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Comment by edwardbernays | Hacker News Reader

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She certainly fell into the rage bait trap, and I don't really like her these days, but this video seems fine - no ranting, just a nice piece of science communication.

Rings true for my impression too. In the end, she’s a YouTuber now, for better or worse, but still puts out what look like thoughtful and informative enough videos, whatever personal vendettas she holds grudges over.

I suspect for many who’ve touched the academic system, a popular voice that isn’t anti-intellectual or anti-expertise (or out to trumpet their personal theory), but critical of the status quo, would be viewed as a net positive.

Interesting, her videos have never struck me as contrarian for the sake of it, she seems genuinely frustrated at a lack of substantial progress in physics and the plethora of garbage papers. Though I imagine it must be annoying to be a physicist and have someone constantly telling you you're not good enough, but that itself is kind of part of the scientific process too.

My biggest complaint is sometimes it seems like she will take some low quality paper and just dunk on it. This feels a bit click-baity/strawman-y if nobody was being convinced by the paper in the first place

[I am not a physicist so probably can't really evaluate the whole thing neutrally]

What's the downside of that? Shouldn't a bit of public criticality help raise the publication standards?

Attacking your opponent's weakest argument is easy. Attacking their strong arguments is what takes skill.

If the paper is getting a lot of press that is one thing, but if its languishing in obscurity, it just feels a bit self-indulgant

It sounds like you're saying that her opponents are the entirety of physics researchers in academia. But isn't it that her opponents are those particular researchers that are publishing poor work, and that she's attacking the strongest arguments of those? Or am I missing something?

And I don't accept the "languishing in obscurity" argument - if a published work is poor, we should still critique it (by publishing a letter to the editorial, or any other manner), rather than just let it pollute the space. There have been many cases of obscure works being picked up decades hence, and especially now with AI "deep research", it's easier and easier for bad work to slip in - so I believe that science communicators should do what they can to add the appropriate commentary to such works. And if it seems like "easy" work, then all the better.

The issue is that many of her videos argue that funding for particle physics should instead go into foundations and interpretations of quantum mechanics, specifically research completely identical to what she works on.

This is not helped by the fact that she pushes an interpretation of quantum mechanics viewed as fringe at best. Her takes on modern physics seem typically disingenuous or biased.

Could she be correct in her assertion? Are we spending more on areas of physics which don’t require it?

She's correct. If you want theory of everything energy you need accelerator the size of our Solar system. Source: Stephen Hawking's Universe in a nutshell.

IDK why I'd want to listen to physicists about this result, which is mathematical rather than physical or scientific. John Baez, sure, he's in the intersection between math and physics. But physics in the broader sense is an empirical science where truth comes from experiments. This result is the opposite of that.

We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44439593 and marked it off topic.

> Professor Dave's videos on how Sabine Hossenfelder is actively contributing to an atmosphere of anti-intellectualism

I feel like the core of intellectualism is accepting criticism, including criticism you disagree with. I find some of Sabine's videos to be a bit click-baity, but they are usually logically coherent, even the ones that aren't convincing. She's not just a crazy person yelling at the sky.

Science is not religion. Its ok for people to feel certain research programs are off track. That doesn't neccesarily mean they are right, but its ok to have opinions

It's ok to have opinions. It's ok to have criticisms. Claiming that the whole of academia is failing is not a measured criticism. Claiming that the whole of physics academia is failing is not a measured criticism. Claiming that "all of science is bullshit" (which she does, in those exact words) is not a measured criticism.

Maybe it's not measured criticism, but that doesn't mean that something is true or false. Today there are serious problems with academia and criticism in general. Also Cancel-Culture nowadays is big.

I know enough good scientists that don't work in academia today. And I've seen a clan of religious nuts (like flat-earthers) working in bio-science academia. If people claim that academia nowadays is worth something I'd add a big "citation needed"...

For physics maybe there is some hope. I still know some good guys working there... But there is e.g. atmosphere physics... if you look deeply you'll find more failure there than non failure.. The rot for sure has already started...

I haven't read everything Sabine has ever wrote, but "all of science is bullshit" seems much stronger than anything i've seen her say. Where is the original context she said that?

Prof. Sabine Hossenfelder is a pretty clear-headed communicator. I've been following her for nearly 20 years, almost since she started writing the Backreaction blog.

Her criticisms boil down to:

1. Modern science spends perhaps too much time on frivolous research that doesn't lead to anything. This very much applies to the theoretical physics and the endless series of attempts at ToE. But it's not limited to theoretical physics.

2. Modern scientific communication is often misleading and exaggerated.

3. The internal workings of scientific institutions are broken.

The challenge is that she’s right on all three of these major points … to some extent. Unfortunately at times she seems eager to fling babies without even encountering bathwater.

You are making her arguments for her. We should not "boil down" the arguments she makes. This is some of the arguments she makes. She does not ground it in particular, measured criticisms, aimed at particular researchers or departments. She does not provide solutions. She uses this broadly sweeping argument as a way to cast judgment on fields of research she is not an expert in. We should evaluate the arguments that she makes, not the arguments we would like her to have made. This includes not just a dispassionate listing of the truth claims she makes, but the specific rhetoric she employs. Is modern science flawed? Absolutely. Should we be saying "scientists are not to be trusted" as a general, categorical statement? No, that's laughable, and dangerously anti-intellectual.

> She does not provide solutions. She uses this broadly sweeping argument as a way to cast judgment on fields of research she is not an expert in.

Can you provide examples? I guess the most glaring one is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htb_n7ok9AU

And I actually can't disagree with it entirely.

> Should we be saying "scientists are not to be trusted" as a general, categorical statement?

Here's the thing. She's saying: "Scientists are not going to be trusted at this rate if the situation doesn't change".

Heck, this is literally happening right now with the NIH and the NSF.

I've never heard about that nobody before, but I've watched about 10 mins. of the first video you posted and it is a terrible critique to Sabine; it actually makes Sabine's points look reasonable.

He just doesn't get the arguments she's making, and "defeats" them with laughable strawmans. But anyway, it's YouTube science so one shouldn't expect much.

Btw, Sabine's video on the topic of this thread is a good one, the remark is unwarranted.

You think she looks reasonable when she says "most research in the foundations of physics isn't based on sound scientific principles" with absolutely 0 meta-analyses presented as evidence? This is an extraordinary claim to make. It requires extraordinary evidence.

Missed that one. Timestamp?

8m12s

Thank you.

Cheers, and thank you for your service.

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