2 ms·

Superstring theory is a failure. The moment that you resort to the 'anthropic principle' to select one from out of more than 10^500 metastable vacua, you've giv

Superstring theory is a failure. The moment that you resort to the 'anthropic principle' to select one from out of more than 10^500 metastable vacua, you've given up falsifiability and thus any claim that what you're doing is science. It is interesting to note that superstring theory has not only failed abjectly in every way, but has nonetheless established such a death-grip over the apparatus of scientific funding and publication that no competing theory is given any practical chance of success. It seems that many if not most superstring advocates would rather give up on the very definition of science than admit they have completely wasted their careers, down a Calabi-Yau shaped rabbit hole with no bottom and NO BLOODY PREDICTIONS. That's right folks, superstring theory doesn't predict anything. It can't be falsified, because even if the superpartners don't show up at the LHC (they won't), they'll just tweak the parameters and move the energy scale around and away from the LHC's capabilities. This is a crime.

jerf 18y ago
While I'm not necessarily ready to write off string theory, it is rather disturbing to see putative scientists declaring that since this as-yet unproven theory (and I do mean rather thoroughly unproven) declares that there may be a multiverse, well, then, there must be. Brian Greene has always spoken rather more confidently than his evidence really permitted (even as I enjoyed his book), but this is taking it to the next level. String theory remains a conjecture, and this is nothing more than conjecture built on conjecture. Passing it off as truth is quite unscientific. (But... very New Scientific. I've lost almost all respect for the publication. The quoted do deserve at least a bit of consideration for the possibility that the New Science article is distorting their quotes for sensationalism or due to lack of understanding by the author.)
olefoo 18y ago
It sounds startlingly similar to what has happened in the humanities with postmodernism and deconstruction. Once a field abandons the reality principle it crosses over into a completely self-referential regime that is impervious to criticism and impossible to correct. In some very essential ways it seems as though the forms remain, but the substance has largely been lost. I wish I knew what I could do about it.

jerf 18y ago

While I'm not necessarily ready to write off string theory, it is rather disturbing to see putative scientists declaring that since this as-yet unproven theory (and I do mean rather thoroughly unproven) declares that there may be a multiverse, well, then, there must be. Brian Greene has always spoken rather more confidently than his evidence really permitted (even as I enjoyed his book), but this is taking it to the next level. String theory remains a conjecture, and this is nothing more than conjecture built on conjecture. Passing it off as truth is quite unscientific. (But... very New Scientific. I've lost almost all respect for the publication. The quoted do deserve at least a bit of consideration for the possibility that the New Science article is distorting their quotes for sensationalism or due to lack of understanding by the author.)

olefoo 18y ago

It sounds startlingly similar to what has happened in the humanities with postmodernism and deconstruction. Once a field abandons the reality principle it crosses over into a completely self-referential regime that is impervious to criticism and impossible to correct. In some very essential ways it seems as though the forms remain, but the substance has largely been lost. I wish I knew what I could do about it.