Perhaps your mental model of `the regular folks community` is wrong?
Let me try to explain why I, a regular schmoe who knows nothing about physics, reads these articles (and frequently, the comments) every time a new round comes out. This is how this story looks to me in the news as someone who has no association with NASA, etc.
1) Some nutter comes up with a theory of "mystic orgone drive" or something and explains how it works and demonstrates that if he hooks his widget up to the mains, it pulls.
2) A bunch of other people are like "lol idiote" and do the same thing with their own copies of his widget and are like "wtf..it is pushing..."
3) Somehow, NASA decides to investigate the mystic orgone drive. Because they are NASA and not a bunch of morans, they do a couple things differently from everyone else:
- They are very very careful to try to eliminate sources of error such as breezes from experimenter tinfoil hats, etc. and they document this experimental rig very carefully.
- They run the experiment backwards as well as forewards. Why not see if there's a dose response curve? Why not see if hooking the negative cable to the positive terminal produces backwards mystic orgone drive or whatever?
- They build a version of the device very similar to the original mystic orgone spec, except they put different runes on it or something that are incompatible with mystic orgones.
The results of this are (1) still pushing (2) hooking it up backwards makes it push backwards (3) the mystic orgone runes do nothing; that is to say the non-mystic version works just as well, so the mystic orgone priest's explanation of the device is wrong.
I just don't see how this is not interesting to you, as scientist. Science, especially physics, is about building mathematical machines that can predict the future: if you do this and this, this will happen. Classical mechanics is probably the second-most rigorously tested and understood of the mathematical future prediction machines of all time. Here, you have a bunch of very careful, expert men and women hooking up the mystic orgone drive to the mains power, and it pushes! But the prediction says it should NOT push, at least not nearly this much! How is that not interesting?!
I would think this would seem to a physics professor to be the essence of science, and exactly what ordinary people would and should get excited about. It's very difficult for regular people to understand that its surprising that at three giga electron volts the tau lepton did not decay into any of the known lucky charms marshmallows or whatever, DESPITE what Cereal Supersymmetry predicts.
It's very easy to understand that putting a pair of empty jiffypop tins in a vacuum and powering them should not lead to them trying to bend their handles. It's very easy to understand that if anyone would be capable of checking this carefully, it's NASA.
So if NASA does this and they don't know why they are detecting measurable jiffypop handle bend many orders of magnitude higher than predicted, how do you not click on that article? How do you not think that's interesting?
This was a wonderful post. If I may be permitted a TL;DR (although it's almost a shame not to read your extended analogy): although no scientist wants to engage with crackpots him- or herself, everyone should want to see what happens when a scientist does engage (scientifically) with crackpots.
This post, and the many others like it, simply repeat the experimental shortcomings and potential sources of error that the NASA staff themselves point out in their communications.
It's sort of like science blogspam--repeating what someone else already said, but injecting more emotion into it to attract pageviews.
Normal media does not stress these experimental shortcomings, nor note that the measured effect has decreased. I consider it basic scientific skepticism.
Let me try to explain why I, a regular schmoe who knows nothing about physics, reads these articles (and frequently, the comments) every time a new round comes out. This is how this story looks to me in the news as someone who has no association with NASA, etc.
1) Some nutter comes up with a theory of "mystic orgone drive" or something and explains how it works and demonstrates that if he hooks his widget up to the mains, it pulls.
2) A bunch of other people are like "lol idiote" and do the same thing with their own copies of his widget and are like "wtf..it is pushing..."
3) Somehow, NASA decides to investigate the mystic orgone drive. Because they are NASA and not a bunch of morans, they do a couple things differently from everyone else: - They are very very careful to try to eliminate sources of error such as breezes from experimenter tinfoil hats, etc. and they document this experimental rig very carefully. - They run the experiment backwards as well as forewards. Why not see if there's a dose response curve? Why not see if hooking the negative cable to the positive terminal produces backwards mystic orgone drive or whatever? - They build a version of the device very similar to the original mystic orgone spec, except they put different runes on it or something that are incompatible with mystic orgones.
The results of this are (1) still pushing (2) hooking it up backwards makes it push backwards (3) the mystic orgone runes do nothing; that is to say the non-mystic version works just as well, so the mystic orgone priest's explanation of the device is wrong.
I just don't see how this is not interesting to you, as scientist. Science, especially physics, is about building mathematical machines that can predict the future: if you do this and this, this will happen. Classical mechanics is probably the second-most rigorously tested and understood of the mathematical future prediction machines of all time. Here, you have a bunch of very careful, expert men and women hooking up the mystic orgone drive to the mains power, and it pushes! But the prediction says it should NOT push, at least not nearly this much! How is that not interesting?!
I would think this would seem to a physics professor to be the essence of science, and exactly what ordinary people would and should get excited about. It's very difficult for regular people to understand that its surprising that at three giga electron volts the tau lepton did not decay into any of the known lucky charms marshmallows or whatever, DESPITE what Cereal Supersymmetry predicts.
It's very easy to understand that putting a pair of empty jiffypop tins in a vacuum and powering them should not lead to them trying to bend their handles. It's very easy to understand that if anyone would be capable of checking this carefully, it's NASA.
So if NASA does this and they don't know why they are detecting measurable jiffypop handle bend many orders of magnitude higher than predicted, how do you not click on that article? How do you not think that's interesting?