During my final lecture on galaxy evolution (focusing on current problems), I rubbished the idea of planes of satellite galaxies. I wasn't very nice about it either, I was downright sarcastic. Still not sure if this was the right thing to do. I did explicitly warn the students that I was biased and that they should consult the literature for themselves and if at all possible talk to other people. I provided links to the original publications and alternative viewpoints in the PowerPoint file. I gave my honest, sincerely held opinion (I really do think this field is complete nonsense; honesty not always meaning very pleasant), but I still worry I may have gone a bit too far.
I should point out that the researchers in this field are almost all much more senior than me and/or in more distinguished positions (their papers tend to have hundreds of citations; mine have typically < 20). I would not, however, under any circumstances question people's competence in a peer-reviewed journal. I'm honestly not really sure if I ever crossed the line from saying "this research is bunk" to at least implying "these researchers are stupid" (or that they have done a stupid thing).
I had a conscious decision beforehand. I could have tried to present the various viewpoints (I'm not the only one who isn't convinced by this by any means) in a dispassionate way. There were several reasons I didn't do this. The first, main reason was that this would make for a deadly dull lecture, and I didn't want to inflict that on anyone - certainly not in a 90 minute lecture. The other reasons are of about equal importance : I'm rather peeved at the veracity with which the claims about such objects have been expressed and the way certain people have used very weak evidence to claim that cosmology is all wrong, I felt they deserved a bit of a kick in the complacency. The final, clinching argument occurred when I asked myself, "Can I stand in front of an audience, looking at this data set and tell them this claim has any serious merit ?". I finally decided that I couldn't do this - it would have been a lie (more accurately, my opinion is that it has no serious merit). I would have felt like was misleading people into believing there was a serious problem where in fact none exists. There's a line that has to be drawn somewhere : we don't teach students about the electric Universe or the Flat Earth model because they are utter garbage. This issue doesn't fall into that category by any means, but still I just couldn't stand there and say, "this is credible".
Well, anyway, you'll get the transcript in a couple of weeks when I write it up, so you can judge for yourself.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2017/11/10/professional-disagreement-over-galaxies-escalates-into-bullying-and-harassment/
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You stated that this was your educated opinion, and pointed them to other resources to think for themselves. That's more than fair.
ReplyDeleteSabine Hossenfelder, Ethan Siegel, Brian Koberlein...all have expressed similar opinions in similarly forceful ways (well, not so much Brian except where pseudo-science is concerned); that's what one expects in an opinion-centric forum like G+ or a blog.
ReplyDeleteLectures are somewhat different, of course, but a disclaimer and links to source material seem sufficient to me. Very little of science is entirely free of human bias, whether by commission or omission. How many lecturers mention all the research they're not discussing, much less all the research they're not even aware they're not discussing ("unknown unknowns")? How many negative results are never published, or published only somewhere obscure? We humans have biases we don't even realize we have; our memories suck; in short, we're imperfect, and as a result, so is our science.
But you do the best you can; you implement checks and balances wherever possible; and even if you fail to do so, there's still a pretty good chance others will come along to set you straight (much as you did in your lecture). Rest easy, and keep building those 3D models that are soooo critical to understanding the universe and to spotting questionable analyses! Those animations were brilliant (in both British and American senses of the term).