Quote:
Originally Posted by xelasnave
It was my Impression that when BICEP 2 results were hot news there were doubts being expressed within the mainstream community that the data may not be reliable.
In any event given the truth came out a short time later I would not call the situation an embarassment but rather a good example of science working openly and effectively.
News reached us via science journalists and I wonder if the matter was sensationalised .
And even if the team went off half cocked the system was shown to work.
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Alex,
From day one the results were deemed suspicious particularly when they were released prior to the Planck data.
The BICEP2 team had effectively jumped the gun in proclaiming to the world they had found gravitational waves through polarization.
It was an embarrassment as they had to retract their statement when it was found through the Planck data, the contribution of a similar polarization effect through magnetized dust in our galaxy was greater than the BICEP2 team had accounted for.
The BICEP2 case is a good example of how science works.
As far as the cosmologists "never being wrong........", the cosmologist Laurence Krauss stated it eloquently on ABC's Q&A program, that cosmologists usually do get it wrong. A point that is conveniently omitted is the relentless peer review process where many ideas fall by the wayside and even if they survive that stage, observation and experiment can kill off the hypothesis.
Steven
