6 ms·

> until that source talks about a subject you're an expert in and you realize they have no idea what they're talking about? She is (was) a physics researcher,

> until that source talks about a subject you're an expert in and you realize they have no idea what they're talking about? She is (was) a physics researcher, perhaps a mediocre one, most are. But saying she has no idea what she's talking about requires some justification. Specifically, what do you disagree with her about?

sigmoid10 4y ago
>She is (was) a physics researcher Why would you say "was" - she's still a fellow at FIAS and lists herself as a researcher on her own website. Conversely, her only publication in the last decade with more than 100 citations was her popular science book aimed at non-physicists and most of the things before that were borderline hack stuff, basically going back to Milgrom's theory with very little content that would justify moving this research from fringe to mainstream [1]. She definitely hasn't established herself as an authority on foundations of quantum mechanics or string theory, which she has taken a liking to discredit. So the commenter above was not wrong. [1] https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=NaQZcyYAAAAJ&hl=en https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=NaQZcyYAAAAJ&hl=en
- fidgewidge 4y ago
  How would one go about establishing themselves as an academic authority on a topic or field which one believed was based on nothing real?
  - sigmoid10 4y ago
    How would you know if something is "based on nothing real" if you haven't actively worked in and contributed to said field? I for example know very little about virology or immunology and I have never published anything in those fields. Would you listen to me discrediting covid researchers or mRNA-vaccines if I say I think they are based on nothing real?
    - munch117 4y ago
      You are putting up a ridiculously high bar for expressing an opinion, where not even a research fellow in theoretical physics can pass. If you were a research fellow in virology or immunology, and you had read and understood the relevant papers, then I would listen to you, yes. That doesn't mean I would take what you said as the final word.
      - sigmoid10 4y ago
        >you had read and understood the relevant papers How would you know that if I hadn't published papers on the relevant topics and only published in adjacent, non-mainstream topics? And yes, the bar for string theory is high. Not every research fellow in theoretical physics would be qualified to comment here - quite the opposite actually. In the same way any honest theoretical plasma physicist will refuse to comment on quantum computing papers. Inside academia it is well known that you often can't even expect people to create qualified comments across neighbouring offices inside departments. Regardless, there are quite a few qualified people in this area. If someone with caliber like Susskind, Gross, 't Hooft, Witten or from the respected younger generation came out and said it's all a hoax, you can bet everyone would listen. And they have come out with specific critique, but you'll find it very different from the likes of Hossenfelder and it is usually not discussed in popsci literature. Noone in the field cares about people who haven't even shown they understand it, let alone contributed to it.
        munch117 4y ago
        No one has said that anything is a hoax. Please tone it down. > How would you know that if I hadn't published papers on the relevant topics No, that not the question. You don't get to assume that people are incompetent until they've presented incontrovertible evidence to the contrary. You're the one making ad hominem arguments, the burden of proof is on you.
        bandyaboot 4y ago
        > You don't get to assume that people are incompetent until they've presented incontrovertible evidence to the contrary. Leaving aside the setting of ridiculously high bars for the moment, that level of evidence would be different depending on who is observing. A car mechanic is going to be able to spot clear evidence of incompetence in another car mechanic long before it’s apparent to a layperson observer.
- credit_guy 4y ago
  The kid who shouted “the emperor is naked” was not exactly an expert in clothing matters.
  - sigmoid10 4y ago
    The emperor wasn't doing particle physics - a field which takes years to even begin to understand and decades to become an accepted researcher. Nothing that an outsider would even be able to comment on, let alone point out flaws.
    - credit_guy 4y ago
      Nope. If you do physics and claim a theory does not need to be testable, you are just naked.
europeanguy 4y ago
Ah, thank you for asking. I disagree with the idea that _just because we can't conduct experiences that directly measure something, then there's nothing we can know_ (which is what is implied in her text, and by the many people in this thread repeating the "not even wrong" meme). Sure, it's not experimental physics, but as long as it's _bound by reality_ somehow, it's still science. So the way a good physicist operates is to say "fine, I can't do the experiment, but let me see what is allowed by current experimental bounds". This is good. It's also an idea as old as science itself. In contrast it's tremendously ironic that physics poopooers like Sabine and that other peter woit guy typically choose to work on special-relativity-violating theories, which are immediately outside of the bounds that the experiments we do have impose. Do you understand what I'm saying? This person is claiming "we can't directly probe a string therefore string theory is religion", but then she works on something which is worse than religion - something which we know is experimentally disproven. (I'm talking about the loop quantum gravities, and entropic gravities and so on and on - they're all inconsistent with one of the most toughroughly experimentally tested laws, special relativity). If they weren't so good at convincing the public that no one knows anything, their tragedy would be comic.
- compiskey 4y ago
  You’re admitting to not moving any goal posts whatsoever and just designing mathematical art that’s correct given existing constraints? So it’s good science to color within the lines not try to redraw them through new experiments we CAN conduct. I don’t know; sounds like sheer laziness and lack of true creativity if you can only play inside a decades old sandbox. Along with the entitled tone and “I’m doing 10x better in industry than colleagues in academia” kind of feels like you’re doing it for bragging rights not science.
- geysersam 4y ago
  > This person is claiming "we can't directly probe a string therefore string theory is religion", but then she works on something which is worse than religion - something which we know is experimentally disproven. Not sure what you are referring to here. If it is her work on theories involving a minimal length scale: Heisenberg and Planck also hypothesized about minimal length scales. Hardly controversial even if difficult to combine with Lorenz invariance. Experimental testability is important in physics. It doesn't mean anyone doing something not directly testable is a hack, but I think it's good people have been raising the issue more recently.

sigmoid10 4y ago

>She is (was) a physics researcher Why would you say "was" - she's still a fellow at FIAS and lists herself as a researcher on her own website. Conversely, her only publication in the last decade with more than 100 citations was her popular science book aimed at non-physicists and most of the things before that were borderline hack stuff, basically going back to Milgrom's theory with very little content that would justify moving this research from fringe to mainstream [1]. She definitely hasn't established herself as an authority on foundations of quantum mechanics or string theory, which she has taken a liking to discredit. So the commenter above was not wrong. [1] https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=NaQZcyYAAAAJ&hl=en https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=NaQZcyYAAAAJ&hl=en

fidgewidge 4y ago
How would one go about establishing themselves as an academic authority on a topic or field which one believed was based on nothing real?
- sigmoid10 4y ago
  How would you know if something is "based on nothing real" if you haven't actively worked in and contributed to said field? I for example know very little about virology or immunology and I have never published anything in those fields. Would you listen to me discrediting covid researchers or mRNA-vaccines if I say I think they are based on nothing real?
  - munch117 4y ago
    You are putting up a ridiculously high bar for expressing an opinion, where not even a research fellow in theoretical physics can pass. If you were a research fellow in virology or immunology, and you had read and understood the relevant papers, then I would listen to you, yes. That doesn't mean I would take what you said as the final word.
    - sigmoid10 4y ago
      >you had read and understood the relevant papers How would you know that if I hadn't published papers on the relevant topics and only published in adjacent, non-mainstream topics? And yes, the bar for string theory is high. Not every research fellow in theoretical physics would be qualified to comment here - quite the opposite actually. In the same way any honest theoretical plasma physicist will refuse to comment on quantum computing papers. Inside academia it is well known that you often can't even expect people to create qualified comments across neighbouring offices inside departments. Regardless, there are quite a few qualified people in this area. If someone with caliber like Susskind, Gross, 't Hooft, Witten or from the respected younger generation came out and said it's all a hoax, you can bet everyone would listen. And they have come out with specific critique, but you'll find it very different from the likes of Hossenfelder and it is usually not discussed in popsci literature. Noone in the field cares about people who haven't even shown they understand it, let alone contributed to it.
      - munch117 4y ago
        No one has said that anything is a hoax. Please tone it down. > How would you know that if I hadn't published papers on the relevant topics No, that not the question. You don't get to assume that people are incompetent until they've presented incontrovertible evidence to the contrary. You're the one making ad hominem arguments, the burden of proof is on you.
        bandyaboot 4y ago
        > You don't get to assume that people are incompetent until they've presented incontrovertible evidence to the contrary. Leaving aside the setting of ridiculously high bars for the moment, that level of evidence would be different depending on who is observing. A car mechanic is going to be able to spot clear evidence of incompetence in another car mechanic long before it’s apparent to a layperson observer.
credit_guy 4y ago
The kid who shouted “the emperor is naked” was not exactly an expert in clothing matters.
- sigmoid10 4y ago
  The emperor wasn't doing particle physics - a field which takes years to even begin to understand and decades to become an accepted researcher. Nothing that an outsider would even be able to comment on, let alone point out flaws.
  - credit_guy 4y ago
    Nope. If you do physics and claim a theory does not need to be testable, you are just naked.

europeanguy 4y ago

Ah, thank you for asking. I disagree with the idea that _just because we can't conduct experiences that directly measure something, then there's nothing we can know_ (which is what is implied in her text, and by the many people in this thread repeating the "not even wrong" meme). Sure, it's not experimental physics, but as long as it's _bound by reality_ somehow, it's still science. So the way a good physicist operates is to say "fine, I can't do the experiment, but let me see what is allowed by current experimental bounds". This is good. It's also an idea as old as science itself. In contrast it's tremendously ironic that physics poopooers like Sabine and that other peter woit guy typically choose to work on special-relativity-violating theories, which are immediately outside of the bounds that the experiments we do have impose. Do you understand what I'm saying? This person is claiming "we can't directly probe a string therefore string theory is religion", but then she works on something which is worse than religion - something which we know is experimentally disproven. (I'm talking about the loop quantum gravities, and entropic gravities and so on and on - they're all inconsistent with one of the most toughroughly experimentally tested laws, special relativity). If they weren't so good at convincing the public that no one knows anything, their tragedy would be comic.

compiskey 4y ago
You’re admitting to not moving any goal posts whatsoever and just designing mathematical art that’s correct given existing constraints? So it’s good science to color within the lines not try to redraw them through new experiments we CAN conduct. I don’t know; sounds like sheer laziness and lack of true creativity if you can only play inside a decades old sandbox. Along with the entitled tone and “I’m doing 10x better in industry than colleagues in academia” kind of feels like you’re doing it for bragging rights not science.
geysersam 4y ago
> This person is claiming "we can't directly probe a string therefore string theory is religion", but then she works on something which is worse than religion - something which we know is experimentally disproven. Not sure what you are referring to here. If it is her work on theories involving a minimal length scale: Heisenberg and Planck also hypothesized about minimal length scales. Hardly controversial even if difficult to combine with Lorenz invariance. Experimental testability is important in physics. It doesn't mean anyone doing something not directly testable is a hack, but I think it's good people have been raising the issue more recently.