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I don't disagree with this characterization of studying physics, but there is a very noticeable tendency for physicists to expect their expertise to transfer to

I don't disagree with this characterization of studying physics, but there is a very noticeable tendency for physicists to expect their expertise to transfer to fields they are very definitely not experts in. (Not exclusive to physicists, obviously, it's just a lot of public science communicators are physicists.) EDIT: Most noticeably from the absolute garbage code I had to make work that these 'genius coders' produced. They were good at physics, but they should never have written any code if it could have been prevented. EDIT#2: And an adjacent poster "FredPret" demonstrated it perfectly. Let's derive Evolution from particle physics... and go! (Sean Carroll is a good antidote to this attitude... he knows there are levels of description that are useful.)

KPGv2 2y ago
> there is a very noticeable tendency for physicists to expect their expertise to transfer to fields they are very definitely not experts in It's interesting the converse is true: techbros often think they would've excelled in physics PhD programs
- Quekid5 2y ago
  Oh, it absolutely is. AFAICT it's universal for "experts" (whatever that means) in any given field. (Self-referentially: Even for me... So take what I said above with a grain of salt, but I'm pretty sure this has solid research behind it.)
analog31 2y ago
It's certainly not exclusive to physicists. The syndrome is called "engineer disease," maybe just because engineers outnumber physicists. Garbage code isn't exclusive to physicists. The coders often complain when they have to deal with code from other coders. And physicists gonna code. The last nontrivial problem to be solved without computation was probably solved sometime in the 1930s. And the most powerful "physics software" is a coding stack. In my own case I've made a career long effort to learn good coding practices, but I don't expect my code to go straight into production. As for deriving evolution from particle physics, I don't think I've known a physicist who would recommend that.

KPGv2 2y ago

> there is a very noticeable tendency for physicists to expect their expertise to transfer to fields they are very definitely not experts in It's interesting the converse is true: techbros often think they would've excelled in physics PhD programs

Quekid5 2y ago
Oh, it absolutely is. AFAICT it's universal for "experts" (whatever that means) in any given field. (Self-referentially: Even for me... So take what I said above with a grain of salt, but I'm pretty sure this has solid research behind it.)

analog31 2y ago

It's certainly not exclusive to physicists. The syndrome is called "engineer disease," maybe just because engineers outnumber physicists. Garbage code isn't exclusive to physicists. The coders often complain when they have to deal with code from other coders. And physicists gonna code. The last nontrivial problem to be solved without computation was probably solved sometime in the 1930s. And the most powerful "physics software" is a coding stack. In my own case I've made a career long effort to learn good coding practices, but I don't expect my code to go straight into production. As for deriving evolution from particle physics, I don't think I've known a physicist who would recommend that.