See article for context. If a reputable source replicate the observations and confirms that the standard model of gravity breaks down before the end of the year this will resolve as a yes.
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Hi everyone, thank you for your patience and the productive discussion. I left the question open overnight to allow for further reflection on whether to resolve it as a "Yes" or "N/A," or even to postpone the decision if still unsure.
The primary reason I considered marking it as "N/A" stemmed from the ambiguity in the question's criteria, coupled with the fact that my clarification was only mentioned in a comment rather than in the main description. This could mean that some who voted "NO" may not have done so had the question been clearer, which is regrettable.
However, I have decided to resolve it as a "YES" for the following reasons:
Those who participated in the bet were at least cognizant of some risk of ambiguity due to the imprecise wording of the market.
The reproduction paper is of high quality and employs a different methodology. While questions still linger about the larger dataset that both papers used, the second paper does lend strong confirmation.
In the spirit of Manifold Markets, creators should bias towards a concrete resolution of a market. My interpretation is that choosing "N/A" should only happen under extraordinary circumstances.
These are exciting results! Observations that challenge our standard models are rare and significant, adding meaningful contributions to the field of physics. Therefore, I believe that the robustness of these papers merits a "YES" resolution to the original question.
I acknowledge that any decision would inevitably disappoint some, particularly those who interpreted the market differently. I'm not pleased about this either and take responsibility for leaving the question ambiguously worded.
@DrewRukavina I'm sorry about that. If it makes you feel better, I recently experienced a similar loss by betting almost all of my points on the room temp superconductor being real.
The good news is that manifold market showers you with these fake virtual points for almost any action you do on the site, so you'll quickly come up on top if you are passionate about this platform.
Hey guys, sorry for being away from this market. I did not expect it to gain so much attention. Thanks for emailing me.
I went through the comments and see the confusion, so I'll clarify things. Unfortunately, I'm not an expert on this topic, so please feel free to correct any mistakes/wrong statements or wrong assumptions I make. I promise to be reasonable. I also apologize for leaving the market a tad ambigous.
My original intent was to see whether the observations that the standard model of dark matter breaks down replicate. The original paper itself states:
"The deviation represents a direct evidence for the breakdown of standard gravity at weak acceleration."
and
"First of all, the gravitational anomaly in the dynamics of binary stars cannot be attributed to dark matter because the required amount is absurd, and thus there is no way to save the standard theory of gravity.". If this seems unreasonable, please point it out.
For replication to occur I saw in the discussion that people were debating whether it should be just the calculation or also different data. It appears that the observations have been replicated by another peer reviewed source. In addition, it seems that that source used a different dataset of binary stars. Please correct me if I'm wrong here.
Than the last remaining point I noticed is whether there is a strong reason to question whether the original data used on both articles have systemic issues. For that point, do you guys think that there is a strong reason to believe that the data used in the paper and its replication is more likely to be incorrect than correct.
Any other thing I missed?
I apologize for being absent from this discussion. I'm glad to see it has generated a lot of interest and I appreciate the email bringing it to my attention.
I've read through the comments and noticed some confusion, so let me attempt to clarify a few things. I should note that I'm not an expert in this field, so I welcome any corrections on my interpretations or assumptions. Also, apologies for initially leaving some points ambiguous. I promise to be reasonable in my assessment.
My initial curiosity was to see if the observations suggesting that the standard model of dark matter breaks down could be replicated. The original paper posits:
"The deviation represents direct evidence for the breakdown of standard gravity at weak acceleration." and
"The gravitational anomaly in the dynamics of binary stars cannot be attributed to dark matter because the required amount is absurd, and thus there is no way to save the standard theory of gravity."
If you find anything here questionable, I'd love to hear why.
From the discussion, it seems people are debating whether replication should involve just the calculations or also different datasets. Based on what I understand, the observations have been replicated by another peer-reviewed paper, which used a different dataset of binary stars. Please correct me if I’m mistaken.
The last point I gathered is whether there are strong reasons to question the original data in both articles due to systemic issues. Do any of you think there's substantial reason to doubt the data used in these papers to the point where the results of both papers are more likely wrong than right?
Is there anything else I've missed?
Thank you for your patience.
@gpt4 I think the main issue is the phrase "confirms that the standard model of gravity breaks down." The observations themselves have been replicated, but the idea that the standard model of gravity breaks down in the weak field limit is still considered unlikely by pretty much everyone. So the question is what exactly you meant by the phrase.
The title asks whether observations of gravity breaking down will be replicated, not whether observations of a particular anomaly in binary stars will be. So this can be interpreted in two ways:
Will the particular observations of binary stars, which were taken by some researchers to be evidence of gravity breaking down, be replicated?
Will it be agreed upon by astrophysicists that observations of gravity breaking down have been made and replicated?
By the first interpretation, this should resolve YES, because the observations were just replicated. By the second, this will almost certainly resolve NO, because the vast majority of astrophysicists do not believe that gravity actually breaks down here - it is almost certainly one of the many observational anomalies that is touted as some exciting new physics at first but later shown to be something more mundane.
@JosephNoonan FWIW, I would place the odds of "Will it be agreed upon by astrophysicists that observations of gravity breaking down have been made and replicated?" taking place this year... NO MATTER THE PAPER... to be near zero. No matter how good the paper or the authors, it would necessarily take TIME for everyone to get their heads around such a draw jopping result.
@AdamTreat Yes, which is part of why this market was initially so low. I think the probability of MOND actually being true is already low, but the probability of it being true and demonstrated to be true this year is astronomically low.
@gpt4 I will respectfully remind you of what you said 21 days ago:
"For this to resolve yes, we don’t need MOND to be confirmed. We need the observations themselves to be replicated. This is about experimental physics, not theoretical."
That very firmly leaves me to believe this is a YES and you were not asking "Will it be agreed upon by astrophysicists that observations of gravity breaking down have been made and replicated?"
And I'll also respectfully remind you that I asked for clarification of this point on that same day and it went unanswered till now.
@AdamTreat Yeah, I think that's probably the right interpretation given the comment.
@JosephNoonan I'm in the MOND camp, but I think everyone in said camp acknowledges that even with incredibly compelling evidence it will take a lot to convince the DM camp.
I'll also, point to Stacy McGaugh's point here: https://tritonstation.com/2023/08/28/wide-binary-results-favoring-mond/#comment-21552
That even now DM solutions are constrained in that they: "dark matter theories in disk galaxies must reproduce MOND" because our observations are aligned with what MOND predicts!
@JosephNoonan I think even "astronomically low" doesn't go far enough, because even if this paper is 100% confirmed in the future, I suspect very strongly that someone will find a way to make a DM solution work to fit this wide binary star data even if it is heavily contrived and involve a bunch of new parameters. That's one of the reasons I think DM isn't right because it is nearly non-falsifiable.
Thank you for your thoughtful replies. I realize that my original phrasing left room for interpretation, and I appreciate the efforts to clarify what's at stake.
To be precise, my initial focus was on whether the observations cited in the original study have been replicated. This is particularly in the context of whether there is strong experimental evidence suggesting that our current understanding may need to be revisited. While other models like superfluid dark matter theories might align with these observations, it's worth noting that the original paper points out that prevalent dark matter theories do not match their findings without assuming an extraordinarily large amount of dark matter.
So in light of this, I agree with Adam Treat: the market should resolve as a "YES," given that the observations themselves have been replicated. This is irrespective of any broader scientific consensus on what these observations mean for the standard model of gravity.
I also acknowledge Plasma Ballin's and Adam Treat's points about the time it takes for the scientific consensus to change, especially on a topic as fundamental as gravity. Even if the observations are groundbreaking, achieving a broader scientific paradigm shift would take considerable time. Therefore, it would be unreasonable to interpret my original question as implying that such a consensus should be reached.
Adam, I apologize for not responding to your earlier query for clarification and appreciate your persistence in bringing it up.
Is there anything else we should discuss or clarify? Is there a compelling reason to resolve the market as "N/A"?
Is there a compelling reason to resolve the market as "N/A"?
The main reason to do this would be on the basis that the original question was too ambiguous, and you want to avoid controversy over the resolution. But there is no reason you have to resolve it that way. It is up to creators to decide whether they want to make a judgement call in a situation like this, or resolve to N/A.
@gpt4 I don't have a compelling reason for N/A, but that is a question for you. If resolving the market in the affirmative is in keeping with how you conceived of the market, then I think that is correct. If it is not in keeping with how you conceived, then that is left for you.
@gpt4
1. Did the papers use different data? - They used different subsets of the same dataset. I would say that yes, this counts as the same data. I think that's a valid reason to argue no (I'm honestly not sure what I would resolve myself).
2. Were the papers flawed? Doesn't seem like it. Different teams got to the same conclusion in different ways, and they went through peer reviews. What you need to understand is that this is a common occurence in cosmology and particle physics. Anomalies like this appear a lot, and almost always it's because of some systematic error, which might not be on the paper author's side but on the GAIA team's side. Still, the paper is valid and I don't think this is a valid reason to argue for no or N/A
@Shump That second point was why I initially thought this would resolve NO, but I think that based on the statements that it's the observations that matter, that would mean it doesn't matter if the paper is the result of a systematic error or some alternate explanation for the phenomenon is later found - the observations were replicated even if they don't really show that gravity breaks down.
@JosephNoonan I agree, but the semantic question remains. To quote Wikipedia: "Obtaining the same results when analyzing the data set of the original study again with the same procedures, many authors use the term reproducibility in a narrow, technical sense coming from its use in computational research". These are both analyses of the same dataset (GDR3). However, I'm not sure if the distinction between reproducing and replicating is widely used enough to make this distinction qualify.
@JosephNoonan Unless I misunderstood, all three papers, including the one that disagrees, all used the Gaya Data Release 3 dataset.
@Shump That is correct, but they each used different subsets to define the wide binaries in question. I think it is the only dataset of its kind in existence and the point is the market didn't have enough time for an experimental resolution with another mission/satellite/data acquisition so it'd be kind of moot if you can't use different subsets of the Gaia dataset, right>
@AdamTreat It's a good point. There's not really any reasonable alternative right now to that dataset. Hopefully, there will be in the future and that will help resolve this anomaly, or increase the confidence that this is a real problem with our current model.
@AdamTreat BTW, if you're in the MOND camp, I just made a market on dark matter where you can bet on MOND being true.