The JWST's Data Is So Incredible That Even Those Who Built It Are Questioning Previous Science

[rangerrebew]

The JWST's Data Is So Incredible That Even Those Who Built It Are Questioning Previous Science

Maggie Harrison - Yesterday 10:10 AM
 

UC Santa Cruz astronomer Garth Illingworth, former Deputy Director of the Space Telescope Science Institute, has had a hell of a career.

We caught up with astronomer Garth Illingworth to talk about the James Webb Space Telescope, distant galaxies, and the ever-evolving scientific process.
We caught up with astronomer Garth Illingworth to talk about the James Webb Space Telescope, distant galaxies, and the ever-evolving scientific process.
 
He's dedicated decades to the pursuit of finding and understanding the most distant galaxies, and was a leader on the team that built the Hubble Space Telescope. And before the Hubble was even in the sky, he'd already started to develop the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) — yes, that James Webb Space Telescope, the one that's currently blowing Earthlings' minds on the daily with wildly beautiful images of our universe.
 
While most of us look at those JWST pictures and just see pictures, Illingworth and his peers see all that and more: data. Over its few operational months, Webb has already offered an illuminating breadth of information — findings that have confirmed, confounded, and even contradicted existing theories about the cosmos. Curious about what that data means ourselves, we caught up with Illingworth to talk about space telescopes, far away worlds, and the ever evolving scientific process. 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/the-jwst-s-data-is-so-incredible-that-even-those-who-built-it-are-questioning-previous-science/ar-AA125wMp?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=78098c80db53494f87dcc8f7c0f1c6ad

[Polly Ticks]

What do you think that a situation like this says about the scientific process itself?

This is interesting, because I would say that in times past there was a very slow process of doing things. Data didn't come in very fast. We spent a lot of time working with it, sometimes you'd have to go back and get some more. Then, you know, the papers would come out, and we'd be pretty definitive. Papers come out, everybody thinks "oh, this is great." Then a year later, some new data comes along that goes "well, that was wrong." You have to recognize you can be wrong at any point, but when you're wrong, you learn new things.

I think I've never felt particularly bad if people take the care to do as well as they can at the time, and then go back and revise things. Being wrong isn't bad, it's part of the process. And it's probably inevitable at this stage.

Wow.  Sounds like a 'science-denier' to me.   

[Free Vulcan]

This guy doesn't understand the absolute infallibility of consensus and model driven settled science.

[DefiantMassRINO]

Science is never settled.  It's settled for now, until it can be disproven.

Science is the pursuit of knowledge, truth, and the unknown to a point of being able to reliably, consistently reproduce results, predict results, and withstand scrutiny.

Science should not be blind adherence to dogma, especially, if you can prove it to be wrong, unreliable, unreproduceable, and nonpredictive.

Global Climate Change is a mass delusion that serves to carry forward Communist idealogy to destroy the West.

[Smokin Joe]

Science is never settled.  It's settled for now, until it can be disproven.

Science is the pursuit of knowledge, truth, and the unknown to a point of being able to reliably, consistently reproduce results, predict results, and withstand scrutiny.

Science should not be blind adherence to dogma, especially, if you can prove it to be wrong, unreliable, unreproduceable, and nonpredictive.

Global Climate Change is a mass delusion that serves to carry forward Communist idealogy to destroy the West.

Science is an ongoing game of "Can You Top This?". (Inevitably, sooner or later, someone likely will.)

 "We believe, given what we do know..." should be in front of every scientific statement. Even what we "know"changes with new discoveries.

As for the statements in bold (which I added) no greater truth exists in science.

(There is a greater Truth, and some day we will know.)