I don’t think it’s appropriate to use anonymity to criticize published research.

My guess is that because of the (assumed?) politics of the people involved, the anonymous author could have been a target because of their nationality or ethnicity.

I think the problem is that this field is poorly understood by 98% of the commenters, so it’s impossible to decide who is wrong or right based on the science alone, so even neutral parties like Sabine Hossfender are now getting their comeuppance for being on the “wrong” side of political groupthink.

It’s hard to trust people when anonymity is involved.

▲

tptacek 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

Anonymity is a red herring here, since the original GU critique has a named and significant co-author (the author of this post).

	▲	nis0s 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		Note that I am not saying that what this author is saying is necessarily wrong. But I don’t like the inclusion of the anonymous author, so I made a point of it. I think there’s lots of lived experience that led to the inclusion of the Sixth Amendment into the U.S. constitution, so I don’t see why it should be ignored for other fields.

▲

canadiantim 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Anonymity is a great way to criticize published research because it necessarily focuses attention on the content of the critique rather than reputation

▲

arduanika 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Is nis0s your real name? Why not?

Anons criticize published research all day long on X and other social media. Should they be banned? Or just the ones you don't like?

Btw, there's nothing in this article about an anon criticizing research that was "published" in the academic sense. There's the critique that Tim and his anonymous co-author did of a YouTube video. Is that the "published research" you're referring to? Is the 95% of a YouTube comment section that is anonymous operating in bad faith?

> this field is poorly understood by 98% of the commenters, so it’s impossible to decide who is wrong or right based on the science alone

Which is why you need trustworthy proxies. To quote TFA:

> 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. Indeed, Weinstein and Hossenfelder’s strong personalities and their sowing of distrust in institutions enable them to persuade others of the correctness of their views when they deviate from those of experts. Thus, I include this section to show that even if one were to rely on social cues alone, there is in fact no controversy about the illegitimacy of Geometric Unity among those who are close to Weinstein or who are qualified to judge. The success of physics grifters has relied on the fact that they make more noise than those who have quietly moved on.

Now as to your defense of Hossenfelder...in that process of filtering out the noise, we rely on intermediaries. When the intermediaries get it wrong, or waffle about matters that should be clear, their reputation rightly suffers. You can call this "comeuppance" if you like, but it's simply a natural part of the sensemaking process.

	▲	nis0s 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		If I was reaching out to academics and public figures to criticize someone else’s published work, I would use my real name. Otherwise it’s all a game, and we’re just being tools for someone else’s benefit. Anyone can also then just make up a story about who the anonymous author is, and spread any number of disinformation and misinformation takes. Is that good for science or any scientific discourse? I think it creates less drama when people are cool-headed and don’t assume enemies of everyone. Is there a legitimate fear of mob justice from political opponents, or some type of covert mafia action instead? Sure, but remember that this climate is so polarized that anyone who gets “cancelled” now will instead become a hero for one faction or another. So, you have a real chance of becoming either AOC or MTG in this extremely polarized political climate instead of becoming cancelled. But I don’t care about politics per se, I just don’t like how extremism has permeated every sphere of life. So how to conduct truth-seeking under these circumstances? It seems to me that the best course of action is to instead have serious discussions, like workshops. It would make sense to also invite your opponents, and other neutral parties from the field, and try to understand whatever the issue is with an open mind. That said, from what I can tell Hossfender has criticized GU as a theory. But it seems she’s being castigated for not breaking ties with people who are political enemies of some groups.

▲

BriggyDwiggs42 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Sabine is in no way neutral. She’s made the journey over the last couple of years to the kinda “academia is terrible, string theory is a scam” grift that her buddy Weinstein did.

▲

ecshafer 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

When I was still in the physics world, almost every high energy guy I talked to thought string theory was a scam. It seems like everyone that wasn't a string theorist thought it was scam. I don't know enough of the topic to know one way or the other, but it seemed a common idea.

	▲	BriggyDwiggs42 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		I don’t know the same people, so I can’t really speak to common sentiments in the industry. I think the issue with the way that Sabine goes about it is that she uses string theory as a cudgel against the entirety of academia. She kind of frames it as though string theory is the only game in town, and as though they’re all deliberate liars or stupid. To me, it reads the same way any us-versus-them grifter message does, which is unfortunate because a couple years ago I would watch all her videos. That was back when she would just explain physics concepts and trash talk quantum computing.

▲

nis0s 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

At one point there was a New York Times article which derided a scientist who said that we could send a rocket to the moon.

As such I don’t care about contrarians, fountainheads, or mouth pieces. Either you build something, or use knowledge that’s not directly related to build something, or you don’t.

▲

kevin_thibedeau 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

She's trying to get into the populist Sagan, Greene, Kaku, Tyson type pundit game.

▲

crinkly 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

It depends who you are picking on and in which field. From direct experience some fields are very well organised when it comes to protecting their lack of scientific integrity.

Gotta bag those conference expenses!