Marianne de Laet enjoys a sociological analysis of how a select group of physicists works.
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de Laet, M. Sociology of science: Chasing the gravitational wave. Nature 501, 164–165 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/501164a
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/501164a
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Thomas Dent
As an LSC (LIGO Scientific Collaboration) member and someone involved in the recent blind injection exercise [the one that Harry Collins calls 'Big Dog'] I am surprised to see a claim that "stakes were higher" or "the future of the field hung in the balance" as a result of it.
The Advanced LIGO detectors that are currently being built and commissioned had already been planned and fully funded, and would have been built regardless of the outcome of the blind injection. No-one's career, employment, or funding was at stake – though some small private bets might have been made on the outcome, as is traditional in some branches of physics...
People were, naturally, excited about a possible (though IMO only remotely possible) groundbreaking discovery, but this would have been a bonus on top of the results obtained from successful operation of the LIGO detectors over the previous years.
If Collins gives the impression that the future of the GW observation effort really 'hung in the balance' then I am afraid he was not just over-dramatizing, he was misleading in order to tell a more exciting story. The Big Dog couldn't change the future direction of the field, but it could make us better prepared for whatever that future will bring.