true. The book explains it by a specific and intentional campaign of harassment and sabotage (and worse) aimed at scientists. Terrifying hallucinations, death threats, and violent sabotage by a group of domestic collaborators. It's not just scientists getting bummed out by not having agreeable data.
And for that matter you would think scientific revolutions, which to some degree are about how you struggle in response to the limits of an old theory that can't explain data, are nevertheless more properly understood as triumphant moments of progress that validate the practice of science, not failures and dead ends the scientists in the book experience.
I'm not sure about self harm or whatever, but Planck's Principle [1] was not stated without cause: 'Science progresses one funeral at a time.' And that was a quote from an outsized figure during the golden age of physics.
But also the book doesn't suggest that scientists going missing was just a function of humanity's customary response to scientific progress. In the book, it's a very intentional sabotage campaign.