Unfortunately it wasn't just the public: it caused so much uproar within the experiment that two of the highest ranking members resigned their posts [1]. I was

Unfortunately it wasn't just the public: it caused so much uproar within the experiment that two of the highest ranking members resigned their posts [1]. I was a bit dismayed at the reaction within the physics community. Experiments absolutely do need to follow procedures like blinding and careful internal review (especially before the data unblinding), but you can only spend so long designing the analysis before you unblind, and there are opportunity costs to cross checking everything. In an optimized community experiments will inevitably make mistakes. And once you unblind, it does no one any good to sit on an anomalous result forever. [1]: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2012.10371 https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2012.10371