see http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v442/n7098/full/442008a.html

I thought Harry's answer was the expert's. But I know nothing about gravity waves, which makes me wonder - are the two answers correct? do they say the same thing? And does Harry's answer look more like the expert's, not because of content, but because he uses more formal language (e.g. 'detectable', 'bisects', 'planes' and 'angles' (mathematical language), 'signal' is also a generic scientific term, as is 'source'). Answer A seems much more casual to me, 'measure' and 'length', 'yes', 'in fact' - sounds like a physicist trying to explain the research to a layman, which he might in a situation like this...

I was a bit silly with this post - I gave away 'the answer' to anyone who didn't follow the link before reading all of my post...ooops.

Or maybe no-one was interested?!

I think it is interesting given that scientists have claimed to publish 'meaningless' articles in the arts - shows that it works both ways

Yeah, can you access it SixKitten? I don't think I should just copy the whole thing here...When I get a minute I'll paraphrase some of it, but I have some work to do now (yes, work!)

The situation was kind of the opposite to the famous case where a physicist (Alan Sokal) published a nonsense article in the journal Social Text. This time, a sociologist called Harry Collins (from Cardiff) answered questions on gravity-wave physics and when his answers were compared to an expert's, a panel of 9 other experts couldn't distinguish between the two (7 were undecided, 2 got it the wrong way round). Collins has been studying (they seem to say studying physicists, not physics) and talking to gravity-wave physicists for over 30 years, and has gained what he calls 'interactional (rather than contributory) expertise' in the field.
SOKAL was impressed, but says that if sociologists want to go deeper and understand how science is influenced by social factors, then they really need to understand the science as well as the experts (i.e. Collins' knowledge isn't enough).
Here's a link you'll be able to follow:
http://www.cf.ac.uk/socsi/expertise

It kind of proves that you can pass off anything as science if you present it in the right way!

Yes, but that's the essence of scientific discovery. Do research, publish, others do follow up study, either add to existing theory or prove it wrong. Either way, scientific knowledge has been advanced.

To use a very simple example, I publish an article that all rabbits are white (because I've only ever seen white rabbits). Someone else comes along and says they seen brown rabbits. Scientific knowledge is advanced as now we know there are white and brown rabbits, and so on....

IF only it were that easy with all journals - could do with a few publications about now!

hillyg, I'm seriously tempted to contact them and see if they could do one for my field!