Sabine's early video's seemed pretty sincere, and had a lot of valid points. But later, I think the pressure of creating constant content, and moving into non-expert areas, has gotten just as pop-sci as anybody else. Still think she is on another level from Eric who will throw out any crazy idea he can if someone will listen.
The contrarian physics podcast subculture
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Re: The contrarian physics podcast subculture
#12Sabine's early video's seemed pretty sincere, and had a lot of valid points. But later, I think the pressure of creating constant content, and moving into non-expert areas, has gotten just as pop-sci as anybody else. Still think she is on another level from Eric who will throw out any crazy idea he can if someone will listen.
I think "just as pop-sci" is a bit generous. https://x.com/C_Kavanagh/status/1956336194352230570 explains it better than I can.
Sabine, I think she was just referring to how institutions can become calcified around certain ideas. The old concept that 'new' ideas need to wait for the founders of old ideas to die off. (can't remember exact quote).
Re: The contrarian physics podcast subculture
#13Sabine's early video's seemed pretty sincere, and had a lot of valid points. But later, I think the pressure of creating constant content, and moving into non-expert areas, has gotten just as pop-sci as anybody else. Still think she is on another level from Eric who will throw out any crazy idea he can if someone will listen.
Re: The contrarian physics podcast subculture
#14We live in deeply unserious times.
Re: The contrarian physics podcast subculture
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think "just as pop-sci" is a bit generous. https://x.com/C_Kavanagh/status/1956336194352230570 explains it better than I can.
I think that list applies more to Eric. He is definitely in the 'conspiracy of nefarious forces are aligned against me' camp. Sabine, I think she was just referring to how institutions can become calcified around certain ideas. The old concept that 'new' ideas need to wait for the founders of old ideas to die off. (can't remember exact quote).
"A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it"
Re: The contrarian physics podcast subculture
#16Re: The contrarian physics podcast subculture
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think "just as pop-sci" is a bit generous. https://x.com/C_Kavanagh/status/1956336194352230570 explains it better than I can.
I think that list applies more to Eric. He is definitely in the 'conspiracy of nefarious forces are aligned against me' camp. Sabine, I think she was just referring to how institutions can become calcified around certain ideas. The old concept that 'new' ideas need to wait for the founders of old ideas to die off. (can't remember exact quote).
Re: The contrarian physics podcast subculture
#18Sabine's early video's seemed pretty sincere, and had a lot of valid points. But later, I think the pressure of creating constant content, and moving into non-expert areas, has gotten just as pop-sci as anybody else. Still think she is on another level from Eric who will throw out any crazy idea he can if someone will listen.
She has gone way beyond this. She is actively undermining the entire academic scientific enterprise, even as she makes money popularizing it. It's unclear why she does this. She portrays herself as speaking truth to power, but -- much like certain actors in US public life these days -- is simply doing the easy work of tearing things down, without doing the hard work of building things.
This problem is WAY worse than even sabines says. If a scientist publishes something sketchy, even sometimes just a little bit, they might wind up sinking years of research of other people who are honest truthseeking researchers just chasing the sketchy results. These good people then burn out or flip to the dark side, only leaving rotten people. It's like a fucking market of lemons, except if becoming lemons were viral.
Re: The contrarian physics podcast subculture
#19Related: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oipI5TQ54tA "Professor Dave" interviews 6 physicists regarding Hossenfelder including one guy whose name you particle physicists in particular might recognize.
Feels good putting a face to the author of one the books that made you struggle but also enjoyed.
Re: The contrarian physics podcast subculture
#20Tim Nguyen has put an extraordinary effort into finding the truth in this entire long exchange, and it's been mostly thankless. His appearance on Decoding the Gurus was a highlight of the show's early seasons. https://decoding-the-gurus.captivate.fm/episode/special-epis... Perhaps you would agree with Weinstein and Hossenfelder that physics today is broken. But that does not in itself prove that the people peddling a…
In the absence of real data there is all sorts of groupthink and nepotism [1] but it is really beside the point. People are fighting for a prize which isn’t there. As an insider-outsider myself I have had a huge amount of contact with (invariably male) paranoid delusional people who think they’ve discovered something great in physics or math [2], it’s really a mental illness.
[1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9755046/ is the master scandal of academia
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Westley_Newman stole away a really good lab tech from the EE department at my undergrad school