Florian_Dietz comments on Open thread, Oct. 03 - Oct. 09, 2016 - Less Wrong

4 Post author: MrMind 03 October 2016 06:59AM

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Comment author: Florian_Dietz 03 October 2016 08:22:13PM *  3 points [-]

Is there an effective way for a layman to get serious feedback on scientific theories?

I have a weird theory about physics. I know that my theory will most likely be wrong, but I expect that some of its ideas could be useful and it will be an interesting learning experience even in the worst case. Due to the prevalence of crackpots on the internet, nobody will spare it a glance on physics forums because it is assumed out of hand that I am one of the crazy people (to be fair, the theory does sound pretty unusual).

Comment author: WhySpace 05 October 2016 07:03:10PM 2 points [-]

Places like https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/ might be a good spot, depending on the question. If it sounds crackpot, you might be able to precede it with a qualifier that you're probably wrong, just like you did here.

Comment author: username2 08 October 2016 02:21:45PM 1 point [-]

Also check out physics.SE and physicsoverflow

Comment author: ChristianKl 08 October 2016 04:04:24PM 2 points [-]

Those exist for asking questions and not to get feedback for scientific theories. They don't like to give feedback on lay people's physic theories.

Comment author: Gunnar_Zarncke 04 October 2016 04:29:17PM 3 points [-]

Do you have a mathematical formulation for it? (That will be the first question by the physics consultant mentioned above)

Comment author: Raemon 04 October 2016 04:27:39PM *  0 points [-]

If you are serious about it, consider paying a physicist to discuss it with you:

https://aeon.co/ideas/what-i-learned-as-a-hired-consultant-for-autodidact-physicists

I work in theoretical physics, specifically quantum gravity. In my field, we all get them: the emails from amateur physicists who are convinced that they have solved a big problem, normally without understanding the problem in the first place. Like many of my colleagues, I would reply with advice, references and lecture notes. And, like my colleagues, I noticed that the effort was futile. The gap was too large; these were people who lacked even the basic knowledge to work in the area they wanted to contribute to. With a feeling of guilt, I stopped replying.

Then they came back into my life. I had graduated and moved to another job, then another. I’d had temporary contracts of between three months and five years. It normally works out somehow, but sometimes there’d be a gap between the end of one contract and the start of the next. This happened again last year. I have kids, and rent to pay, so I tried to think of creative ways to capitalise on 15 years of research experience.

As long as you have funding, quantum gravity is basic research at its finest. If not, it’s pretty much useless knowledge. Who, I wondered, could possibly need someone who knows the ins and outs of attempts to unify the forces and unravel the quantum behaviour of space-time? I thought of all the theories of everything in my inbox. And I put up a note on my blog offering physics consultation, including help with theory development: ‘Talk to a physicist. Call me on Skype. $50 per 20 minutes.’

Comment author: Manfred 03 October 2016 09:59:41PM *  2 points [-]

It depends on your level of connection to current work. If you're genuinely doing something similar to something you've seen in some journal articles you've read, you can contact the authors of those journal articles and try to convince them to talk with you - probably via claiming some sort of reasonable result and asking politely.

On the other hand, you can always just ask about it in various places. Even if people think your idea is sure to be wrong they can still provide useful feedback. I'd be happy to hear you out, though if your "weird theory" isn't about condensed matter physics I'll be of limited expertise.

Comment author: Lumifer 03 October 2016 09:26:06PM 3 points [-]

Is it falsifiable? Which empirical observations/experiments can falsify it?

Comment author: ChristianKl 03 October 2016 08:42:52PM 11 points [-]

https://aeon.co/ideas/what-i-learned-as-a-hired-consultant-for-autodidact-physicists provides payed serious feedback as a service.

Comment author: Crux 06 October 2016 11:29:11AM *  1 point [-]

Wow, that was pretty grating to read. The tribal emotions were off the charts. The author seems to derive great satisfaction from being a member of the physics section of Team Science.

Comment author: CellBioGuy 05 October 2016 10:25:29PM 1 point [-]

A sudden side-hustle idea solidifies...

Comment author: ChristianKl 06 October 2016 11:25:08AM 1 point [-]

Your astrobiology blog might position you well ;)

Comment author: WhySpace 05 October 2016 08:01:52PM 0 points [-]

That seems like a really good resource for making high-impact career decisions relating to concepts on the bleeding edge of a scientific discipline. I wonder how many of us have considered getting a PhD with a specific field of research in mind. There's a chicken-egg problem, because you won't be qualified to judge whether the research you want to do is worthwhile until after you've obtained the PhD.

It's probably always a good idea to get some feedback from relevant domain experts to flush out any unknown unknowns. This is especially true if you’re forming a startup or something, and lack background knowledge in the tangentially related fields of science.

Comment author: ChristianKl 05 October 2016 08:46:31PM *  0 points [-]

Different fields have different states of development. When it comes to theoretical physics there are a lot of very smart people who spent a lot of energy in the field, so it's really hard for outsiders to meaningfully compete in the field. It's also very hard for anybody outside of the field to gather meaningful empiric data about related questions.

That's not true in the same sense in medicine. Earlier this year we discovered for example a new muscle. The study of human anatomy is still badly developed and it get's even worse when you don't talk about static anatomy but moving anatomy.

When having a breakthrough idea it might be worthwhile to ask: "Given how I arrived at the idea, what are other people who went through the same path?"

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