Yeah, consensus science never fails.
The shy, 70-year-old Shechtman said he never doubted his findings and considered himself merely the latest in a long line of scientists who advanced their fields by challenging the conventional wisdom and were shunned by the establishment because of it.
…
“I was thrown out of my research group. They said I brought shame on them with what I was saying,” he recalled. “I never took it personally. I knew I was right and they were wrong.”
Full story here at Yahoo News.
Congratulations for winning the Nobel Prize, and for having the courage and stamina to stick it out Dr. Shechtman. I hope you will be an inspiration to many others to not let the intimidation of closed minded peers wear you down. Science self-corrects, sometimes taking years to do so and we are witnessing the self correction of climate science consensus slowly take place before our own eyes.
Thanks to Mary Friederichs who submitted the story via our web interface.
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UPDATE: R. Gates provides this video in comments:
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Svensmark anyone?
It is worth reading the full story linked to on Yahoo.
We need another prize for such cases, the Vavilov Prize.
“Dr Shechtman had to fight a fierce battle against established science to convince others of what he had first seen in his lab on an April morning in 1982.”
This battle against the consensus sounds familiar.
Dr. Shechtman deserves two Nobels:
One for disregarding a consensus, like a true scientist, and another for his work. As to all the psudo-scientists that conform to consensus, they should be stripped of their letters until they attend a remedial course on the scientific method and principals. Naked men – all of them! GK
Verily, Verity, it is very. I can hear the jeers.
There’s no parallel here at all. Global Warming must be true because there’s a super-duper consensus. Besides, that fact that people like Mann bring in millions in research grants proves his science is the Truth.
/sarc
From the Yahoo article: “Only later did some scientists go back to some of their own inexplicable findings and realize they had seen quasicrystals without understanding what were looking at, Jackson said.”
That reminds me of Charles Moore, the inventor of Forth and later chip designer. He loves to tinker with the analog effects you observe in digital circuitry. Usually these reflections are regarded as disturbance and chip designers try to suppress them but Moore invents new stuff with it. He takes what is thrown at him.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Moore
Anthony–I’m proud to have sent this story to your website. Dr. Shechtman is a true scientist and I’m happy he has been vindicated. You and your readers/commenters have educated me for more than 2 years –thank you all!!
He should not have been ridiculed, but on the other hand, until his findings could be replicated, neither should his results been accepted. Consensus has its uses. However, it should be based on observations, not models.
John Marshall – NP 2005, Medicine – Heliobactor Pylori. Cause of stomach ulcers. Also considered a “radical”.
Funnily enough, climate scientists still see themselves as the anti-establishment hero working to save a disbelieving society.
I’m pretty sure this is how they justify bending the rules.
vboring says:
October 5, 2011 at 2:55 pm
“Funnily enough, climate scientists still see themselves as the anti-establishment hero working to save a disbelieving society.”
They’re not dumb enough to not notice that their school completely dominates all the institutes. Presenting themselves as anti-establishment is only a facade created by their PR agencies. You see in the climategate e-mails that they’re VERY aware of their dominance over the peer-reviewed literature.
Another example is Peter Mitchell who proposed the chemisosmotic model for ATP synthesis. To pursue his research, he left academia, renovated a mansion which held a lab, and founded a charitable foundation to fund the research.
It makes me think of my two attempts here to reveil the fact that Switzerland as well as Austria as well as Varoe Radio station at Finnmark (Norway, within polar circle) had stations that have registered record high average temperatures for September. This news is neglected but one day snow in the Alps in September however (yes the same month) was brought as breaking news at front page of this website!
What about this Mr. Anthony Watts? Might we – although of a different order – call this a real (or actually better) parallel?
Sounds like the chap who insisted that bacteria had a role in stomach ulcers. They excoriated him for a long, long time. They were, of course, wrong. Science is about having open minds and closed mouths. The only time you open your mouth is to announce a verifiable result.
Shameless plug of thirteen lessons from Schechtman’s story, following an article by Haaretz:
“Unchallengeable basic tenets” must be considered as transient in any scientific field
Any scientific field that is considered “closed”, “solid”, “total” is ripe for a revolution that will still be burning decades later
New discoveries are surrounded by suspicion and ridicule, accompanied by outright rationalized dismissals
It doesn’t matter if you can show people your discovery. It doesn’t matter if they can replicate your discovery in their own lab. Many will still refuse to believe it. We have not moved an inch since the times of Galileo and telescope-denier Cesare Cremonini
Many of them will change their mind only if the discovery is demonstrated using their old techniques
Scientists-discoverers don’t keep their techniques secret
Many discoveries are observed for many years, before somebody realizes there is a new discovery to be made of those observations
Scientists-discoverers are worried about losing their job because of their discovery
And rightly so
They are even worried of being unable to find any job because of their discovery
You need at least two Professors to support the article describing the discovery, before it passes so-called “peer” review
The famous, influential, powerful people invited to deliver the keynote addresses at scientific conferences, they are very likely wrong on any new topic
We have no idea how many Schechtman’s will forever remain unknown, because they didn’t have the luck and the guts to persevere the way Shechtman did
Dr Shechtman ,
Congratulations on your Nobel Prize in chemistry.
Thank you for sharing your inspiring journey with us.
John
————–
That is a remarkable quote by Dr Shechtman. For me it will provide an effective cautionary warning against all PNS and consensus based quasi-scientific bureaucracies like the IPCC.
John
These kinds of stories of long awaited vindication are truly inspiring. They make you cheer out loud.
Scarface says:
October 5, 2011 at 2:17 pm
Svensmark anyone?
First : Grats to Shechtman! Courage of ones convictions when the world is against you as in this case should be rewarded.
I remember the section in a video where Svensmark was heckled like a bad comic right in the middle of his presentation. And then to have the revered head of the IPCC slam him to boot!
Does anyone remember the Cloud Chamber Experiment with a small radioactive source in High School? Millions saw that experiment and never made the connection. I hope his vindication rises to level of Shechtman.
It also makes you wonder how the folks running the Nobel organization for Sciences can get it so right, but the folks at the Nobel for Peace, hmmm not so much…
Congratulations Dr. Dan Shechtman, not just for your remarkable discovery but for having the balls to fight for what you knew was right.
I wish some of the IPCC climate science brigade would have some of your strength to stand up and be counted. Not just about the science, but the cargo cult methods used to support the conjecture of CAGW. One man of integrity can change the world.
Anybody notice it was the American scientific community that originally rejected him? We’ve got the government so much into research in this country that the bureaucratic mindset is polluting our efforts. Which is how people like James Hansen and Michael Mann can thrive.
One of my favorite Sarah Williams poems:
The Old Astronomer to His Pupil
Reach me down my Tycho Brahe, I would know him when we meet,
When I share my later science, sitting humbly at his feet;
He may know the law of all things, yet be ignorant of how
We are working to completion, working on from then to now.
Pray remember that I leave you all my theory complete,
Lacking only certain data for your adding, as is meet,
And remember men will scorn it, ’tis original and true,
And the obliquy of newness may fall bitterly on you.
But, my pupil, as my pupil you have learned the worth of scorn,
You have laughed with me at pity, we have joyed to be forlorn,
What for us are all distractions of men’s fellowship and smiles;
What for us the Goddess Pleasure with her meretricious smiles.
You may tell that German College that their honor comes too late,
But they must not waste repentance on the grizzly savant’s fate.
Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light;
I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night. .