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The contrarian physics podcast subculture

timothynguyen.org

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Re: The contrarian physics podcast subculture

#91

Post by vjvjvjvjghv »

cycomanic wrote: post #46

I have written previously about Sabine. I think it's fascinating to follow her trajectory. Initially I quite liked her show and my impression was that it gave valuable insights and critique of some branches of modern theoretical physics. At some point I noticed that her shows were starting to significantly diverge from her area of expertise and she was weighing in on much broader topics, something in her early shows…

My observation is that anybody who engages a lot on social media is at a very high risk of losing their mind over time. They get caught up in these weird bubbles of constant controversy and group think bubbles . I have seen this with friends but also with more famous people.

For content creators there is a lot of economic incentive. Real science is kind of boring and mundane while controversy is exciting and sells.

Re: The contrarian physics podcast subculture

#92

Post by themafia »

cycomanic wrote: post #73
NitpickLawyer wrote: post #37

I happened to watch Sabine's video on the "how dare you.." drama, and I have to say that reading the blog and watching that video don't match. At least that's not what I got out of the video. From memory: Sabine says she's only doing the video because she is a real-life friend of Eric's . So that's from the start an admission that she's biased. Then she goes off to say that his paper is probably bullshit. Then she go…

>From memory: Sabine says she's only doing the video because she is a real-life friend of Eric's. So that's from the start an admission that she's biased. Then she goes off to say that his paper is probably bullshit. Then she goes back to her "but so is the vast majority of theoretical research, nowadays", and she argues it's weird that scientists have no issues making fun of Weinstein but not of their own colleagues…

> "everything else is bullshit so you might as well believe this ...".

I think she's saying "everything else is bullshit so there's no mechanism to rightly determine where to spend the majority of your efforts." Or more appropriately "the existence of alternative theories do not detract from correct theories and never have."

From an Engineering point of view it's perfectly logical. If you're stuck you might as well cast a wider net to see if you can shake any new ideas or approaches loose. Is Weinstein's theory of everything correct? Of course not. Are there ideas within it that might lead in a better direction? I don't think you can conclusively say one way or another until you actually do the work.

> And how is she qualified to judge?

I don't have to fully understand your tool to know that it simply doesn't work in all the places you claim it does. A better question is what are her biases in reaching this conclusion?

Re: The contrarian physics podcast subculture

#93

Post by [deleted] »

cycomanic wrote: post #46

I have written previously about Sabine. I think it's fascinating to follow her trajectory. Initially I quite liked her show and my impression was that it gave valuable insights and critique of some branches of modern theoretical physics. At some point I noticed that her shows were starting to significantly diverge from her area of expertise and she was weighing in on much broader topics, something in her early shows…

[deleted]

Re: The contrarian physics podcast subculture

#95

Post by krunck »

"Scientific disagreements are intricate matters that require the attention of highly trained experts. However, for laypersons to be able to make up their own minds on such issues, they have to rely on proxies for credibility such as persuasiveness and conviction. This is the vulnerability that contrarians exploit, as they are often skilled in crafting the optics and rhetoric to support their case."

Touché.

Re: The contrarian physics podcast subculture

#96

Post by WhitneyLand »

gwd wrote: post #82

There's something strange about this whole narrative. I don't know anything about the science or personalities at all (except for having seen a number of Hosselfelder's videos, and what she said in her recent video about Weinstein). But here in this blog post we have story after story of people who seemed really enthusiastic about talking to Nguyen, and then later ghosted him or changed the topic of conversation or s…

This is supposed to be about science.

Tim is the only side willing to publish papers and let them be peer reviewed.

He’s also the only one willing to engage on the merits of the debate. Eric has/will not.

Re: The contrarian physics podcast subculture

#97

Post by shermantanktop »

dustingetz wrote: post #74
cycomanic wrote: post #46

I have written previously about Sabine. I think it's fascinating to follow her trajectory. Initially I quite liked her show and my impression was that it gave valuable insights and critique of some branches of modern theoretical physics. At some point I noticed that her shows were starting to significantly diverge from her area of expertise and she was weighing in on much broader topics, something in her early shows…

i kinda think we should blame the youtube alg for this, the algs set incentives which shape behavior at scale, and it’s not like one can make a living doing actual physics these days

By default, people have moral agency for what they do. Exceptions exist, of course, but “I wanted to make more money” is not one of them.

Re: The contrarian physics podcast subculture

#98

Post by mc32 »

cycomanic wrote: post #46

I have written previously about Sabine. I think it's fascinating to follow her trajectory. Initially I quite liked her show and my impression was that it gave valuable insights and critique of some branches of modern theoretical physics. At some point I noticed that her shows were starting to significantly diverge from her area of expertise and she was weighing in on much broader topics, something in her early shows…

On the other hand "establishment" science get their hairs up when she criticizes them, so there is that.

She has had valid criticisms of the industry -and it is an entrenched industry like others. Basically the momentum that keeps something going beyond its usefulness but keeping it going keeps the money rolling in.

I admire her willingness to make those people irked even though it brings flak along with it.

Re: The contrarian physics podcast subculture

#99

Post by gdbsjjdn »

NitpickLawyer wrote: post #88
antithesizer wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Sabine is european, we kinda have some experience with alternatives to capitalism here, so... Yeah. That's not a valid criticism, on anyone. Just because you get points online for saying capitalism bad doesn't mean it's not the best out of everything we've tried so far...

[flagged]

Re: The contrarian physics podcast subculture

#100

Post by cycomanic »

NitpickLawyer wrote: post #81
cycomanic wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>From memory: Sabine says she's only doing the video because she is a real-life friend of Eric's. So that's from the start an admission that she's biased. Then she goes off to say that his paper is probably bullshit. Then she goes back to her "but so is the vast majority of theoretical research, nowadays", and she argues it's weird that scientists have no issues making fun of Weinstein but not of their own colleagues…

> But that's the thing, she is essentially equating Weinstein's theory to all other theoretical physics. That's the thing that the blog argues, but not the thing I (a complete outsider in this whole thing) got from her video. Her argument was more about how "the establishment" treats this paper vs their own bullshit papers. The way I saw the video it was more of a comment on academia's own problems than weinstein's "…

Someone else posted this video of some physicists discussing the Weinstein video and it seems they say the same thing, she is creating a false equivalency.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oipI5TQ54tA

Regarding her other points, she is definitely on the bandwagon of peddling "all academic research is bullshit". There are plenty of examples of that. Now as often there is some grain of truth underneath her points, but she is disingenuous in here arguments.

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