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PhD student in theoretical physics here. I will confirm: Weinstein is a charlatan, and all of us know it. As far as I can tell, the only people who believe in h

by knzhou 7y ago

PhD student in theoretical physics here. I will confirm: Weinstein is a charlatan, and all of us know it. As far as I can tell, the only people who believe in him are non-physicists who consume exclusively pop science. In other words, he's acting as the literal definition of a dishonest public intellectual. It's just sad, and it really shows the yawning chasm between verbal fluency and real expertise.

crispyambulance 7y ago
> It's just sad, and it really shows the yawning chasm between verbal fluency and real expertise. I agree, if by "verbal fluency" you mean stringing together heavyweight jargon and concepts like Eddy Van Halen doing a guitar riff. Even in a colloquium filled with subject matter experts that kind of pace is off-putting and raises red-flags instantly-- but this guy does it when communicating with the general public, fully knowing that people are going to be lost in a matter of seconds. ... so yeah, that and NO FREAKING PAPERS. It's a bit disconcerting for a theory that purports to unify relativity with quantum mechanics.
- knzhou 7y ago
  Exactly, he was obviously intentionally trying to overwhelm people with jargon. That drives me crazy. Other physicists don't do this, because it serves no purpose aside from making the speaker look smart, and we have other priorities.
jamesrcole 7y ago
In general, or just in physics? If the former, what is the evidence for that?
- knzhou 7y ago
  I can only speak for sure about what he's said about physics. The fundamental problem with talking about highly technical things (like theories of everything) to a popular audience is that it's totally one-sided: he could spout nonsense and none of his listeners would have the slightest chance of noticing, as long as it sounded complicated enough. It's just like how you could talk somebody tech illiterate into installing malware. I don't know about his other opinions, but for nontechnical topics, the audience can check for themselves whether the conclusions make sense. So if you think they do, it's probably fine.
  - Igelau 7y ago
    > I can only speak for sure about what he's said about physics. Please do.
    - dodobirdlord 7y ago
      In case you don't get a response, this seems topical. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cocktail-party-physics/dear-guardian-youve-been-played/ https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cocktail-party-physics/... It seems that there has (a) been no paper, so his theories remain too vague to even properly criticize, but (b) as far as people can tell from the vagueness, his theory predicts the existence of particles that the LHC should have detected but has not.
      - genzoman 7y ago
        his theory predicts the existence of particles that the LHC should have detected but has not. So has another pop science disaster, string theory.
    - knzhou 7y ago
      The secret that is rarely revealed in pop science discussions is that theories of everything are cheap. To count as a theory of everything, you just need to come up with any mathematical structure big enough to cram the Standard Model plus a graviton in. And adding mathematical structure, especially when you're playing around, is easy, like snapping legos together. In this way, you can crank out ten theories of everything a week if you want to. So how do we decide what is worth actually taking seriously? First, you need to establish that your theory actually reproduces the Standard Model plus gravity at low energies, i.e. that it doesn't blatantly fail to match the something we already know. (Most ideas fail here.) Then, you need to show that your proposal is actually mathematically self-consistent. (Most remaining ideas fail here.) Then, you need to work on the finer details, i.e. making sure you don't accidentally predict large deviations from the Standard Model that contradict observation, and match what we know about quantum gravity already at the semiclassical level. (Everything except for string theory fails by this point.) And then finally, you need to be able to extract sharp predictions from your theory -- and this is quite hard, because a complicated theory tends to have a lot of knobs to twiddle, making the predictions ambiguous. (Nobody has gotten this far.) And even if you pass all of these checks, there's a high chance the predictions will be wrong anyway, because nature's not our slave. Weinstein's theory has not even gotten past step zero. He hasn't provided enough technical detail to calculate anything, there's just nothing there at all. Yet he made a huge media push to get recognized as "the next Einstein". It's like saying your startup is the next Google before writing a single line of code, and having the public believe you.
AzzieElbab 7y ago
Whenever you feel saying "all of us" your credibility goes down to zero.
- knzhou 7y ago
  I'm sorry if you don't like it, but it's true.
77pt77 7y ago
> It's just sad, and it really shows the yawning chasm between verbal fluency and real expertise. Humans pay more attention to tone than to content. More than we care to admit.
playing_colours 7y ago
I have mixed feelings about Weinstein, but I am not a physicist. He said on Joe Rogan podcast that he was a not professional physicist, and he sounded quite modest about the correcness of his theories, said that he was looking for constructive feedback. To me, that's a sign of a self-aware person. On the other hand, he kind of uses his Portal community and podcast - where there are interesting important discussions on many social issues - to promote his theory. This theory sounds smart for non-physicists, they cannot see flaws in it, and he preaches passionately about it - thus he can ignite enthusiasm in his community about the theory and grow the cult of the unrecognised genius, misunderstood and rejected by official science community. Dr.Weinstein, please, write a book, a paper, elaborate on some response before pushing your theory on masses. This can discredit your other important activities.

by knzhou 7y ago

crispyambulance 7y ago

> It's just sad, and it really shows the yawning chasm between verbal fluency and real expertise. I agree, if by "verbal fluency" you mean stringing together heavyweight jargon and concepts like Eddy Van Halen doing a guitar riff. Even in a colloquium filled with subject matter experts that kind of pace is off-putting and raises red-flags instantly-- but this guy does it when communicating with the general public, fully knowing that people are going to be lost in a matter of seconds. ... so yeah, that and NO FREAKING PAPERS. It's a bit disconcerting for a theory that purports to unify relativity with quantum mechanics.

knzhou 7y ago
Exactly, he was obviously intentionally trying to overwhelm people with jargon. That drives me crazy. Other physicists don't do this, because it serves no purpose aside from making the speaker look smart, and we have other priorities.

jamesrcole 7y ago

In general, or just in physics? If the former, what is the evidence for that?

knzhou 7y ago
I can only speak for sure about what he's said about physics. The fundamental problem with talking about highly technical things (like theories of everything) to a popular audience is that it's totally one-sided: he could spout nonsense and none of his listeners would have the slightest chance of noticing, as long as it sounded complicated enough. It's just like how you could talk somebody tech illiterate into installing malware. I don't know about his other opinions, but for nontechnical topics, the audience can check for themselves whether the conclusions make sense. So if you think they do, it's probably fine.
- Igelau 7y ago
  > I can only speak for sure about what he's said about physics. Please do.
  - dodobirdlord 7y ago
    In case you don't get a response, this seems topical. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cocktail-party-physics/dear-guardian-youve-been-played/ https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cocktail-party-physics/... It seems that there has (a) been no paper, so his theories remain too vague to even properly criticize, but (b) as far as people can tell from the vagueness, his theory predicts the existence of particles that the LHC should have detected but has not.
    - genzoman 7y ago
      his theory predicts the existence of particles that the LHC should have detected but has not. So has another pop science disaster, string theory.
  - knzhou 7y ago
    The secret that is rarely revealed in pop science discussions is that theories of everything are cheap. To count as a theory of everything, you just need to come up with any mathematical structure big enough to cram the Standard Model plus a graviton in. And adding mathematical structure, especially when you're playing around, is easy, like snapping legos together. In this way, you can crank out ten theories of everything a week if you want to. So how do we decide what is worth actually taking seriously? First, you need to establish that your theory actually reproduces the Standard Model plus gravity at low energies, i.e. that it doesn't blatantly fail to match the something we already know. (Most ideas fail here.) Then, you need to show that your proposal is actually mathematically self-consistent. (Most remaining ideas fail here.) Then, you need to work on the finer details, i.e. making sure you don't accidentally predict large deviations from the Standard Model that contradict observation, and match what we know about quantum gravity already at the semiclassical level. (Everything except for string theory fails by this point.) And then finally, you need to be able to extract sharp predictions from your theory -- and this is quite hard, because a complicated theory tends to have a lot of knobs to twiddle, making the predictions ambiguous. (Nobody has gotten this far.) And even if you pass all of these checks, there's a high chance the predictions will be wrong anyway, because nature's not our slave. Weinstein's theory has not even gotten past step zero. He hasn't provided enough technical detail to calculate anything, there's just nothing there at all. Yet he made a huge media push to get recognized as "the next Einstein". It's like saying your startup is the next Google before writing a single line of code, and having the public believe you.

AzzieElbab 7y ago

Whenever you feel saying "all of us" your credibility goes down to zero.

knzhou 7y ago
I'm sorry if you don't like it, but it's true.

77pt77 7y ago

> It's just sad, and it really shows the yawning chasm between verbal fluency and real expertise. Humans pay more attention to tone than to content. More than we care to admit.

playing_colours 7y ago

I have mixed feelings about Weinstein, but I am not a physicist. He said on Joe Rogan podcast that he was a not professional physicist, and he sounded quite modest about the correcness of his theories, said that he was looking for constructive feedback. To me, that's a sign of a self-aware person. On the other hand, he kind of uses his Portal community and podcast - where there are interesting important discussions on many social issues - to promote his theory. This theory sounds smart for non-physicists, they cannot see flaws in it, and he preaches passionately about it - thus he can ignite enthusiasm in his community about the theory and grow the cult of the unrecognised genius, misunderstood and rejected by official science community. Dr.Weinstein, please, write a book, a paper, elaborate on some response before pushing your theory on masses. This can discredit your other important activities.