5 ms·

Be careful with her videos. While she does have some good content, Sabine has an agenda to push with respect to big science and I've seen at least a few of her

by djaque 7y ago

Be careful with her videos. While she does have some good content, Sabine has an agenda to push with respect to big science and I've seen at least a few of her articles on projects I'm familiar with that are well within conspiracy theory territory. See, for example, her blog post and video on LIGO where she makes it seem like the researchers committed fraud and fabricated the whole detection of gravitational waves. My explanation of why this is dishonest here: [1] Unfortunately, this is really harmful because she's coming from a place of authority and spreading the lie that big science is bending the truth when it comes to their discoveries. You can see this reflected in her audience and her video comments are full of climate deniers and others that want this to be true thanking her for exposing, in their words, the so called "quack-a-demics". [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21448974 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21448974

wallace_f 7y ago
What agenda in particular are you accusing her of, here? Are you suggesting it is particular to LIGO, or is it a more general, political agenda? Also, what is wrong with people who question the politics and alarmism around climate change? Isn't the ability to question something fundamental to scientific reasoning? I don't think your dismisal of people as "deniers" is very reassuring of scientifc reasoning in that context, and this is because I don't see people there who are denying scientific facts, but rather questioning commonly held assumptions.
- baddox 7y ago
  I think when people express concern over climate change denial, the concern usually isn't over the fact that climate change denial is physically and legally possible. The concern is usually more about the consequences of denial and the fact that denial seems to have a disproportionate influence over political outcomes.
  - wallace_f 7y ago
    Part of what I was trying to articulate in my comment is that I don't even know what you are accusing these people of denying. So I guess the first part to trying to communicate my comment's meaning is to understand that as far as I can tell, it just comes across as a smear.
    - hcknwscommenter 7y ago
      It is a smear because climate change denialism simply ignores that the best available science points to humans as the cause of global warming, that global warming is a huge threat, and that we need to start doing more now. Moreover, the best available science has been heavily attacked by all manner of extremely well-funded skeptics and held up. This funding to comes from 100B+ multinational corporations as well as state actors. Yes, the climate models could be wrong, but denialism in the face of the facts on the ground has reached the level that it is more likely that tiny underground monkeys on mars are beaming thoughts into our heads than that the deniers are right. Thus, those who continue to pose as "I'm just asking questions man" are either disingenous or gullible. Yes it's a smear, and deservedly so.
      - wallace_f 7y ago
        I don't even know what a Climate Change Denier is. As far as I can tell it's basically anyone who questions anything about the politics, economics, science of this issue. I don't see how it's basically anything more than smear label on any non-believer, or heretic, including Nobel Prizer Winners to Pulitzer Prize Winners.
        retsibsi 7y ago
        Can you give some examples of people being (widely) labeled climate change deniers for 'questioning anything about the politics or economics' of climate change? In its standard use the phrase refers to people holding or spreading doubt about consensus or near-consensus conclusions of climate science. It's arguably a necessary 'smear' because we've seen the same pattern play out as happened in the case of tobacco: there's a lot of money at stake, and people and organisations with a lot to lose and a lot to spend are not above spreading FUD, laundered through any scientists or 'public intellectuals' who either already hold a conveniently contrary view or are willing to be convinced by $. We'd be naive and foolish to let this happen without pointing out the pattern and calling into question the reputations of the contrarians.
conistonwater 7y ago
> her video comments are full of climate deniers Not commenting on the rest because I don't know much about it, but saying that the quality of youtube comments under a video says something about the quality of the video is, I think, quite unreasonable.
- djaque 7y ago
  It wasn't one or two comments that caught my eye, it was the overwhelming anti-science sentiment of the audience in those videos. Judge ideas for the ideas themselves, but this is a clear red flag and points to the type of community she is building.
  - conistonwater 7y ago
    No, that's just what youtube comments are like, you get so much garbage on pretty much anything. It's not like the author vets the comments, or even reads them. Like I said, I don't think it supports your argument.
AareyBaba 7y ago
'she makes it seem like the researchers committed fraud and fabricated the whole detection' She ended the video saying the opposite [0]. She said she personally does not doubt that the signals are caused by gravitational waves but points out that "in science evidence counts'. They, according to her, haven't conclusively eliminated other terrestrial sources that could cause the signals. [0] https://youtu.be/WWTvNlfkvoI?t=595 https://youtu.be/WWTvNlfkvoI?t=595
- djaque 7y ago
  When somebody pretends to be neutral and unbiased and then goes on to give a one sided narrative containing information that they know is false and leaves out the many valid counterpoints to those claims and brands the people who would defend them as morally compromised, then it's pretty obvious what's going on.
  - retsibsi 7y ago
    > a one sided narrative containing information that they know is false What specifically are you accusing Hossenfelder of lying about? I read your linked comment[0] and the Hossenfelder transcript[1], and your characterisation of a lot of the things she said doesn't match my reading of them. But even taking your reading as correct, I don't see where you've identified cases of Hossenfelder giving "information that [she knows] is false". [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21448974 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21448974 [1] https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2019/11/have-we-really-measured-gravitational.html https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2019/11/have-we-really-mea...
knzhou 7y ago
It's worse than that. She made a reasonable blog post highlighting somebody's doubts of the LIGO response, got a reasonable response from LIGO, and acknowledged that she was satisfied with it. That was a perfectly fine scientific dialogue. Then months later, she made a much more conspiratorially-toned blog post raising no new issues, but which linked only to her original post as proof that "doubts have been raised", not acknowledging the LIGO response, and generally painted scientists as liars. That is just incredibly disingenuous, and I see no motivation behind it besides wanting to fire up a popular audience.
- djaque 7y ago
  Yes! To be clear it is the second blog post/video that I am criticizing.

by djaque 7y ago

wallace_f 7y ago

What agenda in particular are you accusing her of, here? Are you suggesting it is particular to LIGO, or is it a more general, political agenda? Also, what is wrong with people who question the politics and alarmism around climate change? Isn't the ability to question something fundamental to scientific reasoning? I don't think your dismisal of people as "deniers" is very reassuring of scientifc reasoning in that context, and this is because I don't see people there who are denying scientific facts, but rather questioning commonly held assumptions.

baddox 7y ago
I think when people express concern over climate change denial, the concern usually isn't over the fact that climate change denial is physically and legally possible. The concern is usually more about the consequences of denial and the fact that denial seems to have a disproportionate influence over political outcomes.
- wallace_f 7y ago
  Part of what I was trying to articulate in my comment is that I don't even know what you are accusing these people of denying. So I guess the first part to trying to communicate my comment's meaning is to understand that as far as I can tell, it just comes across as a smear.
  - hcknwscommenter 7y ago
    It is a smear because climate change denialism simply ignores that the best available science points to humans as the cause of global warming, that global warming is a huge threat, and that we need to start doing more now. Moreover, the best available science has been heavily attacked by all manner of extremely well-funded skeptics and held up. This funding to comes from 100B+ multinational corporations as well as state actors. Yes, the climate models could be wrong, but denialism in the face of the facts on the ground has reached the level that it is more likely that tiny underground monkeys on mars are beaming thoughts into our heads than that the deniers are right. Thus, those who continue to pose as "I'm just asking questions man" are either disingenous or gullible. Yes it's a smear, and deservedly so.
    - wallace_f 7y ago
      I don't even know what a Climate Change Denier is. As far as I can tell it's basically anyone who questions anything about the politics, economics, science of this issue. I don't see how it's basically anything more than smear label on any non-believer, or heretic, including Nobel Prizer Winners to Pulitzer Prize Winners.
      - retsibsi 7y ago
        Can you give some examples of people being (widely) labeled climate change deniers for 'questioning anything about the politics or economics' of climate change? In its standard use the phrase refers to people holding or spreading doubt about consensus or near-consensus conclusions of climate science. It's arguably a necessary 'smear' because we've seen the same pattern play out as happened in the case of tobacco: there's a lot of money at stake, and people and organisations with a lot to lose and a lot to spend are not above spreading FUD, laundered through any scientists or 'public intellectuals' who either already hold a conveniently contrary view or are willing to be convinced by $. We'd be naive and foolish to let this happen without pointing out the pattern and calling into question the reputations of the contrarians.

conistonwater 7y ago

> her video comments are full of climate deniers Not commenting on the rest because I don't know much about it, but saying that the quality of youtube comments under a video says something about the quality of the video is, I think, quite unreasonable.

djaque 7y ago
It wasn't one or two comments that caught my eye, it was the overwhelming anti-science sentiment of the audience in those videos. Judge ideas for the ideas themselves, but this is a clear red flag and points to the type of community she is building.
- conistonwater 7y ago
  No, that's just what youtube comments are like, you get so much garbage on pretty much anything. It's not like the author vets the comments, or even reads them. Like I said, I don't think it supports your argument.

AareyBaba 7y ago

'she makes it seem like the researchers committed fraud and fabricated the whole detection' She ended the video saying the opposite [0]. She said she personally does not doubt that the signals are caused by gravitational waves but points out that "in science evidence counts'. They, according to her, haven't conclusively eliminated other terrestrial sources that could cause the signals. [0] https://youtu.be/WWTvNlfkvoI?t=595 https://youtu.be/WWTvNlfkvoI?t=595

djaque 7y ago
When somebody pretends to be neutral and unbiased and then goes on to give a one sided narrative containing information that they know is false and leaves out the many valid counterpoints to those claims and brands the people who would defend them as morally compromised, then it's pretty obvious what's going on.
- retsibsi 7y ago
  > a one sided narrative containing information that they know is false What specifically are you accusing Hossenfelder of lying about? I read your linked comment[0] and the Hossenfelder transcript[1], and your characterisation of a lot of the things she said doesn't match my reading of them. But even taking your reading as correct, I don't see where you've identified cases of Hossenfelder giving "information that [she knows] is false". [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21448974 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21448974 [1] https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2019/11/have-we-really-measured-gravitational.html https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2019/11/have-we-really-mea...

knzhou 7y ago

It's worse than that. She made a reasonable blog post highlighting somebody's doubts of the LIGO response, got a reasonable response from LIGO, and acknowledged that she was satisfied with it. That was a perfectly fine scientific dialogue. Then months later, she made a much more conspiratorially-toned blog post raising no new issues, but which linked only to her original post as proof that "doubts have been raised", not acknowledging the LIGO response, and generally painted scientists as liars. That is just incredibly disingenuous, and I see no motivation behind it besides wanting to fire up a popular audience.

djaque 7y ago
Yes! To be clear it is the second blog post/video that I am criticizing.