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"Who watches the watchmen?" We need more Sabine Hossenfelders. Too bad natural hierarchies seek to excommunicate such people.

colechristensen 4y ago
She’s a bit of a charlatan who leans too heavily on criticism of mainstream or even criticism and exaggeration of the Selena of developing theories. There is an attraction to having “real” knowledge that everybody else is full of manure, i know some people whose small children have found conspiracy youtube and are struggling at dinner conversation over every “well actually”.
- matthewmacleod 4y ago
  There’s a certain attraction to counter-mainstream views of course—the idea of being part of a secret smart club—but it’s a massive red flag when someone starts to define themselves and their views substantially in terms of that opposition. Interesting counter-mainstream ideas are important and valuable - but I don’t hear about any of them from Hossenfelder’s writing, and it’s all about how broken “the system” is. Everything I watch or read from her leaves me deeply suspicious.
  - terminal_d 4y ago
    > but it’s a massive red flag when someone starts to define themselves and their views substantially in terms of that opposition. Anyone from the other side could make the same argument (and they often do). If you're trying to name a "us versus them" then there's just one big mainstream entity, the rest is fragmented. So it's not really a "red flag" because opposition is by definition not a coherent group.
- terminal_d 4y ago
  I wouldn't call her a charlatan, but I would call many people on the "other side" that. Wading through BS is practically a full-time job and she's very good at it. If "low morale" is really the bottleneck then we aren't getting any science done anyway. And as an aside, I don't believe in group / peer based "science". There's a few geniuses (often not credited) that define the entire thing while everyone else seems to practically be in marketing by comparison. Science can be a group institution, but educational institutes are far from it. Criticism and disbelief are the bedrock of Science, and calling people that don't flock to still-unproven claims "science deniers" is very dystopian. There's also entire groups of phenomena that "hard" / popular science conveniently ignores. They all fall under Science by definition, but not under science-the-religion.
- oska 4y ago
  > She’s a bit of a charlatan A fairly serious accusation to make, which you did little to nothing to back up.

colechristensen 4y ago

She’s a bit of a charlatan who leans too heavily on criticism of mainstream or even criticism and exaggeration of the Selena of developing theories. There is an attraction to having “real” knowledge that everybody else is full of manure, i know some people whose small children have found conspiracy youtube and are struggling at dinner conversation over every “well actually”.

matthewmacleod 4y ago
There’s a certain attraction to counter-mainstream views of course—the idea of being part of a secret smart club—but it’s a massive red flag when someone starts to define themselves and their views substantially in terms of that opposition. Interesting counter-mainstream ideas are important and valuable - but I don’t hear about any of them from Hossenfelder’s writing, and it’s all about how broken “the system” is. Everything I watch or read from her leaves me deeply suspicious.
- terminal_d 4y ago
  > but it’s a massive red flag when someone starts to define themselves and their views substantially in terms of that opposition. Anyone from the other side could make the same argument (and they often do). If you're trying to name a "us versus them" then there's just one big mainstream entity, the rest is fragmented. So it's not really a "red flag" because opposition is by definition not a coherent group.
terminal_d 4y ago
I wouldn't call her a charlatan, but I would call many people on the "other side" that. Wading through BS is practically a full-time job and she's very good at it. If "low morale" is really the bottleneck then we aren't getting any science done anyway. And as an aside, I don't believe in group / peer based "science". There's a few geniuses (often not credited) that define the entire thing while everyone else seems to practically be in marketing by comparison. Science can be a group institution, but educational institutes are far from it. Criticism and disbelief are the bedrock of Science, and calling people that don't flock to still-unproven claims "science deniers" is very dystopian. There's also entire groups of phenomena that "hard" / popular science conveniently ignores. They all fall under Science by definition, but not under science-the-religion.
oska 4y ago
> She’s a bit of a charlatan A fairly serious accusation to make, which you did little to nothing to back up.