4 ms·

> How do we know who's an expert here? That's a fair question. Let me give you a rule of thumb. I must emphasize you can't take it _too_ seriously. But it see

> How do we know who's an expert here? That's a fair question. Let me give you a rule of thumb. I must emphasize you can't take it _too_ seriously. But it seems to hold quite well that in hard sciences, not just physics, looking from the inside, you notice that the ones who talk to the media are normally the bottom of the barrel. This makes a lot of sense. If your goal is to learn about the fundamental building blocks of the universe, writing blog posts the societal aspects of science doesn't help you with that. Real scientists spend their time doing science. There's very few exceptions to this. In fact right now I can think of a single person who's a world class researcher _and_ a prolific blogger; Terrence Tao, but he's a mathematician. My point is, you can't judge who's the expert based on the quality of the science produced because you don't have the expertise for that. But believe you me, if someone spends a lot of time doing things other than research, they're probably not the best.

rcarr 4y ago
That Albert Einstein, always talking to the media, what an idiot. Don’t get me started on that Stephen Hawking either, what a conman. And that Leonard Susskind - complete moron. Richard Feynman - complete booby. Roger Penrose - fool. Bottom of the barrel, all of them. Real scientists work on real science 16 hours of the day and nothing else and spend the remaining 8 hours dreaming about real science. Any one else is a complete poser. If they even so much as speak to anyone who isn’t a physicist or write anything that isn’t a paper that’s a sure sign you’ve found a faker. The only exception is hacker news comments. Stay vigilant people.
- europeanguy 4y ago
  Youre making my point for me, ironically. All those people you mention became media personalities later in life _after_ they'd made their contributions. Einstein is an especially egregious example, as later in life he became a crackpot, ranting about how quantum mechanics wasn't science. Sounds kinda like Sabine, except unlike Einstein she never actually contributed anything to science. Hawking _had_ to publish popular science books to pay his bills, but again he did very little in terms of science in this later period.
  - rcarr 4y ago
    > All those people you mention became media personalities later in life _after_ they'd made their contributions Right, sorry, I forgot that the only thing of importance that people have to contribute are Nobel prize winning papers. You know, lecturing, writing textbooks, writing standard scientific papers, peer reviews, all of these things aren't contributions. Obviously no-one should engage with the media unless they have won a Nobel and have decided they have no major papers left in them. In fact at that point, if they were real scientists, they'd just realise their time was up and walk off to perish on the tundra like the elderly inuits used to so they don't take up any more precious resources from the real scientists. There is a commonality in your argument, at least from where I'm standing, with the logic of the 'proper binmen' people or the ascetics -- only those who suffer in silence away from society are truly the 'holy physicists'. https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/nov/15/who-remembers-proper-binmen-facebook-nostalgia-memes-help-explain-britain-today https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/nov/15/who-remembers-p... It's ironic that you express the following sentiment: > If your goal is to learn about the fundamental building blocks of the universe, writing blog posts the societal aspects of science doesn't help you with that. Real scientists spend their time doing science. There's very few exceptions to this. In fact right now I can think of a single person who's a world class researcher _and_ a prolific blogger; when, just yesterday, the highest ranked post on the site was this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33750825 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33750825 about this essay: http://paulgraham.com/read.html http://paulgraham.com/read.html
    - europeanguy 4y ago
      Ah yes. The highest ranked place in HN, the reference frame for scientific thinking.
      - rcarr 4y ago
        Want to provide any scientific evidence for all the wild assertions you've been making?
- nemosaltat 4y ago
  I agree with you, and you’ve provided some excellent counter examples. I’d like to, as gently as possible, point out that in the curious spirit of this site it might be possible to make your same point without the snark.
  - rcarr 4y ago
    In my opinion, making fun of extreme views is the best way to counteract them.
johnp314 4y ago
Surely you should add Scott Aaronson to your list of world class reserchers and prolific bloggers. He's also quite often quoted in the main stream media.
DemocracyFTW2 4y ago
> In fact right now I can think of a single person who's a world class researcher _and_ a prolific blogger; Terrence Tao, but he's a mathematician. > My point is, you can't judge who's the expert based on the quality of the science produced because you don't have the expertise for that. But you do have the expertise / knowledge / chuzpah to say that Mr Tao is a world class researcher? Sorta contradicktory, no?

rcarr 4y ago

That Albert Einstein, always talking to the media, what an idiot. Don’t get me started on that Stephen Hawking either, what a conman. And that Leonard Susskind - complete moron. Richard Feynman - complete booby. Roger Penrose - fool. Bottom of the barrel, all of them. Real scientists work on real science 16 hours of the day and nothing else and spend the remaining 8 hours dreaming about real science. Any one else is a complete poser. If they even so much as speak to anyone who isn’t a physicist or write anything that isn’t a paper that’s a sure sign you’ve found a faker. The only exception is hacker news comments. Stay vigilant people.

europeanguy 4y ago
Youre making my point for me, ironically. All those people you mention became media personalities later in life _after_ they'd made their contributions. Einstein is an especially egregious example, as later in life he became a crackpot, ranting about how quantum mechanics wasn't science. Sounds kinda like Sabine, except unlike Einstein she never actually contributed anything to science. Hawking _had_ to publish popular science books to pay his bills, but again he did very little in terms of science in this later period.
- rcarr 4y ago
  > All those people you mention became media personalities later in life _after_ they'd made their contributions Right, sorry, I forgot that the only thing of importance that people have to contribute are Nobel prize winning papers. You know, lecturing, writing textbooks, writing standard scientific papers, peer reviews, all of these things aren't contributions. Obviously no-one should engage with the media unless they have won a Nobel and have decided they have no major papers left in them. In fact at that point, if they were real scientists, they'd just realise their time was up and walk off to perish on the tundra like the elderly inuits used to so they don't take up any more precious resources from the real scientists. There is a commonality in your argument, at least from where I'm standing, with the logic of the 'proper binmen' people or the ascetics -- only those who suffer in silence away from society are truly the 'holy physicists'. https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/nov/15/who-remembers-proper-binmen-facebook-nostalgia-memes-help-explain-britain-today https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/nov/15/who-remembers-p... It's ironic that you express the following sentiment: > If your goal is to learn about the fundamental building blocks of the universe, writing blog posts the societal aspects of science doesn't help you with that. Real scientists spend their time doing science. There's very few exceptions to this. In fact right now I can think of a single person who's a world class researcher _and_ a prolific blogger; when, just yesterday, the highest ranked post on the site was this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33750825 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33750825 about this essay: http://paulgraham.com/read.html http://paulgraham.com/read.html
  - europeanguy 4y ago
    Ah yes. The highest ranked place in HN, the reference frame for scientific thinking.
    - rcarr 4y ago
      Want to provide any scientific evidence for all the wild assertions you've been making?
nemosaltat 4y ago
I agree with you, and you’ve provided some excellent counter examples. I’d like to, as gently as possible, point out that in the curious spirit of this site it might be possible to make your same point without the snark.
- rcarr 4y ago
  In my opinion, making fun of extreme views is the best way to counteract them.

johnp314 4y ago

Surely you should add Scott Aaronson to your list of world class reserchers and prolific bloggers. He's also quite often quoted in the main stream media.

DemocracyFTW2 4y ago

> In fact right now I can think of a single person who's a world class researcher _and_ a prolific blogger; Terrence Tao, but he's a mathematician. > My point is, you can't judge who's the expert based on the quality of the science produced because you don't have the expertise for that. But you do have the expertise / knowledge / chuzpah to say that Mr Tao is a world class researcher? Sorta contradicktory, no?