Tantalus and the aliens: Publications, audiences and the search for gravitational waves

Different audiences at different distances from the core-set read scientifi c papers in different ways. If the institutional circumstances are right, a n 'inner audience' may try to control an outer audience's reading. In physics, the literature is sufficiently open to allow some papers that h ave no credibility with the mainstream to be published. This normally cause s no problem within 'core-groups' of scientists, because the orthodox inter pretation is widely understood. There can still be trouble, however, from t hose who have not been socialized into the core-group's interpretative fram ework. Strangers to the field may give credence to papers which the core-gr oup considers to be interpretatively dead. The 'strangers' to which I refer are not scientific antagonists but scientists in different specialisms to those in the core-group, as well as policymakers and funders. A problem ari ses for the core-group when non-core-groupers are drawn into important deci sions - as when a Big Science is fighting for funds. The case of heterodox publications in gravitational radiation is examined. It is shown that papers published between 1985 and 1995, of which the core- group could normally be expected to think, 'Ho hum - more of this', were st rongly attacked. The institutional background of these attacks is explained .