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Cargo cult science (1974)

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Re: Cargo cult science (1974)

#41

Post by college_physics »

hinkley wrote: post #37
college_physics wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the thing is that this pattern of pushing to unexplored energy levels did work before. Unicorns were found in the unexplored forests of Congo. In fact an entire zoo of unicorns of all shapes and forms was found, an incredible achievement that stands among the most important stuff our gray-tinted gel has managed to internalize about the universe. You can't blame modern day particle physicists for being born late for t…

The last time we found something that was predicted by the Standard Model was 1983, wasn't it? That's 40 years. edit: her complaint is that once funding sources realize that 'particle physicists shill ridiculous ideas for research grants', all of the money dries up and won't return for at least a generation or two. That's an existential threat to the field. That sounds like a legitimate complaint to me. Unfortunately…

> That's 40 years.

Is that a lot? On what basis could we decide?(1) I am not saying it isn't, I am just saying it is a rather subjective call which sort of looks at the prior pace of discoveries and extrapolates a judgement.

(1) it took more than that from the first gravitational wave detector to an actual discovery

Re: Cargo cult science (1974)

#42

Post by willis936 »

hinkley wrote: post #18

Sabine Hossenfelder basically posted a rant about particle physicists on Youtube last week, about how they are doing science wrong. Basically she said you are supposed to change your theory based upon results that don't match the theory, and what they have been doing for decades is looking at gaps in the results, and imagining particle theories that don't alter the expected results in the currently explored energy le…

Serial contrarian jumps on table and shouts. More at 11.

A telltale sign of a crank is attacking career scientists, which is her brand. What insight is she offering? Destroying is easy, creating is hard. Lies spread faster than truth. In general she is a force of confusion rather than enlightenment. It's too bad because she seems capable, if only she'd follow through rather than chase headlines.

Re: Cargo cult science (1974)

#43

Post by Loquebantur »

lynx23 wrote: post #39
hinkley wrote: post #18

Sabine Hossenfelder basically posted a rant about particle physicists on Youtube last week, about how they are doing science wrong. Basically she said you are supposed to change your theory based upon results that don't match the theory, and what they have been doing for decades is looking at gaps in the results, and imagining particle theories that don't alter the expected results in the currently explored energy le…

Just unsub her. She picked up a lot of people by her bold way of presenting. Most discover after a while that she isnt worth watching.

You seem to imply, most people were smart. But statistically, most people are not.

Hossenfelder critzises physics. That is a good thing to do, regardless of whether she is always right about it.

Being smart, you can learn from her even if she is not. At the very least about how to present better.

Re: Cargo cult science (1974)

#44

Post by jhbadger »

lisper wrote: post #16
RobotToaster wrote: post #13

"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts" - Richard Feynman

You do realize that was intended to be humorous, yes? It's true that one should not defer blindly to authority, but experts nonetheless know some things that non-experts don't. That's what makes them experts.

Exactly. And it was about experts questioning the beliefs of other experts, particularly experts in the past. Galileo questioning Aristotle. Einstein questioning Newton. Not about random quacks thinking they have opinions equal to the experts.

Re: Cargo cult science (1974)

#45

Post by imranq »

hinkley wrote: post #18

Sabine Hossenfelder basically posted a rant about particle physicists on Youtube last week, about how they are doing science wrong. Basically she said you are supposed to change your theory based upon results that don't match the theory, and what they have been doing for decades is looking at gaps in the results, and imagining particle theories that don't alter the expected results in the currently explored energy le…

I don't see what the problem with Sabine's analysis is? I thought it was great.

Shouldn't particle physicists have more expectations of what they expect to find rather than we want to find X and we are going to search the entire energy frontier to find it. The problem is that the energy frontier is limitless so the ROI could be extremely poor unless we had a good idea of what we expect

Re: Cargo cult science (1974)

#46

Post by marcosdumay »

hinkley wrote: post #18

Sabine Hossenfelder basically posted a rant about particle physicists on Youtube last week, about how they are doing science wrong. Basically she said you are supposed to change your theory based upon results that don't match the theory, and what they have been doing for decades is looking at gaps in the results, and imagining particle theories that don't alter the expected results in the currently explored energy le…

Things are more complicated than that.

Something is there causing those phenomena. People have a theory that it may be unicorns, so they are out looking for unicorns. Those are supposed to be hard to find, and people are still searching on the hardest possible places that can hold them. It may also not be unicorns, on what case nobody has any idea what it may be. Some people are trying to make such theories, but none got a good one yet.

On this level of detail, there is nothing wrong at all with any party of the above. All of the problems are with finer details.

Re: Cargo cult science (1974)

#47

Post by phkahler »

willis936 wrote: post #42
hinkley wrote: post #18

Sabine Hossenfelder basically posted a rant about particle physicists on Youtube last week, about how they are doing science wrong. Basically she said you are supposed to change your theory based upon results that don't match the theory, and what they have been doing for decades is looking at gaps in the results, and imagining particle theories that don't alter the expected results in the currently explored energy le…

Serial contrarian jumps on table and shouts. More at 11. A telltale sign of a crank is attacking career scientists, which is her brand. What insight is she offering? Destroying is easy, creating is hard. Lies spread faster than truth. In general she is a force of confusion rather than enlightenment. It's too bad because she seems capable, if only she'd follow through rather than chase headlines.

>> What insight is she offering?

For a while she was offering an honest look at a field going nowhere, and suggestions as to how they might better spend time and money.

Now I think she's just profiting from her new popularity by doing a not so good science/tech show.

Re: Cargo cult science (1974)

#48

Post by marcosdumay »

lisper wrote: post #16
RobotToaster wrote: post #13

"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts" - Richard Feynman

You do realize that was intended to be humorous, yes? It's true that one should not defer blindly to authority, but experts nonetheless know some things that non-experts don't. That's what makes them experts.

> but experts nonetheless know some things that non-experts don't

Oh, yeah, engineering and all the other practices are rooted on this.

Science is not.

Re: Cargo cult science (1974)

#49

Post by bjornsing »

imranq wrote: post #45
hinkley wrote: post #18

Sabine Hossenfelder basically posted a rant about particle physicists on Youtube last week, about how they are doing science wrong. Basically she said you are supposed to change your theory based upon results that don't match the theory, and what they have been doing for decades is looking at gaps in the results, and imagining particle theories that don't alter the expected results in the currently explored energy le…

I don't see what the problem with Sabine's analysis is? I thought it was great. Shouldn't particle physicists have more expectations of what they expect to find rather than we want to find X and we are going to search the entire energy frontier to find it. The problem is that the energy frontier is limitless so the ROI could be extremely poor unless we had a good idea of what we expect

> The problem is that the energy frontier is limitless so the ROI could be extremely poor unless we had a good idea of what we expect

AKA the full employment theorem of particle physics…

Re: Cargo cult science (1974)

#50

Post by precompute »

willis936 wrote: post #42
hinkley wrote: post #18

Sabine Hossenfelder basically posted a rant about particle physicists on Youtube last week, about how they are doing science wrong. Basically she said you are supposed to change your theory based upon results that don't match the theory, and what they have been doing for decades is looking at gaps in the results, and imagining particle theories that don't alter the expected results in the currently explored energy le…

Serial contrarian jumps on table and shouts. More at 11. A telltale sign of a crank is attacking career scientists, which is her brand. What insight is she offering? Destroying is easy, creating is hard. Lies spread faster than truth. In general she is a force of confusion rather than enlightenment. It's too bad because she seems capable, if only she'd follow through rather than chase headlines.

A "Career Scientist" is very, very bad news!
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