
How the ArXiv Decides What’s Science - yetanotheracc
http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2016/05/the-holy-grail-of-crackpot-filtering.html
======
hyperion2010
The basic heuristic I use for determining what 'counts' as science relies on 3
questions

1) Are there methods or is there a description of how to observe something?

2) Are old methods being applied to a new phenomenon.

3) Are new methods being applied to an old phenomenon.

It isn't possible to do science if you don't have a viable tool (method) for
measuring a phenomenon of interest or if you can't describe the phenomenon you
want to study in a way that others can observe it.

Cases like Mochizuki with the ABC conjecture are harder, but at least the ABC
conjecture is a know quantity.

It is reassuring that classifying papers by category of research works fairly
well. Both phenomena and methodology are described using specialized
vocabulary, and mismatches tend to jump out, like trying to use a hadron
collider to study the blood pressure of a frog.

I almost like to believe that a crackpot that could masquerade as a scientist
might actually discover something because they would be forced to actually
engage with the concepts and tools of science.

~~~
CharlesMerriam2
The number of String Theory papers, PhD candidates, and conferences was
staggering.

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paulpauper
I have found arxiv to be a dead-end when publishing without affiliation. It's
impossible to get feedback on papers, let alone the necessary endorsement to
submit. That leaves SSRN as the only option. Arxiv requires you to email
authors for endorsements which almost never works, since it's essentially
spam.

~~~
jessriedel
Why not submit to a journal?

~~~
XaspR8d
The "without affiliation" aspect is a dealbreaker in many fields. Lots of
journals won't even acknowledge you if you're not at an academic institution.

~~~
argonaut
It's not a dealbreaker in computer science, where the norm is for blind peer
review. And in any case, you can just list your undergrad institution or a
company.

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DyslexicAtheist
>> _The “insiders” can immediately tell who is an “outsider.” Often it doesn’t
take more than a sentence or two, an odd expression, a term used in the wrong
context, a phrase that nobody in the field would ever use._

seems a bit like when you're on top of your game with a certain programming
language and feeling bored with stackoverflow questions and mailing lists
asking the same old questions. Happy that in software we can easily move on to
a new language / concept / idea to keep things exciting.

~~~
tanderson92
Of course, you can do that in science too. I believe the intent of that quoted
text is not to indicate that all questions in scientific fields represented on
arxiv, or even most, are answered. The only purpose is that language easily
belies who does not "belong"

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poelzi
Arxiv banned the physicist who actually was able to build a physical model
that makes sense in every aspect. Just because the reviewer did not understand
one of the conclusions, the periodic table, that was a result of the theory.
Of course you don't understand a result if you don't understand the theory
which requires months/years to really grasp. The principle they are using only
works if you stay in your paradigm, but if your paradigm is broken, you loose
any real progress.

[http://archivefreedom.org/freedom/Sarg.html](http://archivefreedom.org/freedom/Sarg.html)

Having spent the time to understand, I only laugh these days about the many
papers I see every week that contradict our standard model :)

~~~
tagrun
Sorry to break this to you but this _is_ crackpot science, and there is no way
such a manuscript can pass through any respectable physicist.

Obviously you're not a physicist; let me simply say that this is not how a
scientific paper looks like.

It is just some philosophical text attempting to interpret some basic concepts
in physics, introducing new fields no one ever seen (seriously?), and myriad
of strange conjectures coming from nowhere and it goes borderline mysticism
about vacuum. There is no new basic equation from which you can derive new,
experimentally testable conclusions.

It's not even wrong.

Here're a few gems from his "theory":

> The energy is inseparable attribute of the matter.

> The Bohr atomic model is a correct mathematical model when assuming that the
> space is void.

> The intrinsic matter could never disappear.

> The vacuum is not a void space, but contains a unique grid structure. This
> grid structure named a Cosmic Lattice (CL) is built by two types of
> alternatively arranged nodes, each one containing 4 sub-elementary particles
> with shape of six sided prisms.

> The Newton’s gravitation (universal gravitational law) is a propagation of
> the IG field in CL space

What?!? I'm sorry but I can't believe I wasted ~10 minutes reading this crap.
Yes, sorry about the language, but this is bullshit pseudoscience and any sane
respectable physicist will reject this and blacklist this guy.

Here's how new theories in physics work: you put very little and very very
basic assumptions into your theory (which is essentially an equation, that is
compatible with experiments and hence is compatible with the old theory within
a certain limited domain) and new stuff you _derive_ from your basic equation
comes out it in the form of experimentally testable predictions. You have to
get a lot more stuff than you put into building your theory.

Special relativity is a very nice example, you just assume Galilean invariance
and constantancy of speed of light and out comes time-dilation, length
contraction, energy-mass relation. If you add equivalence principle you get
general relativity which gives you spacetime and new theory of gravity,
blackholes, etc etc. And old Newtonian physics is happily reproduced when
speeds and energy densities are small. And most importantly, predictions of
new theory agrees with observations and experiments in the domain where the
old theory failed.

Some intermediate mathematical stuff between your basic equation and
experimentally testable measurable predictions might be difficult to interpret
(wavefunction and entanglement with Schordinger equation, "holes" with Dirac
equation, virtual particles, etc.) but you don't dwell on this stuff like a
philosopher because neither your current theory nor experiments doesn't give
you a deeper understanding to it anyway. So instead of going mystic, you sweep
the non-testable stuff under the rug, hope that future physicist will have a
better theory eventually and just "Shut up and calculate".

What you don't do is, you don't pull a myriad of new philosophical stuff out
of nowhere where your assumptions are all that comes out and call it physics.

Even if you're not a physicist, you can see what kind of a "scientist" he is
by checking his publication history (0 papers in any respectable physics
journal).

~~~
chopin
The requirement of testable predictions would rule out an entire field of
current theoretical physics. Not that I disagree with you (quite the
contrary), but (almost) no paper on String theory would be accepted under that
rule. Also, papers on pilot wave theory vs. Kopenhagen interpretation would
come to mind.

~~~
tagrun
Science isn't a computer program based on some simple algorithm. I understand
that it can be difficult to spot crackpot to a layman.

1\. String theory doesn't assume 20 crazy things and its axioms aren't its
only predictions 2\. String theory does have a basic equation from which you
draw many results, leading to falsifiable predictions that is not covered by
standard model. Some of them may not practical with today's experimental
tools, but that's not all of them. I take you haven't seen any string theory
papers. I'm saying we're suddenly going to see superparticles this year at
LHC, but it is entirely plausible that if they exist, LHC should eventually
detect them. 3\. You're probably talking about this
[http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/2/2/e1501466](http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/2/2/e1501466)
recently posted on HN. In case you missed, that is an _experimental_ paper.

