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Are there any heuristics for distinguishing a rumored (but not real) scientific discovery from a discovery that seems implausible but will later turn out to be true? If i'm a remote, non-expert observer and the specialists disagree about the test results, are there any clues i can look for that hint at whether the discovery is real or not?
This is inspired by, but more general than, the current EM / microwave propulsion controversy.
An example of a discovery that later turns out to be real would be nuclear fission, which the theoretical physics community found implausible at the time.
Ask yourself: what if this were true? What other implications would the underlying phenomenon have?
Often times, especially with regard to physical phenomenon, you can find predictions that would be true somewhere in the universe for which there already exists experimental evidence. Maybe there is some theory about quantum gravity that is supposed to explain dark matter, dark energy, and produce some weird microwave propulsion tech. Well ask youself: if this were true, what would it say about neutron stars, black hole collisions, etc.? This rules out most forms of crackpot theory.