LK-99 alleged superconductor replication tracking

[DevoutCatalyst]

"Replications pieced together the puzzle of why the material displayed superconducting-like behaviours."

LK-99 isn't a superconductor — how science sleuths solved the mystery - NATURE - 16 August 2023

[RickyDMMont2ya]

This guy won't give up.


Upcoming LK-99 paper will reportedly verify the superconductor

...Only Lee Seok-bae can create Lk99.

Hmm. Oh yes. Very scientific.

[gmalivuk]

Very "The spirits stay silent when they know there's a skeptic in the room" vibes.

[arthwollipot]

Of course it does. If you're certain of something you don't just say it's very likely.

Sure you do. If you're being precise. Science never deals in absolute certainties - there's only (paraphrasing Stephen Jay Gould (no relation)) confirmed to such an extent that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent".

Proof is for mathematics and alcohol. In science we say things are very likely.

[arthwollipot]

If you lived alone in the woods, you could do science even if you never talked to another person.

Sure, but what use to anybody would that be?

I tend towards a definition of "science" as including the criterion of being useful. If someone does science in the forest and there is nobody there to hear it, is it really science?

This is probably a nonstandard definition, but it's a useful one.

[RickyDMMont2ya]

There's nothing useful about your definition.

[arthwollipot]

There's nothing useful about your definition.

Why not? What is the use of science that nobody ever has the opportunity to find out about?

It is rather academic anyway, since there is nobody actually doing that.

[jt512]

If you lived alone in the woods, you could do science even if you never talked to another person.

Sure, but what use to anybody would that be?

I tend towards a definition of "science" as including the criterion of being useful.

There is no definition of science that includes a criterion of usefulness. Science is the production of knowledge, regardless of wether that knowledge is useful or not. Indeed, it is often unknown whether new knowledge produced by science will be useful.

If someone does science in the forest and there is nobody there to hear it, is it really science?

Yes. Were it not, the sentence you just wrote would be nonsensical.

This is probably a nonstandard definition, but it's a useful one.

On the contrary, it is a harmful definition. If science were restricted to what is useful, it would be the end of much of the deep, fundamental work done by physicists and other theorists. Unfortunately, that is the direction in which our funding agencies are heading.

[arthwollipot]

On the contrary, it is a harmful definition. If science were restricted to what is useful, it would be the end of much of the deep, fundamental work done by physicists and other theorists. Unfortunately, that is the direction in which our funding agencies are heading.

I have to admit, this is a good point.

[gmalivuk]

Of course it does. If you're certain of something you don't just say it's very likely.

Sure you do. If you're being precise. Science never deals in absolute certainties - there's only (paraphrasing Stephen Jay Gould (no relation)) confirmed to such an extent that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent".

Proof is for mathematics and alcohol. In science we say things are very likely.

Did you read the context of what I was talking about being "certain" or "very likely"? Or did you just notice that I made that post in a discussion generally about science and assumed I was talking about probability in a scientific sense?

Because I wasn't. I was talking about how we conversationally discuss our unscientific predictions of human behavior.

[arthwollipot]

Did you read the context of what I was talking about being "certain" or "very likely"? Or did you just notice that I made that post in a discussion generally about science and assumed I was talking about probability in a scientific sense?

Because I wasn't. I was talking about how we conversationally discuss our unscientific predictions of human behavior.

Yes, I did. And as it turns out, I completely agree. I got over the agnostic hedging around the existence of God, for example, many years ago.

I just wanted to make a minor point, which I did, and we can now move on.

[daniel1948]

... If someone does science in the forest and there is nobody there to hear it, is it really science? ...

A person lost and alone in an unfamiliar environment may do science in an attempt to develop survival techniques.

Gregor Mendel did science even though nobody paid attention at the time because his work was too mathematical for the scientific community of his day. It was still science.

Science that is never communicated will die with its practitioner, but it's still science if the person followed scientific methods. The worst one could say is that it is incomplete until it is replicated.

An amateur astronomer who searches for new comets is doing science even if they never find one, and therefore never communicate a discovery.

[arthwollipot]

Fair enough. I withdraw that line of argument.

[CarbShark]

If you lived alone in the woods, you could do science even if you never talked to another person.

You could just as easily, and probably more likely, just be fooling yourself, and making mistakes or have hidden biases that screw your results.

And again, the phrase "that's not science" should be equated with the phrase "that's not Cricket" or "that's not baseball."

If you were all alone with a ball and a glove you could hit the ball, round the bases and slide home, all that is part of baseball, but that's not baseball.

This guy won't give up.


Upcoming LK-99 paper will reportedly verify the superconductor

...Only Lee Seok-bae can create Lk99.

Hmm. Oh yes. Very scientific.

Well, apparently there's a reason that paper wasn't published in a peer review scientific journal and will probably never be.

[gmalivuk]

You could just as easily, and probably more likely, just be fooling yourself, and making mistakes or have hidden biases that screw your results.

You could also be doing those things and then publish.