3 ms·

Hossenfelder is not a crackpot: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=NaQZcyYAAAAJ https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=NaQZcyYAAAAJ

by ISL 7y ago

SiempreViernes 7y ago
No, but these LIGO pieces do get pretty thin. I've been following her writing for a long time, and it seems that writing a book about how "naturalness" hasn't been very good for particle physics got her somewhat radicalised, having far more scepticism than what seems warranted. When BICEP2 was announced in 2014 Hossenfelder wrote "some people say this is wrong, I'll just say what it might mean" and then never returned to the topic with a full post as far my searches can tell. Now some danes wrote a paper with a pretty large technical flaw and LIGO representatives where a bit rude to a theorist asking about said paper and apparently this is a controversy good enough for at least 3 posts about how shaky the detections are...
stefco_ 7y ago
She may not be a crackpot within her field of expertise, but she is writing confidently without doing background research. I stand by my characterization of this piece as being of crackpot quality, and while I trust that she is perfectly capable in her own field, I think her willingness to write such a slapdash post—a post that will be read and trusted by very many given her large platform—indicates a pretty cavalier approach to physics writing in general. As someone with a reasonably large platform, I think she has a responsibility to do more research before writing a piece like this; I can immediately tell that she didn’t talk to any one of the hundreds of people who could have addressed many of her points. Instead, she cites hearsay that has been addressed in detail. I don’t consider that to be good faith writing; it’s lazy and she doesn’t deserve praise for it, regardless of the quality of her other work.
- Keysh 7y ago
  As an indicator of the slapdash quality: she calls into question the neutron-star merger by saying, "Furthermore, the interpretation of this signal as a neutron-star merger has also been criticized." But if you follow the link in that statement, it leads to a previous post of hers (from November 16, 2018), which concludes: "Basically, I feel reassured in my conclusion that you can safely ignore the Italian paper [which questions the NS-merger]." It's more than a little odd to imply that there has been potentially meaningful criticism of GW170817 by referring to a post in which she herself concluded that there hasn't.
- perl4ever 7y ago
  I think a lot of people that you could dismiss with terms like "crackpot" are more accurately described as "gradually slipping into writing clickbait for economic reasons".

Hossenfelder is not a crackpot: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=NaQZcyYAAAAJ https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=NaQZcyYAAAAJ

by ISL 7y ago

Hossenfelder is not a crackpot: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=NaQZcyYAAAAJ https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=NaQZcyYAAAAJ

SiempreViernes 7y ago

No, but these LIGO pieces do get pretty thin. I've been following her writing for a long time, and it seems that writing a book about how "naturalness" hasn't been very good for particle physics got her somewhat radicalised, having far more scepticism than what seems warranted. When BICEP2 was announced in 2014 Hossenfelder wrote "some people say this is wrong, I'll just say what it might mean" and then never returned to the topic with a full post as far my searches can tell. Now some danes wrote a paper with a pretty large technical flaw and LIGO representatives where a bit rude to a theorist asking about said paper and apparently this is a controversy good enough for at least 3 posts about how shaky the detections are...

stefco_ 7y ago

She may not be a crackpot within her field of expertise, but she is writing confidently without doing background research. I stand by my characterization of this piece as being of crackpot quality, and while I trust that she is perfectly capable in her own field, I think her willingness to write such a slapdash post—a post that will be read and trusted by very many given her large platform—indicates a pretty cavalier approach to physics writing in general. As someone with a reasonably large platform, I think she has a responsibility to do more research before writing a piece like this; I can immediately tell that she didn’t talk to any one of the hundreds of people who could have addressed many of her points. Instead, she cites hearsay that has been addressed in detail. I don’t consider that to be good faith writing; it’s lazy and she doesn’t deserve praise for it, regardless of the quality of her other work.

Keysh 7y ago
As an indicator of the slapdash quality: she calls into question the neutron-star merger by saying, "Furthermore, the interpretation of this signal as a neutron-star merger has also been criticized." But if you follow the link in that statement, it leads to a previous post of hers (from November 16, 2018), which concludes: "Basically, I feel reassured in my conclusion that you can safely ignore the Italian paper [which questions the NS-merger]." It's more than a little odd to imply that there has been potentially meaningful criticism of GW170817 by referring to a post in which she herself concluded that there hasn't.
perl4ever 7y ago
I think a lot of people that you could dismiss with terms like "crackpot" are more accurately described as "gradually slipping into writing clickbait for economic reasons".