# "Everything we thought we knew was flawed" scenario **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 18, 2016, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everything-we-thought-we-knew-was-flawed-scenario/749421 "2016-03-18T18:04:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Darth\_Hamsandwich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4bbf92/32.png) [@Darth\_Hamsandwich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Hamsandwich)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2016, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everything-we-thought-we-knew-was-flawed-scenario/749421/1 "2016-03-18T18:04:31Z")
Has there ever been an instance of a student pointing out a error during a lecture that changed a fundamental concept of the discipline? (My question is a bit awkwardly put, sorry.) In other words, Professor Sneedle is giving his talk up at the board, then the student raises his hand and says, “Um, Professor? Wouldn’t that make X behave like Y?” The Professor studies the current slide up on the whiteboard and exclaims, “Great Scott! You’re right! This changes everything we know about the subject!” ---
**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2016, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everything-we-thought-we-knew-was-flawed-scenario/749421/2 "2016-03-18T18:05:54Z")
Every terrible disaster movie ever. ---
**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2016, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everything-we-thought-we-knew-was-flawed-scenario/749421/3 "2016-03-18T18:18:02Z")
I doubt that it could really happen - it’s based on viewing science the way pulp science fiction did (and a lot of later sf copied), that science is pretty much just one guy having a great idea and no one else really gets it. The reality is that by the time anything is making it to an undergrad lecture, lots of really smart and really dumb people have been thinking about it and poking holes in it, and that generally all the little bits of science intertwine with a lot of other bits. The closest thing to what you’re thinking of is probably a student accidentally solving a major unsolved problem in the field thinking it’s homework, the RL case of it is is George Dantzig (from [The Legend of the 'Unsolvable Math Problem' | Snopes.com](http://www.snopes.com/college/homework/unsolvable.asp)) > [@](#): > > It happened because during my first year at Berkeley I arrived late one day at one of [Jerzy] Neyman’s classes. On the blackboard there were two problems that I assumed had been assigned for homework. I copied them down. A few days later I apologized to Neyman for taking so long to do the homework — the problems seemed to be a little harder than usual. I asked him if he still wanted it. He told me to throw it on his desk. I did so reluctantly because his desk was covered with such a heap of papers that I feared my homework would be lost there forever. About six weeks later, one Sunday morning about eight o’clock, [my wife] Anne and I were awakened by someone banging on our front door. It was Neyman. He rushed in with papers in hand, all excited: “I’ve just written an introduction to one of your papers. Read it so I can send it out right away for publication.” For a minute I had no idea what he was talking about. To make a long story short, the problems on the blackboard that I had solved thinking they were homework were in fact two famous unsolved problems in statistics. That was the first inkling I had that there was anything special about them. > > A year later, when I began to worry about a thesis topic, Neyman just shrugged and told me to wrap the two problems in a binder and he would accept them as my thesis. > > The second of the two problems, however, was not published until after World War II. It happened this way. Around 1950 I received a letter from Abraham Wald enclosing the final galley proofs of a paper of his about to go to press in the Annals of Mathematical Statistics. Someone had just pointed out to him that the main result in his paper was the same as the second “homework” problem solved in my thesis. I wrote back suggesting we publish jointly. He simply inserted my name as coauthor into the galley proof. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2016, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everything-we-thought-we-knew-was-flawed-scenario/749421/4 "2016-03-18T18:38:22Z")
> [@Pantastic](#): > > I doubt that it could really happen - it’s based on viewing science the way pulp science fiction did (and a lot of later sf copied), that science is pretty much just one guy having a great idea and no one else really gets it. The reality is that by the time anything is making it to an undergrad lecture, lots of really smart and really dumb people have been thinking about it and poking holes in it, and that generally all the little bits of science intertwine with a lot of other bits. The closest thing to what you’re thinking of is probably a student accidentally solving a major unsolved problem in the field thinking it’s homework, the RL case of it is is George Dantzig (from [The Legend of the 'Unsolvable Math Problem' | Snopes.com](http://www.snopes.com/college/homework/unsolvable.asp)) yes. For example, when Einstein developed Relativity, it was already well known that something odd was going on with the speed of light. No matter how they measured light it was always the same speed. How was that possible? Einstein came up with the not-obvious answer, but everyone was thinking about it. Similarly, “everyone knew” there was a chemical genetic component - it’s just that the “discovery” of the double helix was an aha! moment of Crick and Watson, and it explained a lot of things beautifully - how the molecule stayed together, how it could reproduce, etc. But then, these were puzzles that people had thought about long and hard - not revolutionary overturning of established though. Perhaps a similar more modern overturn of scientific thought would be he acceptance of plate tectonics. Several people had the idea that chunks of the earth moved, based on assorted evidence (continent shapes, mountain characteristics, earthquakes). Simply, as more evidence became stronger, such as undersea rift zones and subduction zones, the theory took over as the accepted science. ---
**Author:** ![Nansbread1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Nansbread1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nansbread1)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2016, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everything-we-thought-we-knew-was-flawed-scenario/749421/5 "2016-03-18T18:40:08Z")
> [@Grey](#): > > Every terrible disaster movie ever. But only after they call the POTUS ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2016, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everything-we-thought-we-knew-was-flawed-scenario/749421/6 "2016-03-18T19:45:11Z")
Even if it had ever happened, the response wouldn’t be “Great Scott, you’re right!”. It would be more like “Hm, that’s a good point, I’ll have to get back to you on that.”. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2016, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everything-we-thought-we-knew-was-flawed-scenario/749421/7 "2016-03-18T19:48:01Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Even if it had ever happened, the response wouldn’t be “Great Scott, you’re right!” Indeed. “Gadzooks!” would be far more appropriate in such a situation. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2016, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everything-we-thought-we-knew-was-flawed-scenario/749421/8 "2016-03-18T19:53:18Z")
Feynman describes his revelation about beta decay and the tau-theta puzzle: > [@](#): > > When I got back to Caltech, I asked some of the experimenters what the situation was with beta decay. I remember three guys, Hans Jensen, Aaldert Wapstra, and Felix Boehm, sitting me down on a little stool, and starting to tell me all these facts: experimental results from other parts of the country, and their own experimental results. Since I knew those guys, and how careful they were, I paid more attention to their results than to the others. Their results, alone, were not so inconsistent; it was all the others plus theirs. > > Finally they get all this stuff into me, and they say, “The situation is so mixed up that even some of the things they’ve established for years are being questioned–such as the beta decay of the neutron is S and T. It’s so messed up. Murray says it might even be V and A.” > > I jump up from the stool and say, “Then I understand EVVVVVERYTHING!” > They thought I was joking. But the thing that I had trouble with at the Rochester meeting–the neutron and proton disintegration: everything fit but that, and if it was V and A instead of S and T, that would fit too. Therefore I had the whole theory! > > That night I calculated all kinds of things with this theory. The first thing I calculated was the rate of disintegration of the muon and the neutron. They should be connected together, if this theory was right, by a certain relationship, and it was right to 9 percent. That’s pretty close, 9 percent. It should have been more perfect than that, hut it was close enough. > > I went on and checked some other things, which fit, and new things fit, new things fit, and I was very excited. It was the first time, and the only time, in my career that I knew a law of nature that nobody else knew. ---
**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2016, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everything-we-thought-we-knew-was-flawed-scenario/749421/9 "2016-03-18T20:11:21Z")
Note that in the Feynman revelation, he wasn’t a student who spotted an unknown problem which overthrew an established theory as the professor was lecturing on it. He was already a professional in the field, and the other people he was talking to in the field were aware that there was a problem with results matching the established theory. He didn’t actually spot the problem himself, and it the problem was found by delving into new experimental results - not from something that would be taught at a lecture. So while it was an impressively huge insight on his part, it’s nowhere near the disaster movie trope in the OP. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2016, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everything-we-thought-we-knew-was-flawed-scenario/749421/10 "2016-03-18T20:25:36Z")
From my days as a prof in Computer Science. Once in a great while, some student would think he/she had a brilliant insight and all I had been lecturing about was wrong. It ranged from knowing “for a fact” that the binary representation of 1/10 could be represented exactly in X bits to overturning the Halting Problem. Most of the time it quickly became clear they had the “true believer” mentality and there was no point in finding the error in their thinking. There have been cases where someone would point out during an advanced seminar or such a minor to huge problem. I did a lot of that as a student and it helped me get set up with my advisor (and a Re$earch Assistantship). A few things led to papers, but nothing field changing in any one case. (My big stuff didn’t arise this way.) But mostly it lead to me getting an acknowledgement in the speaker’s paper later on. I think that sort of stuff is common to a lot of stronger researchers. (Let me tell you, having one of the top people in the field sitting in when you give your latest and greatest stuff is quite scary. None of them ever found anything wrong with my stuff, but it’s always on your mind.) ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2016, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everything-we-thought-we-knew-was-flawed-scenario/749421/11 "2016-03-18T20:25:55Z")
> [@Nansbread1](#): > > But only after they call the POTUS Yes, but it has to be a black man…or sometimes a woman As for the actual student thing…as a student I DID see a few times where a bright/lucky student DID ask a question that DID make the prof stop dead in his/her tracks and have to get back to us later about it. And about something fundamental too. And these were not freshly minted profs either. ---
**Author:** ![OldGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/3bc359/32.png) [@OldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldGuy)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2016, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everything-we-thought-we-knew-was-flawed-scenario/749421/12 "2016-03-18T20:34:34Z")
I will say once when a student asked me a question in class, the answer made me realize there was a extension to a model which in hindsight is obvious, but had never been mentioned or utilized before. It was one particular “aha” moment in my career, and resulted in one of the fastest-start-to-finish papers I ever wrote. (Well sort of. It was actually combined with something else related.) ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2016, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everything-we-thought-we-knew-was-flawed-scenario/749421/13 "2016-03-18T20:50:05Z")
There’s the supposed story that Ludwig Wittgenstein was explaining some simple concept to a class and started out by saying _“Suppose X is the number of sheep in a flock…”_ and one of the students raised his hand and asked _“But, Professor, what if X isn’t the number of sheep in the flock?”_ Wittgenstein supposedly later said that this was either the dumbest or the most profound question he had ever heard in his career and he couldn’t decide which it was. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2016, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everything-we-thought-we-knew-was-flawed-scenario/749421/14 "2016-03-18T20:51:38Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **ftg** : > > There have been cases where someone would point out during an advanced seminar or such a minor to huge problem. I did a lot of that as a student and it helped me get set up with my advisor (and a Re$earch Assistantship). A few things led to papers, but nothing field changing in any one case. (My big stuff didn’t arise this way.) But mostly it lead to me getting an acknowledgement in the speaker’s paper later on. I had a moment like that once. We were rehearsing our presentations for an upcoming conference, and one of the other students mentioned that he was assuming for simplicity that a certain parameter was very small. I pointed out that that parameter couldn’t be small, as it would require an angular momentum smaller than hbar. The other student then went on to find a looser but still adequate bound for that parameter that allowed his work to proceed. Of course, this was only one small aspect of one piece of research on one very limited topic, and far from being something “everyone knew”, it showed up only in that one presentation that, at the time, only a half-dozen people in the world had ever seen. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2016, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everything-we-thought-we-knew-was-flawed-scenario/749421/15 "2016-03-18T20:58:05Z")
> [@Darth\_Hamsandwich](#): > > Has there ever been an instance of a student pointing out a error during a lecture that changed a fundamental concept of the discipline? (My question is a bit awkwardly put, sorry.) > > In other words, Professor Sneedle is giving his talk up at the board, then the student raises his hand and says, “Um, Professor? Wouldn’t that make X behave like Y?” The Professor studies the current slide up on the whiteboard and exclaims, “Great Scott! You’re right! This changes everything we know about the subject!” > [@Chronos](#): > > Even if it had ever happened, the response wouldn’t be “Great Scott, you’re right!”. It would be more like “Hm, that’s a good point, I’ll have to get back to you on that.”. The OP isn’t describing the way science works. You never say _“Wow, I’ve got this great idea and I know it’s right!”_ And no scientist is ever going to say _“Your idea is amazing! This changes science!”_ Science isn’t a set of beliefs and opinions. If a student ever said _“Um, Professor? Wouldn’t that make X behave like Y?”_ the best response he or she could hope for is _“Great Scott! That’s a possibility! We need to conduct experiments to see if it’s true!”_ ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2016, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everything-we-thought-we-knew-was-flawed-scenario/749421/16 "2016-03-19T00:02:40Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Even if it had ever happened, the response wouldn’t be “Great Scott, you’re right!”. It would be more like “Hm, that’s a good point, I’ll have to get back to you on that.”. More likely than that would be, “Interesting, how would you like to be my understudy?” ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2016, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everything-we-thought-we-knew-was-flawed-scenario/749421/17 "2016-03-19T01:07:56Z")
Well, there’s sort of something like that going right now, mostly in the social sciences. After some checking, it turns out that a great many studies and published findings can’t actually be reprocessed reliably, which makes their validity in the first place suspect. This is problematic because it includes studies which have been accepted as fact for many years. But it’s definitely not a single question or a lone student pointing out the problem. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2016, 8:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everything-we-thought-we-knew-was-flawed-scenario/749421/18 "2016-03-19T08:15:23Z")
After reading the OP, I’m thinking something like: What if, someday, a beginning algebra student were to discover two real numbers, _a_ and _b_ having the property that _a_ + _b_ ≠ _b_ + _a_ and calling this to the attention of the teacher. This would certainly be a moment where: > [@](#): > > The Professor studies the current slide up on the whiteboard and exclaims, “Great Scott! You’re right! This changes everything we know about the subject!” 😃 ---
**Author:** ![rogerbox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/76d3ee/32.png) [@rogerbox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rogerbox)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2016, 8:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everything-we-thought-we-knew-was-flawed-scenario/749421/19 "2016-03-19T08:51:04Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > Well, there’s sort of something like that going right now, mostly in the social sciences. After some checking, it turns out that a great many studies and published findings can’t actually be reprocessed reliably, which makes their validity in the first place suspect. This is problematic because it includes studies which have been accepted as fact for many years. But it’s definitely not a single question or a lone student pointing out the problem. Which studies? Sounds very interesting. ---
**Author:** ![DataX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@DataX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DataX)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2016, 9:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everything-we-thought-we-knew-was-flawed-scenario/749421/20 "2016-03-19T09:21:12Z")
> [@rogerbox](#): > > Which studies? Sounds very interesting. It’s more true than people realize: > **[Why Most Published Research Findings Are False](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1182327/)** > > There is increasing concern that most current published research findings are false. The probability that a research claim is true may depend on study power and bias, the number of other studies on the same question, and, importantly, the ratio of... That’s just one example. You should be able to easily prove this to yourself.’ How many headlines have you seen about a vitamin or supplement that was supposed to help with X? I’m guessing I’ve seen over 100. How many are currently accepted? Virtually none. Vitamin D, some stuff for pregnant women, and maybe a couple others. Remember all that hype on anti oxidants. Walter Willet - the second most published author of nutrition studies - admits that there is only ONE study that convincingly proves any benefit. And it took - I think 18 years for it to show up. But I believe the poster was probably referring to this: > **[That Amazeballs Scientific Study You Just Shared on Facebook Is Probably...](https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2015/08/study-finds-social-science-studies-findings-often-dont-hold-up.html)** > > If it feels like you can find a study to back up any harebrained idea these days, you actually might be right, a new study says. On Thursday we, as... Oh and don’t get me started on statistics - can’t remember the percentage, but well over 25% of studies that use ‘statistically significant’ - don’t calculate them correctly or give them meaning that isn’t accurate. I get to see the data that doctors and scientists use and it is atrocious in many cases - as is what they think is appropriate to do with it. Everything you read in published journals should be taken with a huge grain of salt - until you see someone else replicate it. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everything-we-thought-we-knew-was-flawed-scenario/749421.md?page=2)