LIGO backstory delights and displeases

I was unpleasantly surprised by the tone of Robert Garisto’s Commentary in the August 2016 issue. There are two principal reasons for my displeasure.

First, cheerleading of any form in scientific reporting is entirely inappropriate. It brings several issues into question. Were the referees preferentially chosen so as to guarantee a positive outcome? Was the discovery truly momentous? With regard to the second question, I doubt that many relativists would have thought that gravitational waves didn’t exist. Entirely different is the truly momentous experimental observation of the Higgs particle, for example. The self-aggrandizing posture of the editor of Physical Review Letters would make us think that even he was a fully involved partner in the discovery.

Second, it’s fine to use nicknames in private or in a group. But referring to Gabriela González as “Gaby” is, in a sense, demeaning to her, and it is inappropriate in a larger context. The practice is reminiscent of the overly enthusiastic reporting of the early space missions as if they were great athletic events, of early spaceflights, and of often unfortunate political postures—for example, referring to former secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld as “Rummy.”

I look for more dignity and less personality in scientific reporting.