Dammit do I really have to provide comments to a journalist on another awful Avi Loeb paper?

[glitzersachen@hachyderm.io]

@astrojoachim @sundogplanets

The claims are what keeps media attention going. Because "might have been aliens, woohoo" is always newsworthy with a media landscape where the scientific education of journalists is sadly and utterly lacking. It got a high entertainment value. Whereas "this was a piece of rock (or ice)" is not very entertaining and will not generate follow-up stories.

Climate science was caught in a similar trap for more than a decade. All scientists were like 99% sure there would be a problem. Media coverage: "There are voices who says it's just the sun spots" and kept both-siding the issue with 50:50 coverage (if even 50 for climate science).

[apostateenglishman@mastodon.world]

@sundogplanets Even informed laypeople are tired of this guy. If his cat farted too audibly he'd probably write a whole paper about how invisible extra-terrestrial lifeforms are walking among us and communicating via feline anal emissions.

[klara@drupal.community]

@sundogplanets I didn't know him, and risked looking him up. Interesting. Black holes and exoplanets, getting funding for real projects by scaring people with extraterrestrials, and last but not least "tends to publish before peer review" according to Wikipedia