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The purge of German science in 1933

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Re: The purge of German science in 1933

#101

Post by [deleted] »

foobarian wrote: post #9
perihelions wrote: post #8

One aspect of this that fascinated me is Nazi Germany's "physics denialism" (?) — the reactionary response to the modern physics revolutions of the early 20th century. (I.e. the twin revolutions of quantum physics and of relativity). It was a much weirder response than simply an attack on physicists who happened to be Jewish humans. Fields of physics were conspiratorially labelled as having a "Jewish" character, and…

The depictions of "wrong physics" in the 3 Body Problem show kinda remind me of that. Any kind of thinking that had even a whiff of going against the party line would cause problems for the author. What a weird time. I wonder if it's similar to how we look down on e.g. string theory, except I don't know if that's an apples to apples comparison given that we haven't seen any string theory apples yet :-)

[deleted]

Re: The purge of German science in 1933

#102

Post by jcranmer »

devjab wrote: post #57
xyzelement wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW in the current time we definitely encounter "wrong physics" in places where science and politics intersect. EG - a scientist can easily get smacked down for being "a climate change denialist" or an "antivaxer" or a similar unpalatable label way before the merits of their effort are evaluated.

There are no scientific merits for being an antivaxer though. You can certainly have egotistical reasons but the herd immunity created through general vaccination isn’t just a theory anymore. I’d be more curious as to how anti-vaccine agendas ever became a thing. With a lot of these things like climate change, there are clear economic forces which will pour “tobacco is healthy” amounts of money into pushing whatever…

> I’d be more curious as to how anti-vaccine agendas ever became a thing. With a lot of these things like climate change, there are clear economic forces which will pour “tobacco is healthy” amounts of money into pushing whatever makes them money. But then you have something like antivaxing which quite literally benefits nobody, because even the people who don’t want to put themselves at risk by getting vaccinated still sort of do so by collectively bringing back terrible diseases through their destruction of the herd immunity… but who could possibly gain anything from spreading this nonsense? “Yay, polio and the measles are back!!!”. Then you have the more harmless stuff like flat-earthers which also don’t really have any obvious driving force. But at least it’s harmless and sort of funny.

The motivation for anti-vaccine--and flat-earthers, for what it's worth--is basically the same thing as Q-Anon. It's all primarily based on feeding on peoples' feeling of a conspiracy against them. It's not being pro-measles, it's thinking that the vaccine is a cover for the government trying to collect your DNA or euthanize your children or something, and there are all too many grifters who are willing to ride the wave of such thinking and flog their own products on top of that. Don't use the government's cure for COVID, buy my COVID cure for only $50! And I'm not the government or an evil megacorporation, so you know I'm trustworthy.

> But at least it’s harmless and sort of funny.

It's... not really harmless. There's a path from the flat earth stuff to the January 6 riot.

Re: The purge of German science in 1933

#103

Post by huytersd »

enasterosophes wrote: post #20
perihelions wrote: post #8

One aspect of this that fascinated me is Nazi Germany's "physics denialism" (?) — the reactionary response to the modern physics revolutions of the early 20th century. (I.e. the twin revolutions of quantum physics and of relativity). It was a much weirder response than simply an attack on physicists who happened to be Jewish humans. Fields of physics were conspiratorially labelled as having a "Jewish" character, and…

The Nazis weren't unique in dismissing categories of research on ideological grounds. The USSR label of "bourgeois pseudoscience" [1] was applied to various fields like evolutionary biology. We aren't immune to it now. In the software world, remember that Ballmer called Linux a cancer, and in general there is a meme amongst capitalist software developers that the GPL is a cancerous or infectious license. In academia,…

There’s a difference in having a subjective opinion on an OS and flat out denying physical phenomenon like the photoelectric effect. What kind of nonsensical analogy is this.

Re: The purge of German science in 1933

#104

Post by CogitoCogito »

carlosjobim wrote: post #62
kromem wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean things like thinking that the vaccine harms of something nearly the entire world has received which was being said would kill people in two years time is more dangerous than the thing that actually killed millions of people during the last few years? It would be pretty weird if there were major political parties denying the science like that, or even picking who they would vote for as a leader based on the p…

In the end it seems both "sides" were wrong on this. The vaccines didn't protect people from getting covid, but they also didn't kill them.

> The vaccines didn't protect people from getting covid

What do you mean by this? The vaccines absolutely decreased the likelihood of getting and the severity of Covid.

Re: The purge of German science in 1933

#105

Post by blululu »

actionfromafar wrote: post #31
xyzelement wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW in the current time we definitely encounter "wrong physics" in places where science and politics intersect. EG - a scientist can easily get smacked down for being "a climate change denialist" or an "antivaxer" or a similar unpalatable label way before the merits of their effort are evaluated.

Funny I was thinking of how so many otherwise intelligent and educated people believe climate change is just a liberal hoax.

Ask any of your friends how much sea level will rise by 2050 and you will get some pretty wild answers.

It's a technical subject that does not immediately affect most of us on a day to day basis. It is not surprising that people would have poorly informed opinions on a topic they don’t really care about very much.

For what it’s worth, the average college educated liberal has a comparably abysmal understanding of climate change but their ideological judgement happens to be closer to reality on this one.

Re: The purge of German science in 1933

#106

Post by enasterosophes »

huytersd wrote: post #103
enasterosophes wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Nazis weren't unique in dismissing categories of research on ideological grounds. The USSR label of "bourgeois pseudoscience" [1] was applied to various fields like evolutionary biology. We aren't immune to it now. In the software world, remember that Ballmer called Linux a cancer, and in general there is a meme amongst capitalist software developers that the GPL is a cancerous or infectious license. In academia,…

There’s a difference in having a subjective opinion on an OS and flat out denying physical phenomenon like the photoelectric effect. What kind of nonsensical analogy is this.

When did the soviets deny physical phenomena like the photoelectric effect? I believe they had issues with the kind of non-falsifiable metaphysical arguments put forward to try to explain or understand quantum mechanics.

The analogy is that regardless of sociopolitical setting, people in power use their non-evidence-based opinions to suppress developments which they consider to be against their ideology.

Do you claim Ballmer had no ideology?

Re: The purge of German science in 1933

#107

Post by Anotheroneagain »

perihelions wrote: post #8

One aspect of this that fascinated me is Nazi Germany's "physics denialism" (?) — the reactionary response to the modern physics revolutions of the early 20th century. (I.e. the twin revolutions of quantum physics and of relativity). It was a much weirder response than simply an attack on physicists who happened to be Jewish humans. Fields of physics were conspiratorially labelled as having a "Jewish" character, and…

[flagged]

Re: The purge of German science in 1933

#108

Post by Anotheroneagain »

xyzelement wrote: post #12
foobarian wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The depictions of "wrong physics" in the 3 Body Problem show kinda remind me of that. Any kind of thinking that had even a whiff of going against the party line would cause problems for the author. What a weird time. I wonder if it's similar to how we look down on e.g. string theory, except I don't know if that's an apples to apples comparison given that we haven't seen any string theory apples yet :-)

FWIW in the current time we definitely encounter "wrong physics" in places where science and politics intersect. EG - a scientist can easily get smacked down for being "a climate change denialist" or an "antivaxer" or a similar unpalatable label way before the merits of their effort are evaluated.

FWIW in the current time we definitely encounter "wrong physics" in places where science and politics intersect.

We find them where they intersect with actual reality, because it's all just nonsense. Electrons and photons are not real. You won't ever get your quantum computer (at least not in that way), because the physics isn't real.

Re: The purge of German science in 1933

#109

Post by ctrw »

perihelions wrote: post #8

One aspect of this that fascinated me is Nazi Germany's "physics denialism" (?) — the reactionary response to the modern physics revolutions of the early 20th century. (I.e. the twin revolutions of quantum physics and of relativity). It was a much weirder response than simply an attack on physicists who happened to be Jewish humans. Fields of physics were conspiratorially labelled as having a "Jewish" character, and…

[flagged]

Re: The purge of German science in 1933

#110

Post by ctrw »

CogitoCogito wrote: post #104
carlosjobim wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the end it seems both "sides" were wrong on this. The vaccines didn't protect people from getting covid, but they also didn't kill them.

> The vaccines didn't protect people from getting covid What do you mean by this? The vaccines absolutely decreased the likelihood of getting and the severity of Covid.

[flagged]
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