"We selected the background after carefully investigating the temperature dependence of the non-superconducting CSH sample at 108 GPa, the closest pressure prior to the superconducting transition. We note here that we did not use the measured voltage values of 108 GPa as the background. We use the temperature dependence of the measured voltage above and below the Tc of each pressure measurement and scale to determine a user defined background (Fig. 2a). The scaling is such that one achieves an approximately zero signal above the transition temperature; the subtracted background isolates the signal due to the sample."
I challenge you to actually repeat what they did using that description. It is not a complete description.
And no, they did not "show how they went from the raw data to the published". Just because they said they did, doesn't mean they did.
The raw data is in question because it's impossible to understand how subtracting two noisy data sets would produce data that is a combination of a spline and digitized data.
In fact the Science article points to a more senior member of the team as also being a co-author on a recently retracted article that was retracted for reasons related to the same kind of data.
Moreover, check out the quote from Eremets at the end of the Science article regarding principal investigator Dias' more recent, even more groundbreaking claims: "How is this possible? Everything he touches turns to gold."
They were not at all forthcoming. In the original paper they stated:
" The background signal, determined from a
non-superconducting C–S–H sample at 108 GPa, has been subtracted from the
data."
Then after questions were raised, they published https://arxiv.org/abs/2201.11883v1, where they say:
"We note here that we did not use the measured voltage values of 108
GPa as the background."
If the second statement is true then, at best, the first statement is highly misleading. Furthermore, they have not been at all forthcoming about how exactly that background subtraction was performed - despite repeated requests for clarification. I challenge anyone to understand the background subtraction methodology that they describe in the second paragraph of page 2 in the article linked above.
In my mind, what is at question here is not only the validity of the background subtraction, but the validity of the raw data itself. If the raw data is valid, then why are they unable to show how to go from raw data to published data?
"We selected the background after carefully investigating the temperature dependence of the non-superconducting CSH sample at 108 GPa, the closest pressure prior to the superconducting transition. We note here that we did not use the measured voltage values of 108 GPa as the background. We use the temperature dependence of the measured voltage above and below the Tc of each pressure measurement and scale to determine a user defined background (Fig. 2a). The scaling is such that one achieves an approximately zero signal above the transition temperature; the subtracted background isolates the signal due to the sample."
I challenge you to actually repeat what they did using that description. It is not a complete description.
And no, they did not "show how they went from the raw data to the published". Just because they said they did, doesn't mean they did.
The raw data is in question because it's impossible to understand how subtracting two noisy data sets would produce data that is a combination of a spline and digitized data.