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| ▲ | UncleMeat 2 days ago | parent [-] | | Hossenfelder is not really comparable to Collier. Collier's video is critical of string theory as a testable framework but she ultimately still supports people who do research in string theory. Most of her criticism is with media coverage of string theory, not the research or the researchers. Hossenfelder has gone off the "the physics establishment is all idiots and they are suppressing the real physics" deep end and has converted specific complaints into trashing the entire field. | | |
| ▲ | athrowaway3z 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | I'm not a fan of Hossenfelder, especially for casting quacks like Weinstein, but AFAICT she isn't about "suppressing the real physics" but more of a "establishment physics is wasting money and time, and a lot is equally bad/good as some alternative physics." | | |
| ▲ | Levitating 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | I think here more recent takes are not nearly as nuanced. | | |
| ▲ | vjvjvjvjghv a day ago | parent [-] | | She proves my theory that people who are successful on social media will lose their minds over time. It’s too easy to fall into the contrarian or cheerleading trap because there is too much money and fame in it. Being nuanced is boring and doesn’t sell |
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| ▲ | UncleMeat 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | A year ago that might have been the case. Her more recent stuff is fairly dire. I believe that the algorithm encourages her and channels like hers to become more and more conspiratorial and less and less nuanced. | |
| ▲ | raverbashing 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Yeah I think most of what (negative) people attribute to her is mostly her being hopelessly German. Most, but not all | | |
| ▲ | Levitating 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Don't agree, she spreads misinformation, she's disrespectful to other scientists and basically has resorted to just claiming that everything in academics is wrong. YouTube fame has completely radicalized her. | |
| ▲ | vjvjvjvjghv a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | I am German and I don’t think so. She is just another influencer who is living in her little social media bubble. |
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| ▲ | Levitating 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Collier made a video fairly recently where she showed disappointment that her videos are watched by people who also watch Hossenfelder. https://youtu.be/miJbW3i9qQc | |
| ▲ | hn_throwaway_99 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Most of her criticism is with media coverage of string theory, not the research or the researchers. I pretty strongly disagree with that categorization of Collier's video, as it makes it sound like string theorists were innocent bystanders and "the big bad media" just ran overboard. I think she puts the blame squarely on string theorists (e.g. "celebrity string theorists who wrote all these books") as constantly hyping up the field with promises of "in a decade it will be amazing" - a phrase she uses to great dramatic effect throughout the video - despite never acknowledging the fact that it fails miserably at making testable predictions. When she says "they lied to us", the "they" she's clearly talking about are specific researchers in the field (which she names), and the string research community more broadly, who are hyping up their field, not just "the media". | |
| ▲ | tejohnso 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | I thought her rant about bullshit papers was pretty convincing and poignant. | | |
| ▲ | 20k 2 days ago | parent [-] | | The problem with sabine is that she's become the worst person to make a correct point for the wrong reasons If you do research it becomes pretty apparent that a high number papers are not great. There's varying issues, but a big one is that the funding model incentivises pumping out papers which are often of low quality, researching whatever happens to be in vogue at the moment Literally everyone I've ever talked to in research as a frank conversation knows that this is a massive problem, but nobody wants to talk about it publicly. Research funding is already completely screwed as it is, and researchers are incredibly aware of how fragile their livelihoods are Its clearly leading to a big reduction in the quality of the literature. I went on a replication spree recently and found that a pretty decent chunk of the field I was working in was completely unreplicable by me, with a few papers that I strongly suspect 'massaged' their results for various reasons I wish someone would talk about this who wasn't also in bed with right wing grifters, and was actually credible. We need someone more like ben goldacre for physics Sabine's most interesting content is the paper reviews, and where she sticks to actually examining the evidence - but it makes up a tiny fraction of what she produces these days, and her support for some truly grim figures is just gross | | |
| ▲ | tejohnso 19 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Your paragraphs two, three and four are exactly what Sabine is communicating. So much so that it almost sounds like you pulled a transcript from one of her videos. I don't think you're describing "the" problem with Sabine. She's not what you want her to be but that's a you problem. You're describing your particular problem with Sabine. I appreciate that she's doing a lot to bring attention to the real issue despite your claim that she is supporting grim figures. I know about the problem because of her work, but I have no idea who Ben goldacre is. Also no idea what you mean by supporting grim figures. I checked to see if she has come out in support of Jeffrey Epstein or something crazy like that, but no. | | |
| ▲ | UncleMeat 14 hours ago | parent [-] | | > I checked to see if she has come out in support of Jeffrey Epstein or something crazy like that, but no. Bro she blurbed "The War on Science," a book stuffed with racists and sex pests complaining that they lost their jobs for falling in love with their graduate students, writing them love poetry on tumblr, and then kicking them out of their research group because they could stand to be near them. Or for saying that they "don't shy away from the word superior" when discussing white people being better at running societies and lying about the GPAs of black students. Or for taking joking photographs with human remains. And yes, the authors of the book include people who provided support in the legal defense of jeffrey epstein. | | |
| ▲ | 20k 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | Yep, this exactly. Its completely unacceptable And its not something that's just a 'you' problem - if you want the actual underlying issues in physics to be fixed, its a massive issue that the spokesperson for fixing those problem currently may be a bigot, or at the very least endorses bigots and sex pests. Beyond just being generally completely unacceptable, it allows everyone to completely dismiss whatever is being said very easily For the other poster, ben goldacre is someone that's become very well known for making effectively the same points as sabine, but within the pharmaceutical industry. They sat down and basically wrote for decades about how the testing was absolutely broken, multiple books, a column, and producing lots of work on how broken studies were in medicine and talking to anyone that would listen - and as a result, they were actual able to enact effective change. It was a huge win for evidence based science! Sabine is not someone who can achieve that in physics - her videos would be much more effective if they contained actionable content and concrete analyses of the issues. I'd have a tonne of respect for her if what she did was publish papers or videos showing the degree to which the literature was broken, analysing funding, conducting interviews (even if anonymous) with researchers, looking through examples of bad papers and explaining the problems to a lay audience. Producing a mixture of for-scientist and for-lay person material to break the figures down, in a way that produces a compelling argument Instead we at best get specific examples plucked out of the air. I know she isn't massively overgeneralising the issue from my own personal experience, but she presents a terribly uncompelling argument as to why there are problems. Where's the data? Why are you writing book blurbs for sex offenders instead of writing papers? That's why I've come around increasingly to the idea that she's a grifter, even though I used to enjoy her content (before it went out of the window) and think that she does likely genuinely care about the underlying problem to some degree. Its closer to ragebait than anything that feels productive now unfortunately. I don't think its even necessarily on purpose on her end - the right wing has a way of sucking in anyone on the fringes and giving them a home even without them knowing, but also why give her the benefit of the doubt? |
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| ▲ | BurningFrog a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | If I understood this, you agree with Sabine, but since she's "in bed with right wing grifters" she should not be listened to? This is not very persuasive. | | |
| ▲ | 20k a day ago | parent [-] | | I agree with a part of Sabine's overall output, but she's increasingly misidentifying some of the problems and the solutions because she's drifted too far towards the grifters To a large degree if you're trying to successfully trying to push for change, it really matters that the person pushing for it is credible. Someone like ben goldacre is able to credibly make a strong push for change within medicine because they've maintained credibility, someone like sabine makes the situation worse because they've chucked it away | | |
| ▲ | BurningFrog a day ago | parent [-] | | Maybe it's like this: Sabine's has a day job as a Youtuber, and she makes her videos from that perspective. She speaks her mind, makes a decent living, and educates some science nerds on the way. Seems pretty nice. From the perspective of accomplishing institutional change in the academic physics world, this is does nothing. The institutional powers don't react at all to a complaining influencer with an Einstein doll. And I suspect she's perfectly fine with that. Overturning the Physics establishment is a near impossible task. I would leave that for those mad enough to try. |
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