Nothing in that comment is news, but if we've reached a point where we're completely unwilling to accept that experiments could show us something new before theorists predict and explain it, then we should hang up our science hats and go home.
Skepticism is warranted, but the team behind this study seems to be proceeding with a healthy dose of it, and AFAIK they have not made any inappropriate claims. The results so far are interesting, the experiments do not seem terribly expensive, and I see no reason why they shouldn't be followed to their conclusion (which will probably be the discovery of a mundane explanation for the phenomenon that's been observed).
Are you actually worried that all of the world's scientists are completely unimaginative and incompetent? I don't understand why you'd escalate it this way just because this topic comes up. That certainly doesn't sound like a reliable frame of mind in which to be.
You seem to be looking at my comment through a radically different lens than I was when I wrote it. You know it was in reply to another comment, right?
> Nothing in that comment is news, but if we've reached a point where we're completely unwilling to accept that experiments could show us something new before theorists predict and explain it, then we should hang up our science hats and go home.
Yes, but nobody's ACTUALLY saying that -- that's just the typical narrative of people-selling-perpetual-motion-machines. (Who, you'll note, have a slightly different agenda.).
What's actually going on is that everybody's saying "this would require New Physics -- hold your horses!"... and the response seems to be "YEAH, BUT WHAT IF?!??!".
Pithy answer to the "what if" challenge: Not good enough.
But the question of how the scientific community should be reacting to this, and whether more time and money should be thrown at these experiments, seems wholly separate from the question of how the public should be reacting.
You asked "Or maybe it's just a waste of time/money?", which is a question for the scientific community, but most of the "WHAT IF?!??!" reactions seem to be coming from the public.
edit: I replied before you edited your post fairly heavily; I think what I said still applies, though.
Apologies for the ninja edit! I tend to leave fairly heavy markers around, but didn't this time[1] -- just didn't expect that someone would respond so quickly!
> You asked "Or maybe it's just a waste of time/money?", which is a question for the scientific community, but most of the "WHAT IF?!??!" reactions seem to be coming from the public.
I really don't understand this. Is this some sort of PoMo response to my original challenge, or...?
My contention is that the public interest may not necessarily have much to do with what the public is interested in. I don't think this a particularly controversial PoV...?
(Though I do have reservations about it, but -- personally -- I've just about given up on even basic scientific literacy. You may be less jaded.)
[1] Readability suffers, but DFW approves "from heaven". I must admit I'm quite DFW-like in that I cannot halt the loop before I write something, so here we are... with massive edits and such.
> I really don't understand this. Is this some sort of PoMo response to my original challenge, or...?
What's PoMo?
My interpretation of your first comment was that you were questioning whether this research is worth more time and money based on skepticism rooted in scientific knowledge i.e. these "new physics" needed to explain the EmDrive would conflict with a lot of what we currently think of as scientific "fact". Occam's razor, and so on.
My interpretation of your second comment was that you think the "YEAH, BUT WHAT IF?!??!" reactions to this research (generally associated with internet comment sections) are inappropriate and rooted in ignorance of scientific principles (FWIW, I agree with you on that).
I see those as separate concerns. The public is wholly ignorant, and their reaction to the results of this research to date (filtered as they are through awful clickbait articles) should have no bearing either way on whether the research continues. That's the point I was trying to make in my second comment.
> My contention is that the public interest may not necessarily have much to do with what the public is interested in. I don't think this a particularly controversial PoV...?
Skepticism is warranted, but the team behind this study seems to be proceeding with a healthy dose of it, and AFAIK they have not made any inappropriate claims. The results so far are interesting, the experiments do not seem terribly expensive, and I see no reason why they shouldn't be followed to their conclusion (which will probably be the discovery of a mundane explanation for the phenomenon that's been observed).