"The crisis in physics is real: Science is failing" by Sabine Hossenfelder

[Lucasxp64]

 

[Lucasxp64]

Summarizing: She says that physicists have been doing research in dumb ways that don't work because of rampant institutional corruption and group-think. Epistemologically lobotomized.

[Hojo]

Scientists are lying to keep a job and their own sanity.

[Leo Gura]

What's this? The myth of science?

[Raze]

I believe academia is going to fall apart, someone needs to try and create a new one.

[diegogomez42]

Science does not exist until we realize it in direct awareness. And then the resolution changes depending on a whole range of factors. Or is this post not specific enough? Because you can substitute science for any other object and the same is true in relation to what i wrote? 

[Husseinisdoingfine]

The innocent days of Newton and Einstein are long gone.

[lostingenosmaze]

And of course Professor Dave immediately nuthugs and defends the institutions:

 

[Sea]

I think these complaints come from people having a higher expectation for academic research jobs than they do for industry jobs. As if academia is supposed to be some "pure" pursuit of knowledge.

It sounds like academia has bullshit just like any other job. Scientists act like salespeople with their research proposals? Okay, the corporate world is all about sales as well. Aside from actual salespeople, anyone working in industry who has an idea will have to convince their boss/coworkers of the validity of their idea.

If scientists were allowed to research whatever they wanted without the "sales" part, people would also be complaining about research funding going to waste. So what's the alternative?

[Carl-Richard]

6 hours ago, lostingenosmaze said:

And of course Professor Dave immediately nuthugs and defends the institutions:

How is he so predictable? 

[Jodistrict]

Technically, string theory and multiverse theories aren’t science.  Because a scientific theory needs to form a hypothesis that can be refuted or validated through observation.  However, it is basically impossible to construct experiments to verify any of these theories.  The dimensions of string theory are just too small and you can’t go outside your own universe to verify another universe.  So, these theories are really mathematics or philosophy.  Apparently, string theory produces interesting mathematical results.  So it is of some value to mathematics.

As for particle physics, they are bumping up against real constraints in reality.  They keep finding new particles and don’t know if there is an underlying mechanism that explains it.  Also, super colliders are extremely expensive so is it worth spending billions of dollars to find a new particle which doesn’t really contribute to a furtherance of knowledge?   This is a complex issue but it is real and not due to corruption in the system.

[Leo Gura]

On 11/8/2024 at 6:01 AM, Carl-Richard said:

How is he so predictable? 

A stage Orange zombie.

[Leo Gura]

On 11/8/2024 at 10:50 AM, Jodistrict said:

Technically, string theory and multiverse theories aren’t science.

Technically they are science.

Because science is not limited to any simplistic algorithm or simple-minded empiricism.

You have no idea what theories can and cannot be verified in the future.

At one point in history top scientists thought that the distance of stars could never be verified.

You are falling into the trap of the myth of science.

Edited November 15 by Leo Gura

[Jodistrict]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

Technically they are science.

Because science is not limited to any simplistic algorithm or simple-minded empiricism.

You have no idea what theories can and cannot be verified in the future.

At one point in history top scientists thought that the distance of stars could never be verified.

You are falling into the trap of the myth of science.

As long as the theories aren't verified by observation, they remain speculation and can't be considered scientific knowledge.  The other problem is that since there is no observable data, there is no way to guide the theories to greater accuracy to reality, but they just go off in tangents that are mathematically interesting.  Hence they become more pure mathematics.   If someone in the future finds a clever way to make an experiment then things change.  

[Leo Gura]

11 minutes ago, Jodistrict said:

As long as the theories aren't verified by observation, they remain speculation and can't be considered scientific knowledge. 

No

Quote

If someone in the future finds a clever way to make an experiment then things change.  

No. Things don't need to change. All of it has always been core to science.

You are making the mistake of cherrypicking science looking backwards, counting as valid only those things which got verified. But that's not science. That's only half of science. Full science must include all the stuff that failed to validate.

Science is not just a collection of all the right answers. Science is the entire process of understanding reality, including all the dead ends. This is what buffoons like Prof Dave don't understand.

Edited November 15 by Leo Gura

[vibv]

2 hours ago, Jodistrict said:

As long as the theories aren't verified by observation, they remain speculation and can't be considered scientific knowledge.  The other problem is that since there is no observable data, there is no way to guide the theories to greater accuracy to reality, but they just go off in tangents that are mathematically interesting.  Hence they become more pure mathematics.   If someone in the future finds a clever way to make an experiment then things change.  

Lol. In your view what Einstein did back then wasn't science until someone proved it? Come on..

It has to be falsifiable.

Edited November 15 by vibv

[Scholar]

10 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

No

No. Things don't need to change. All of it has always been core to science.

You are making the mistake of cherrypicking science looking backwards, counting as valid only those things which got verified. But that's not science. That's only half of science. Full science must include all the stuff that failed to validate.

Science is not just a collection of all the right answers. Science is the entire process of understanding reality, including all the dead ends. This is what buffoons like Prof Dave don't understand.

The irony is that most of science actually is that which was falsified. By falsifying things, we get closer to the truth.

[James Accolade]

In my head science is about approximating to reality the best we can based on current resources and tools (considering mathematics a tool). Now if I have two self-consistent theories about something. How do I know which theory is more scientific? If what i assumed in the beginning is true its whichever one can explain more of reality better. Like how we say Einstein's gravity is more accurate than Newton's gravity and yet both are considered scientific. But lets say if I keep on modifying the Newtonian framework such that it matches whatever results einstein's gravity predicts. Now again which theory is more scientific? Or is the whole thing Science and im being silly for asking the question of which theory is more scientific

[Jodistrict]

11 hours ago, vibv said:

Lol. In your view what Einstein did back then wasn't science until someone proved it? Come on..

It has to be falsifiable.

Einstein knew about the Mickelson-Morley experiment.   Einstein knew all of the relevant facts of physics up to that date.  He used his brilliant mind to form a new paradigm that explained what was going on.   Nothing he did contradicts what I am talking about.   Einstein was guided by experimental evidence and formed predictable theories.  

String theory has dozens of competing mathematical theories.  How are they going to select the theories that actually align with reality without having some experimental evidence of the way things actually work?

Edited November 15 by Jodistrict

[Jodistrict]

13 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

No

No. Things don't need to change. All of it has always been core to science.

You are making the mistake of cherrypicking science looking backwards, counting as valid only those things which got verified. But that's not science. That's only half of science. Full science must include all the stuff that failed to validate.

Science is not just a collection of all the right answers. Science is the entire process of understanding reality, including all the dead ends. This is what buffoons like Prof Dave don't understand.

So the phlogiston theory of oxygen is still science?      I have studied the history of science and understand how it works and that there are dead ends for the simple reason that they are investigating the unknown which requires a guessing process.   When we look at the final results we are looking from the vantage point of hindsight reasoning.   My concern with string theory is that at this point there seems to be no possibility of forming experiments to verify truth because of the extremely small sizes of the strings.   The basic methodology of science includes empirical observation.  If there is no possibility of empirical observation, then it nevers goes beyond speculation.