Astrophysicists keep finding things that “shouldn’t exist”. I think I know why.

You have probably seen headlines in the past years about lots of things out there in the cosmos that, according to astrophysicists "shouldn't exist". Why is this happening? In this video I want to offer my explanation and why I predict a continuation of such headlines unless astrophysicists consolidate their data and take predictions more seriously.

🔗 Join this channel to get access to perks ➜

#science #astrophysics #sciencenews

[markgouthro]

One of my early supervisors gave me this piece of wisdom, "Don't fall in love with your model. Your model isn't real."

[IntegralDeLinha]

"The Guide is definitive. Reality is frequently inaccurate." - Douglas Adams

[TheEulerID]

I used to live within a kilometre of the Natural History Museum, so I cannot share Sabine's disappointment at dinosaur bones not going supernova. It would have been a significant annoyance

[SecondFinale]

It's almost like the universe is unaware of our models.

[zyris]

There are even astrophysicists that shouldn't exist. Which is in itself a dark matter.

[jasonpatterson]

They keep finding things that "shouldn't exist" because the popular science media need headlines. The actual papers never say that - they're finding things that don't fit with current models for various phenomena, but it's not a series of massive mysteries that people are stumbling upon.

[macjeffff]

Sabine's observations are right on target. They are especially important in all the social sciences like counseling psychology, where I've worked for more than 30 years. The proliferation of nonsense in my field is staggering. Much of psychology is suffering from the corrosive effects of career-building and funding. There's no future in corroborating old wisdom. If it's not new, it's not relevant.

[inciaradible]

‘But galaxies aren't elementary particles.’
Citation needed.

[saulrobertson]

Thank you for saying this!!! I HATE it when they say “shouldn’t exist” !! More like your theories shouldn’t exist!!

[robbujold]

That shot of the person holding the mouse by its tail, watching it squirm, and then smiling was disturbing.

[douglaswatt]

In my field, which is mostly the study of neurodegenerative disorders with a minor in the neurobiology of depression, it's amazing how sticky popular theories have been. Even after they are repeatedly unable to explain disconfirming results, the general approach is to look at the probe of the hypothesis as inadequate. Which it may be of course. The most famous example of a sticky hypothesis in that area, of course, is the amyloid hypothesis. It's not so much that it's wrong in other words amyloid particularly as oligomers has a number of undesirable properties it's more that it's seriously incomplete. . Instead of single factors I think the science supports the idea of a recursion between multiple factors including amyloidosis but not by itself. And of course even if protein deposition were a single prime mover, it would just raise the questions about why proteostasis is failing so the single Factor notion just doesn't hold any water. In any case, I'm not entirely sure why we so love single factor theories. It's almost as though we want to reduce everything down to buzzwords and once we have a buzzword that we're confident in, we become arrogantly confident that we now really truly understand things.

[johncarroll]

At least, unlike some of their critics, astrophysicists don't deny that things do exist

[bjornragnarsson]

Thank you for this video Bee, this is precisely why I could not get into astrophysics and cosmology and ended doing (cough, cough) particle physics lol. And I know, there are a lot of problems here that we need to address rather than seeking more funding for the “next biggest particle accelerator.” One problem that I find to be slowly developing is that we’re so specialized in our research and this causes confusion and tension even amongst ourselves as researchers. Which is why we need more people like you who have good foresight and experience in the many different research fields and topics to be able to constructively inform the be public what the “current state in physics is, ” if there is such a thing. Thank you 🙏

[DonaldDucksRevenge]

It takes bravery to admit ignorance. Elaborating on how ignorant we are takes courage. Respect to you Sabine

[XenMaximalist]

The think the most exciting possibility that the current upheaval in Astrophysics is suggesting is that some fundamental concepts may be wrong, such as how we interpret red shifts and the nature of the speed of light. Particle physics is involved with this as well: a lot of assumptions about fundamental matter go directly into astrophysics predictions. So this upheaval in astrophysics affects particle physics ideas just as much.

[Abracadabra]

Your interswitching of the two burger pictures that are used for an "Expectation" and "Reality" meme was HILARIOUS! On a serious note, though, I have often wondered about statements to the effect that certain multi-galactic structures are "too big to exist." Can't we think of the Universe as a whole as containing or being one big structure (even if logically trivial)?

[sevhenry]

Thomas A. Kuhn in his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions describes well the main risk of dominant paradigm science: ''Science is not objective nor cumulative: it is influenced by social, historical and psychological factors which affect the choice and evaluation of paradigms. Science does not necessarily come closer to the truth, but rather follows a contingent and discontinuous evolution.'' Physicists should always work with several general scenarios and models. The search of thruth should always be their ideal.

[Kerhuz]

In my field there is this over used quote.
"All models are wrong, but some are useful."

And another saying also related to the data or assumptions in the models we simulate:
"Garbage in, garbage out."

[NixonGriffee]

I stumbled onto your channel quite by accident. I was impressed by your style as much as your obvious brilliance. I found the content more thought provoking than anything I've come across recently. I feel like my brain is getting some much needed exercise. Thank you!

[eveo]

I've suggested for years that there is an uneasy relationship between theory and computer simulations: the simulations can be no more accurate or reflective of reality than that of the theory that goes into the decision process which guides not only the selection of the parameters of the model simulated, but also the ways in which the parameters are both free and constrained in their interactions with One and Other. If the theory can't account for this or that and/or if our theory is absent this or that when it ought to be present, then no model simulated on a computer that's created based on lacking or misunderstood parameters can yield simulations that adequately represent reality. Both the theory and the simulation are necessarily interrelated and are in a feedback loop of self-reinforcement. Our simulations will not shock us with new insights if the theory that guides them can't even produce those insights.

Another problem, as you point towards, Sabine, is that some (many) astrophysicists seem fixated on a particular theory--and even interpretation of that theory--and hold it so dogmatically that they might as well be preaching it like Gospel. I'm not going to name any names today, but some entirely capable and otherwise seemingly intelligent people hold onto their theory--and promote/communicate it to others--as if it were the absolutely established and impossible to be otherwise truth--as if it was somehow revealed by divinity or something. It often seems to me less like science and more like creation stories with calculations and formulas.

I grew up a believer in the Big Bang, for example, until I was old enough to start realizing that, hey, wait a minute, maybe these mounting anomalies and ongoing need for ad hoc tuning of some untestable components of the theory (ahem--inflation--cough cough) could suggest that there is more to the story than we can currently tell or even comprehend--so perhaps that story isn't the right story. But when we don't have a career, funding, and a reputation staked out on our ongoing investigation of a single story/theory and its implications, then I suppose it might be easier for us to have a more open mind about looking at the theory sideways instead of all the other components for the source of these anomalies.

And the obvious result of dogma, as you recognize, is the curtailing of progress. Novel explanations of anomalous data will often not have the grounds on which to be founded when limited by unquestioning obedience to some necessarily limited pre-established set of idealized assumptions.