The 'Missing-Scientist' Story Is Unbelievably Dumb (theatlantic.com)
- Reference: 0181867898
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/04/22/1934234/the-missing-scientist-story-is-unbelievably-dumb
- Source link: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/2026/04/missing-scientists/686885/
> The Atlantic has a long article on the story of missing scientists [2]recently featured here on Slashdot. In short, it is an [3]incoherent conspiracy theory that spreads wide and far, not paying any attention to boundaries of time, space, or area of expertise. "Which is all to say that another piece of flagrant nonsense has ascended to the highest levels of U.S. politics and media," writes the Atlantic's Daniel Engber. "To call it a conspiracy theory would be far too kind, because [4]no comprehensive theory has been floated to explain the pattern of events . But then, even the phrase pattern of events is imprecise, because there is no pattern here at all. Given all the people who could have been roped into this narrative but weren't, any hope of finding meaning falls away. Barring any dramatic new disclosures, the mystery of the missing scientists has the dubious honor of being a sham in every way at once."
[1] https://slashdot.org/~mmarlett
[2] https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/04/22/0348204/fbi-looks-into-dead-or-missing-scientists-tied-to-sensitive-us-research
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_scientists
[4] https://www.theatlantic.com/science/2026/04/missing-scientists/686885/
Conspiracy, eh? (Score:4, Funny)
> To call it a conspiracy theory would be far too kind, because no comprehensive theory has been floated to explain the pattern of events.
[fluffs hair on either side of head, raises hands as though trying to grasp the ephemeral just ahead]
I don't want to say it's aliens, but...it's aliens.
Re: Conspiracy, eh? (Score:1)
Deport ur ass back to uranus?
How many dentists... (Score:2)
or nurses, or CPAs, or garbage men have gone missing or killed? I'm wondering if these "missing scientists" are in proportion to any other missing persons.
"Dumb" is the new "smart" (Score:2)
This probably does not even pan out on the statistical side. And statistics comes with anomalies on top of that.
The reason why this gets to the top (Score:2)
is because everyone on the planet is too busy scrolling on their phones with zero attention span to spend the 2-4mins (gasp!) that it would take to look into it.
Meaningless (Score:1)
This set of anomalies is meaningless because no causal link has been proved.
In fact it never makes sense to look into anomalies unless you know what the outcome will be.
Detectives are stupid. Science is stupid.
Trust the Experts and whatever you do don't do your own research. If something is important the government or Fox News will let you know.
Turn on Netflix and zone out if you have spare time.
You ain't one of them "readers", is ya?
pareidolia at its finest. (Score:5, Interesting)
This is something like The Face on Mars, where author Richard C. Hoagland went down a rabbit hole and connected the dots on a whole bunch of other landscape features nearby to back up his theory that the face was actually a face. Then a later mars satellite went by and photographed it from different angles in different lighting, and lo and behold it was just light and shadow. Along with the rest of the rocks that made up his 'alien civilization'. You see what you want to see, and find patterns where there aren't any.
In the case of the JPL scientist shot to death, that one is local to us. It involved a crazy guy who was known to be causing problems around the Crystalaire community of Llano in the previous week, and when he trespassed on the scientist's property, the cops were called, crazy guy was arrested, and then he bailed out and came back a few days later and shot Carl Grillmair, the scientist, blaming him for his arrest. It's the high desert of Los Angeles County and there's a lot of methheads and tweakers commiting breaking and entering on rural properties in order to find things to steal and fence for their next hit. A property we're involved with nearby has been broken into three times. Everyone here knows this one was totally random, and very unfortunate. Carl had the property for the unobstructed views of the night sky, and it's fairly convenient to LA, being just on the other side of the San Gabriels from JPL. It's very unfortunate, but there is no bigger story therein. Can't speak for the other cases.
Pattern Matching (Score:2)
Humans are good at picking out patterns. But sometimes, that pattern is something like Jesus on toast. With some silliness or government intrigue to spice it up, have the trappings for an attention grabbing story over something that is probably straight pants.
Re: (Score:2)
"Humans are good at picking out patterns."
...
Demonstrates way that humans are not good at picking out patterns.
Always cracks me up. False positives are still failures.
Human history doesn't give me a reason to think we're particularly reliable pattern recognition networks at all.
I do agree that in our heads, we have some tight neural circuits that are quite good at pattern recognition, though. They're just not attached to our conscious thoughts.
Re: (Score:3)
> Demonstrates way that humans are not good at picking out patterns.
> Always cracks me up. False positives are still failures.
Not exactly. It does only mean that people are not 100% perfect and recognizing patterns. But they are amazingly good at it, and the number of false positives is quite small. It's just confirmation bias on your side that you only notice the pattern recognizing mechanisms when they fail. But every letter you recognized in the previous post, every word you understood was a successful pattern recognition. Look at the size of data centers you need to build computers even close to the abilities the average perso
Main takeaway from the article (Score:4, Funny)
TheAtlantic is in on the conspiracy.
The real mystery (Score:2)
Why don't rich people carry guns when they go hiking. Like...you have the money. Hell, get a satellite capable phone while you're at it.
Re: (Score:2)
A very small number of recreational hikers carry pistols. Usually solo-through-hikers, solo hikers in heavy mountain lion territory, or people who are psychos. 99.9% hikers who are not hunting, a pistol does not enhance the fun, and is like carrying a heavy claw hammer for no reason on your one or two day trip.
I do carry a lightweight Iridium satphone for text, email & SOS. They are common among hikers, often I will meet strangers and 3 or 4 of us will have them. Some of those hikers might even be rich
Re: (Score:2)
Because they're smart to know it makes them about 2.5x more likely to be killed if something happens involving someone else with a gun.
Sat phone, though- not a bad idea.
Re: (Score:2)
Sounds like you made up some statistics.
Alien abductions (Score:2)
When they return from their space voyage, check their rectum for tattoos with messages from the aliens.
relax the FBI is on the case (Score:2)
They, or I should say, the moron running the agency has decided to look into the matter. There's no chance of that soda jerk reading the Atlantic article since he took exception to their report on his drinking habits.
Conspiracy Theory (Score:2)
Conspiracy theories are, until they are not.
Secret Pedo island owned by rich dude with elitist ties was once a "conspiracy theory". Now we know that Epstein killed himself 100% because "They" said so.
"I'm just asking questions" idiots notwithstanding. I'm looking at you Candice.
Re: (Score:2)
conspiracy theories are theories with no evidence whatsoever to them being true except in the mind of the individual/s. Epstein was based on leaked facts of people their. this is based on someone saying this tiny group of people out of literally hundreds of thousands is somehow a conspiracy because....
So what is this a pretext for? (Score:2)
While "the government is very stupid" shouldn't be ruled out, given pattern and practice of government in general, and this government in particular, "Missing nuclear scientists! National Security!" seems like it could serve as legal cover for a wide range of possible abuses.
Re: (Score:2)
Diversionism, maybe?
I agree (Score:2)
Seems totally unrelated to me. When will these conspiracy nutcases learn? There are no ufos and this is all just coincidence.
Right?
Re:I agree (Score:5, Funny)
You know, there are no known scientists who worked on the Manhattan project who are still alive.
Coincidence? I think not.
Re: (Score:1)
I'd be more interested about finding out why a perfectly healthy youtuber suddenly died alone in his gated community studio in 2023 just after making his last video but nobody seems to have paid any attention to this case, not even here on Slashdot where he was also a very prominent poster:
[1]https://www.youtube.com/cdreim... [youtube.com]
[1] https://www.youtube.com/cdreimer
Re: (Score:1)
My sources tell me that he repetitively leaked national security secrets from the secretive 3 letter agency where he was working so I'd start there. He even posted on Slashdot details about access to the building where he worked such as remote garage door openers security holes and nessus scans.
Re: (Score:2)
> You know, there are no known scientists who worked on the Manhattan project who are still alive.
> Coincidence? I think not.
Well, duh. They were all habitual breathers. It's a fact: breathing cause death -- 100% of all dead people were habitual breathers. :-)