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I can't say I know enough to say she's "challenging my world view" since i don't necessarily know enough about the subject to have a world view. But I still ha

I can't say I know enough to say she's "challenging my world view" since i don't necessarily know enough about the subject to have a world view. But I still have a negative reaction to the way she (and others in other fields) does it. Because whether it's true or not, it doesn't tend to get results in changing how things are done.

bawolff 4y ago
> Because whether it's true or not, it doesn't tend to get results in changing how things are done. But at the same time, several comments on this post are talking about how they think her diatribes will have an undue influence on funding decisions, so i doubt that accounts for all the negativity.
- davrosthedalek 4y ago
  I do think that her "the mainstream scientists are doing it wrong/lying/wasting money" shtick advances mistrust in science in general. That worries me.
  - bawolff 4y ago
    I would argue its important to meet such arguments head on. The reason people trust science is because it listens to skeptics and critics and refutes their arguments. Of course some people are cranks that cannot be reasoned with, but this person clearly does not fall into the category. Sweeping disenting voices under the rug is how people lose faith in institutions in the long term.
    - davrosthedalek 4y ago
      Yes, and the right arena for that are carefully formulated papers with formulas, instead of youtube videos and blog posts with large claims and no substance. Have a look at arxiv, and you will find that the community engages with her arguments there, at least for the stuff she actually wrote a paper about. (In recent times, I'm not so sure about her not being in that category, btw.)
      - bawolff 4y ago
        She's making a philosophical argument, not a scientific one. Is arxiv really the right arena for that? What formulas would even be relavent? At least from what i read - she's basically saying that there is such a derth of new data and plausible ways to get it in the near/medium term, that theoretical particle physicists have basically been creating abstract theories which while may or may not be true, are increasingly detached from the emperical world. To the point where they are no longer predictive theories and there are so many free parameters that you can post-hoc fit it to any data you might collect. Hence the real world applicability is akin to speculating how many angels could fit on a pin head. Now this may or may not be true. I don't have the background to know. But this is not a science argument, it is a philosophical argument. Fundamentally its asking are theoretical particle physicists engaging in science or are they engaging in some combination of math and metaphysics. Is arxiv really the place to have such philosophical debates?
        davrosthedalek 4y ago
        You are right, maybe, for this argument, but that's not the only thing she talks about. Other topics clearly should go in a paper.
- nborwankar 4y ago
  So if her comments are having an effect on funding decisions she IS changing how things are done.

bawolff 4y ago

> Because whether it's true or not, it doesn't tend to get results in changing how things are done. But at the same time, several comments on this post are talking about how they think her diatribes will have an undue influence on funding decisions, so i doubt that accounts for all the negativity.

davrosthedalek 4y ago
I do think that her "the mainstream scientists are doing it wrong/lying/wasting money" shtick advances mistrust in science in general. That worries me.
- bawolff 4y ago
  I would argue its important to meet such arguments head on. The reason people trust science is because it listens to skeptics and critics and refutes their arguments. Of course some people are cranks that cannot be reasoned with, but this person clearly does not fall into the category. Sweeping disenting voices under the rug is how people lose faith in institutions in the long term.
  - davrosthedalek 4y ago
    Yes, and the right arena for that are carefully formulated papers with formulas, instead of youtube videos and blog posts with large claims and no substance. Have a look at arxiv, and you will find that the community engages with her arguments there, at least for the stuff she actually wrote a paper about. (In recent times, I'm not so sure about her not being in that category, btw.)
    - bawolff 4y ago
      She's making a philosophical argument, not a scientific one. Is arxiv really the right arena for that? What formulas would even be relavent? At least from what i read - she's basically saying that there is such a derth of new data and plausible ways to get it in the near/medium term, that theoretical particle physicists have basically been creating abstract theories which while may or may not be true, are increasingly detached from the emperical world. To the point where they are no longer predictive theories and there are so many free parameters that you can post-hoc fit it to any data you might collect. Hence the real world applicability is akin to speculating how many angels could fit on a pin head. Now this may or may not be true. I don't have the background to know. But this is not a science argument, it is a philosophical argument. Fundamentally its asking are theoretical particle physicists engaging in science or are they engaging in some combination of math and metaphysics. Is arxiv really the place to have such philosophical debates?
      - davrosthedalek 4y ago
        You are right, maybe, for this argument, but that's not the only thing she talks about. Other topics clearly should go in a paper.
nborwankar 4y ago
So if her comments are having an effect on funding decisions she IS changing how things are done.