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It's surprising to see so many comments here entirely miss the point, or arguing against points Sabine never made. She's not arguing for stopping scientific re

It's surprising to see so many comments here entirely miss the point, or arguing against points Sabine never made. She's not arguing for stopping scientific research, but finding more optimal ways to do said research. She has continuously been pointing out that the particle physics community behaves like a cabal. There is little if any progress or evidence of future progress yet they keep increasing costs and forging ahead with their -surely by now flawed- interpretation of scientific research. Sabine Hossenfelder outlined a lot of unexplored scientific areas that are ripe for research and proposed a lot of alternatives. The main issue is clearly the sunk cost fallacy. At some point, scientists need to cut their losses short and re-align themselves with more promising avenues. The reproducibility crisis and string theory debacle proves that scientists are not immune to biases, short-termism and self-serving behavior.

henearkr 6y ago
I'm curious why you call the string theory a debacle. From what I followed, the debacle was rather with supersymmetry. And even though, the research in this domain stimulated the development of new mathematical tools. Finally, as with all failed research, it would have been pretty hard to rule it out without trying to search it before, so this negative result is as much positive result in favor of rival theories. (maybe super-asymmetry ;)
- istorical 6y ago
  Probably because for the amount of time and money its absorbed it seems to produce very little of value in terms of applications, it's hard to perform real experiments with, and string theory and high energy particle collision physics both absorb the vast majority of grant money - and by extension - make it harder to do work in physics that doesn't pay homage to those two large bodies or continue that work.
  - lurkmurk 6y ago
    Also generations of students stuck in this hole because the supervisors that have paid positions stick to string theory deadend -- a feedback loop.
jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago
The problem is she's misrepresenting the position of the particle physics community. Here's a short talk on what they expect to find with a larger collider: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vb4zv80qs3Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vb4zv80qs3Q

henearkr 6y ago

I'm curious why you call the string theory a debacle. From what I followed, the debacle was rather with supersymmetry. And even though, the research in this domain stimulated the development of new mathematical tools. Finally, as with all failed research, it would have been pretty hard to rule it out without trying to search it before, so this negative result is as much positive result in favor of rival theories. (maybe super-asymmetry ;)

istorical 6y ago
Probably because for the amount of time and money its absorbed it seems to produce very little of value in terms of applications, it's hard to perform real experiments with, and string theory and high energy particle collision physics both absorb the vast majority of grant money - and by extension - make it harder to do work in physics that doesn't pay homage to those two large bodies or continue that work.
- lurkmurk 6y ago
  Also generations of students stuck in this hole because the supervisors that have paid positions stick to string theory deadend -- a feedback loop.

jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago

The problem is she's misrepresenting the position of the particle physics community. Here's a short talk on what they expect to find with a larger collider: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vb4zv80qs3Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vb4zv80qs3Q