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Comment by piker | Hacker News Reader

Eric Weinstein is a clown, like, literally.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Weinstein#Physics

This seems to say his proposed "Theory of everything" is lacking in several regards and not a good candidate for scientific or academic research. I don't see how that makes him a clown. He's interested in physics, educated in it, and made some effort to contribute that doesn't seem to have panned out. That strikes me as laudable behavior and not like a "clown".

Perhaps you'll say he is a clown because he really believed in his own theory or tried to promote his work. Again, I'd disagree. He should believe in his work, if he didn't believe in it he should do something else. If he does believe in it then advocating for his own seems natural and appropriate.

Regardless, this tweet is about YouTube censoring a discussion on the usefulness of ivermectin for covid patients. Eric Weinstein's physics ambitions hardly seem related.

The same could be said in praise of every crank. Presumably if he's a crank about physics, he could also be one about Covid.

The same should be said for everyone who makes a good faith effort to contribute to human knowledge. Trying to contribute in a productive way is laudable.

As I understand it Eric has his theory, he wrote it up, and published it on his YouTube channel or a similar platform and a few interested people critiqued it. Great. It would be one thing if he was emailing the editors at Nature every week with a new crazy idea, that would be "crank" territory. That doesn't seem like what happened.

Regardless, this tweet is about Eric's brother who had a conversation with a doctor about possible use of ivermectin to treat Covid. Entirely separate from Eric Weinstein's physics credibility.

So now you have to be 100% correct about every field of everything to have any opinion? I'd love for that standard to be applied to anyone religious.

There's no way I'd let that Christian doctor try to save my dying child, their beliefs about a zombie savior that flew to heaven are "crank" like so they're disqualified.

Seriously - a crank about physics? The majority of those people are crazy in some regard, that's why they love physics!

He has a PhD in physics from MIT....

There are many such types who reformulate various types of physics from a mathematical pov -- these attempts rarely have any deep upside... but it is a hobby of mathematical physicists.

Nothing "crank" about it.

His PhD is from Harvard.

  "he could also be one about Covid."

It's not his video that was taken down, so even if true, it's irrelevant.

This isn't a great line of reasoning. We have evidence that even the smartest individuals can be exceptional in one field while being regarded as cranks in others. Failures and mistakes are inevitable as you try doing more things and branching out. Taking on this mindset forces brilliant individuals to remain in the safe lane without experimenting, potentially stifling progress. The expectation of perfection seems like an unreasonably high bar. Is it not better to try and fail than to have not tried at all? Perhaps the broader issue is that there's insufficient interdisciplinary communication and collaboration.

For example, the Nobel laureate Linus Pauling made outstanding contributions to chemistry in explaining the nature of the chemical bond. He also believed vitamin C could help cure or prevent cancer, for which there doesn't appear to be much evidence.

The term Weinstein prefers for himself is "entertainer": https://geometricunity.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/Geometric...

> The Author is not a physicist and is no longer an active academician, but is an Entertainer and host of The Portal podcast. This work of entertainment is a draft of work in progress which is the property of the author and thus may not be built upon, renamed, or profited from without express permission of the author.

I don't think he much cares for labels, a form of gatekeeping, and so he's likely trolling if he calls himself an entertainer.

From the linked Wikipedia article:

* Eight years passed until Weinstein released a draft paper of Geometric Unity on April 1, 2021. The paper qualifies that the author "is not a physicist" but an "entertainer"*

By his own admission definitely more clown than physicist.

“They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.”

― Carl Sagan, Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science

I didn’t realize clowns weren’t allowed on YouTube, I’m surprised so much discussion on this thread is whether Eric is right or wrong and not whether YouTube is right to remove him.

You mean figuratively, not literally.

Love it when Wikipedia states something as authoritative fact and then links to a biased opinion site by an uncredentialed author.

I've banned this account because you've been creating various accounts to troll HN (or borderline-troll, which still isn't ok). Can you please not do that? We're trying for more thoughtful conversation here.

If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

Who owes his entire career to platforms like Youtube

Unless you show me a picture of him dressed in a clown suit, no he is not literally a clown.

Not as clownish as including an unnecessary “like”, a filler word for speech and therefore completely unnecessary in a written comment.

See what I did there? Its called an ad-hominem, an attack to the person instead of the argument. Thats what you did when you attacked Eric Weinstein instead of his argument.

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