3 ms·
I think you forgot one case : it’s psychologically extremely hard to abandon something you’ve been working on / believing in for a huge part of your life, and s
by bsaul 8y ago
I think you forgot one case : it’s psychologically extremely hard to abandon something you’ve been working on / believing in for a huge part of your life, and start over from scratch, no matter how smart you are ( i’d say the smartest you are, the hardest it is to believe you’re completely wrong) . So teachers could be tempted to hang on to the narrowest hope their work still has meaning and keep taking new phds and this could last for a very long time.
- xelxebar 8y agoWhich is probably why it's hard to convince String Theory haters to re-evaluate their opinions, i.e. non-testable explanations. One, the claim that string theory makes no testable predictions is just plain false. The predictions are just out of reach of current technology. Two, we should probably be more suspicious of explanations that rely on folk (interpretations of) psychological effects. How strong is the Sunken Cost fallacy? Is it sufficient to overcome the motivation to shift subfields? At what rate should we expect theorists transisioning out of String Theory, under the assumption that Woit is right? Three, String Theory has been very useful already. It's development has provided us with novel tools for mathematical tools for studying a plethora of applied quantum phenomena. Disclaimer: I'm not a String Theorist.
- FuckOffNeemo 8y agoThe sunk cost fallacy?