illuminating science

So, browsing Slashdot earlier this week, I came across an article where a physicist has claimed that “It’s a near certainty that black holes don’t exist.” I’d just like to comment briefly on this and the way the media has handled it.

Brief background: The generally accepted theory is that black holes form when a large star runs out of fuel (hydrogen) and the stars gravity forces it to collapse in on itself. A star like our sun is too small, and will become a white dwarf - pretty boring, really. But a large star will crush itself smaller and smaller until it becomes a just a “point” with infinite density but zero volume. This is a black hole, and responsible for all the weird black hole effects you might have heard about.

So, enter George Chapline, from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, who claims that this doesn’t properly account for “dark energy“, the mysterious force which acts like antigravity to accelerate the expansion of the universe. Instead, he claims, the collapsing stars fill with this dark energy which prevents the black hole from forming. Instead, this antigravity core would fling matter back out of the “black hole” where it could collide with entering matter and give off the same energy signiatures as the objects we today believe are black holes.

As strange as it sounds, we have to consider the possibility that it’s true. It’s unlikely - an awful lot of awfully smart people have thought about black holes - but Chapline might have seen something that no-one else had. After all, new discoveries have to come from someone! But as far as I can see, his work hasn’t yet been published in a “peer reviewed” journal (i.e., a journal where other scientists have checked his work) and his online article is a summary of a talk he gave at a conference. So it’s pretty hard for a relative lay person like myself to pass judgement.

And yet, from the way Nature is reporting, you’d think that he was already revolutionising physics. He claims his findings are a “near certainty”, and the Nature reporter does nothing to dampen the enthusiasm or provide comments from other scientists. If I didn’t know better, I’d be convinced despite the lack of evidence. So is this good reporting?

The problem, of course, is that sensational headlines sell papers (or at least, attract readers!) so magazines like New Scientist, in particular, must always be looking for a sensational or controversial story that will attract attention. New Scientist serves an important role in promoting science, and is a great magazine within this role, but one has to wonder what people think about all these wacky theories that physcists come up with…Today, black holes are “disproven”, and yet tomorrow we’ve discovered new “proof” of a black hole in the centre of the galaxy. How can we have proven it both ways? Of course we haven’t, and scientists know that, but what about the rest of the world? The media is painting a very black and white view of the way research works, and I’m not sure whether it’s a good thing or not. Maybe “any publicity is good publicity”, but how can people have faith in physics if we make claims we can’t back up? How can anyone be sure about global warming or mobile phones if every week the headlines proclaim a new and different study with an absolutely conclusive, but completely disagreeing, proof? As a physicist, I know that it’s a part of physics, but I wonder if everyone else does.

I don’t know what the solution is - certainly not having a vote every year on what theories to accept or reject! And some controversy is good - it makes physics seem exciting and vibrant (just think of string theory or cold fusion!) But promoting the minority equal to the majority produces problems like a mistrust of genetic engineering or nanotechnology or the nuclear irradiation of food. I guess it comes down to better communication from scientists, and educating people about the “scientific process” - teaching people to think more critically about the research they hear about, and how in science it’s majority rules.