(3) Much less excited comment, pointing to skeptical remarks by well-known professional physicists (e.g., John Baez, Sean Carroll).
(4) Much to-and-fro. People who once saw a Discovery Channel special on physics now appear to believe that they're in a better position to evaluate the new claims than the people from (3).
Now, points (1) and (2) do sometimes happen, without points (3) and (4).
For instance, the neutrino faster-than-light claims attracted very cautious comment from professionals. In other words, point (3) was absent or rather muted. That's because the people who'd done the experiments were known for being extremely careful, and were, in fact, very cautious in their announcement.
That kind of thing is genuinely exciting, and worth discussion.
Another nice example of an exception is the Alcubierre drive. It satisfied (1) and (2) (or the 1996 equivalent), but (3) was absent, except that professionals noted that the drive required the stress-energy tensor to have some unusual properties, not satisfied by any known substance. Indeed, Alcubierre pointed this out himself.
Again, genuinely exciting, and worth discussion.
But when the professionals are loudly deriding a result, it'd be nice for the amateurs to make a serious attempt to understand why, and not just airily dismiss it.
(1) News article! Prevailing view of physics overturned! Etc! Etc! Etc!
(2) Many excited comments!
(3) Much less excited comment, pointing to skeptical remarks by well-known professional physicists (e.g., John Baez, Sean Carroll).
(4) Much to-and-fro. People who once saw a Discovery Channel special on physics now appear to believe that they're in a better position to evaluate the new claims than the people from (3).
Now, points (1) and (2) do sometimes happen, without points (3) and (4).
For instance, the neutrino faster-than-light claims attracted very cautious comment from professionals. In other words, point (3) was absent or rather muted. That's because the people who'd done the experiments were known for being extremely careful, and were, in fact, very cautious in their announcement.
That kind of thing is genuinely exciting, and worth discussion.
Another nice example of an exception is the Alcubierre drive. It satisfied (1) and (2) (or the 1996 equivalent), but (3) was absent, except that professionals noted that the drive required the stress-energy tensor to have some unusual properties, not satisfied by any known substance. Indeed, Alcubierre pointed this out himself.
Again, genuinely exciting, and worth discussion.
But when the professionals are loudly deriding a result, it'd be nice for the amateurs to make a serious attempt to understand why, and not just airily dismiss it.