Sabine Hossenfelder: Science is a Liar ... Sometimes
Added 2024-11-11 07:13:06 +0000 UTCIn this highly non-topical episode, Matt and Chris dive into the entertainingly gruff world of Sabine Hossenfelder, the German theoretical physicist and popular YouTube science communicator. Known as a joyful science curmudgeon, Sabine excels at making complex science accessible to a wide audience. Yet, there's another side to her content: one that's increasingly steeped in the YouTube algorithm’s culture-war-fueled clickbait, complete with prolific both-sidesing and even hints of her own brand of science-denialist rhetoric.
We can already imagine Sabine’s response: accusations of censorship from establishment shills trying to silence a fearless truth-teller for exposing academia’s dark underbelly. Perhaps that’s all it is—maybe Matt and Chris are aligned with BIG PHYSICS, out to quash any dissent about supersymmetry, string theory, or the academic publishing machine.
Or… maybe it’s something else. Maybe Sabine has pivoted to court the (so-hot-right-now) anti-establishment YouTube crowd, declaring that modern science has achieved nothing of value in 50 years and claiming that scientists (especially climate scientists) are too scared to challenge ideological dogmas for fear of jeopardizing their careers or funding.
It’s certainly one of those things.
Whatever the case, join Matt and Chris as they tackle this perplexing case of rhetorical indeterminacy, unpack YouTube audience dynamics, and delve into Sabine's unexpected alignments with Eric Weinstein and her 'sharp' critiques of Tucker Carlson.
Links
Sabine Hossenfelder: The crisis in physics is real: Science is failing
Sabine Hossenfelder: Fossil Fuels Don’t Come From Fossils? Tucker Carlson Fact Check
Professor Dave Explains: The Problem With Sabine Hossenfelder
Comments
It seems unlikely that a grand unified theory is on the horizon, or that "new physics" is just around the corner. Physics progressed remarkably fast from Newton to Maxwell and then Einstein and Dirac. That's a string of miracles that I don't think we can expect to happen every couple of generations. In my opinion we should keep funding physics departments so that someone is their to keep the torch lit. But that doesn't mean that societies also should keep building bigger and more expensive particle colliders in the hope that supersymmetry will be revealed in some unlikely corner of the candidate energy scales.
Joseph Sullivan
2024-11-23 00:15:54 +0000 UTCSabine Hossenfelder makes scientists and everyone on earth LOOK LIKE A BITCH AGAIN! IFYKYK
Joseph Sullivan
2024-11-22 21:06:47 +0000 UTCYep I’m not 100% sure but I get a strong feeling that the funding for carbon capture is pie in the sky stuff that functions as a bit of a fig leaf for business as usual. I think this is important context when evaluating SH’s stance that we’re all “ideologically” focused on emissions
Guruspod 2
2024-11-16 22:46:35 +0000 UTCIf you can't take pain, you've picked the wrong podcast. Some mispronounced names are endearing, compared to the stuff some of the gurus are saying. 😈
Roland Weber
2024-11-16 17:18:27 +0000 UTCLHC is experimental physics, fusion reactors would be applied physics, but I think they're still not getting out of the experimental stage. Neither is fundamental physics, from my layperson's perspective.
Roland Weber
2024-11-16 17:09:33 +0000 UTCFinally finished this one. Glad I did otherwise would have missed my shout out!
Kyle
2024-11-16 02:26:19 +0000 UTCThe real question is if all the technological spinoffs are worth the pricetag
Reinert
2024-11-15 04:09:13 +0000 UTCProbably. I hadnt really thought about it that much before listening to this. Well, aside from thinking "How the hell did they get so much money?". But now Im going to start adding a section on carbon capture to every grant application I write.
Ema Corro
2024-11-14 22:54:52 +0000 UTCI’m thinking of physicists whose ideas get used to explain the paranormal, and they may be unaware that their ideas are being used for that purpose. By the way, I’m all for people using exotic theories from physics to create science fiction works. It’s people who use these ideas to explain reality in a supernatural way that bothers me.
Linda Sears
2024-11-14 19:02:17 +0000 UTCIt irks me when rogue theoretical physicists are viewed as experts on climate change as if people whose life work in that field are not to be trusted. People in thrall with the idea that physicists are the real science geniuses, (Einstein), will not understand that science fields are highly specialized, and a theoretical physicist is probably not the best person to listen to if you want to investigate fluctuations in global temperatures throughout the past million years. Since theoretical physics is also the most likely science to attract the woo minded, finding a willing physicist to talk in ways that appear to fit one’s bizarre theories is more easily done, especially if the person asking the questions doesn’t really understand the science.
Linda Sears
2024-11-14 13:44:38 +0000 UTCSomething I've idly wondered about: are the engineering skills and knowledge involved in the LHC etc readily transferable to fusion power? Would we expect to accelerate fusion research by not just reallocating budget, but also recruiting particle collider people?
Philip Grant
2024-11-14 11:10:11 +0000 UTC> I just want to add here the main difference between pre-1980's and today: we don't have as many anomalies to explain! There were so many confusing experimental results in the past that you could easily (not actually easily) make progress because there was hard data to fit a theory/model to. Agreed. There has been a lot of work that doesn't get noticed because it's a little "boring". The field has done remarkable work measuring the many different cross-sections/branching ratios and pretty much everything's coming in on target. There are loads of SM fine measurement teams who get no love. > As it stands now, we have very little anomalies to explain. *But* and this is something Sabine literally never talks about, we *know* that the SM is an incomplete effective field theory. In my opinion, it is worth trying to push for higher energy colliders just to find new anomalies irrespective of whether or not you put credence on SUSY or $FavoriteModel. She seems to have a slightly odd view of how the colliders are used and how particle experiment is organised. Almost like a highly-specific mass prediction is passed down from theory and then experimentalists go use the machine to look for it. For anyone who wants to know: the LHC experiments yield a whole lot of collision data and there are many analysis teams downstream of this who use it. Not all are looking for new particles. Many are measuring known processes at higher energies and with greater stats. A more powerful machine will make more of the processes such as the Higgs self-coupling measurable. We might see more anomalies there or we might not. It's not all about finding a specific new particle. That would be nice though.
AdS5xS5
2024-11-14 10:28:01 +0000 UTC>> There are few experimentalists at CERN who don’t think theorists are full of shit. >This is definitely not true in my experience. Yeah, you can have this one. I'm being rather mean, flippant and hyperbolic! Replace with sceptical. > This is a bit misleading. String theory *does* do better at gravity and neutrino masses! But the hierarchy problem is indeed traded off for the landscape. Less so. It has them, so yes it does better - sort of. But to *actually* do better I would want to see that capacity in pheno alongside the other features of the SM derived from the underlying string theory. There is a disconnect there which is a rightful target of criticism. > This is just how it works? You create a parametric model. You establish priors on those parameters. You update those priors based on experimental data. If the experimental data probes the low energy region, then your posterior is shifted into higher energies. Yeah, I commented to that effect. That's just what they've got to do, but there are times when this feels a bit disingenuous and some people are a bit blatant about it. Don't hate the player hate the game I guess. I don't blame people for ambulance chasing the 750GeV bump back in 2016 either. A distinction should be made here between good hardworking phenomenologists and more bombastic theory types making bold predictions in press releases who then move the goal posts later. I realise I tarred the former with the latter here. <3 to the pheno guys out there.
AdS5xS5
2024-11-14 10:12:13 +0000 UTCThe American style debate competition is probably a reason why there are so many weird grifters out there. We should ban the format. That’s my hot take of the day.
Tobias nilsson
2024-11-14 07:12:31 +0000 UTCI just want to add here the main difference between pre-1980's and today: we don't have as many anomalies to explain! There were so many confusing experimental results in the past that you could easily (not actually easily) make progress because there was hard data to fit a theory/model to. As it stands now, we have very little anomalies to explain. *But* and this is something Sabine literally never talks about, we *know* that the SM is an incomplete effective field theory. In my opinion, it is worth trying to push for higher energy colliders just to find new anomalies irrespective of whether or not you put credence on SUSY or $FavoriteModel.
Sujeet Akula
2024-11-13 23:39:07 +0000 UTC> The standard model is very good but incomplete. No gravity, neutrino masses, hierarchy problem etc. String theory claims to do better but doesn’t really. No one has derived the SM as a lower energy limit of it. This is a bit misleading. String theory *does* do better at gravity and neutrino masses! But the hierarchy problem is indeed traded off for the landscape. > There are few experimentalists at CERN who don’t think theorists are full of shit. This is definitely not true in my experience. I have known many people in the working group for SUSY, BSM and Exotics at CMS and ATLAS. It's just not a fair characterization that "experimentalists … think theorists are full of shit". That's the exact sentiment that Sabine puts forward — that they are lying (or just being very cynical) in their papers when they write up the motivation section of why they are doing a particular search. > We look askance at their tendency to push the mass ranges of their predictions up whenever the machine gets an energy upgrade. This is just how it works? You create a parametric model. You establish priors on those parameters. You update those priors based on experimental data. If the experimental data probes the low energy region, then your posterior is shifted into higher energies. It's totally fair to conclude that the model with *higher parameter estimates* is no longer appealing due to fine tuning, or other issues, but it's wrong to say that theorists are somehow pretending that it would never have been found in the first place!
Sujeet Akula
2024-11-13 23:28:39 +0000 UTCAll pronunciation oriented feedback is highly valued and will be fed into the LHC to be rendered into its constituent fermions in due course!
Guruspod 2
2024-11-13 23:20:51 +0000 UTCHIGHLY informed post, thank you!
Guruspod 2
2024-11-13 23:18:35 +0000 UTCI look foreword to innovations in the Trump supporting Gurusphere on how they can continue to frame themselves as victims.
Jonathan Cano
2024-11-13 22:47:47 +0000 UTCI'm guessing she started with the heterodox title/theme and then went looking for arguments to back it up like you do in debate club. Debaters don't care about truth, they care about persuasion (in real life) or scoring points (offical debate competitions).
Jonathan Cano
2024-11-13 22:43:38 +0000 UTChttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDnsSoEGBzs&list=PL4N2wdhxwJxJPji86HO40C-rzJ8aF34Dk&index=10
Jonathan Cano
2024-11-13 22:38:32 +0000 UTCSame. I started watching Sabine when I saw some very good explainer videos. I find the heterodox clickbait titles off-putting.
Jonathan Cano
2024-11-13 22:37:38 +0000 UTCPresumably this is due to the coal mining lobby.
Jonathan Cano
2024-11-13 22:34:33 +0000 UTCI like Sabine's explainer vids. I can't stomach the heterodox baiting stuff. In the "science is failing" video does she offer detailed suggestions on what should be done or is it just vague whining about the status quo? IMO, the big questions are "how much should we be spending on fundamental physics right now?" and "where should the money we decide to spend on it go?" Maybe it is time to tread water in this area and put more resources elsewhere (e.g. making a useful fusion power reactor). Maybe in 50 or 100 years the time will be ripe to make fundamental physics advances.
Jonathan Cano
2024-11-13 22:33:36 +0000 UTCIt’s bitterly ironic to complain about the perverse incentives in science and then get sucked into YouTubing. First time commenter here. First off: my background is as a fundamental physics theorist (hence the user name) who jumped ship to particle experiment and then to data science. I made the first jump when I saw LHC’s run 1 steamroller a number of people’s life’s work and realised which side of that equation I preferred being on. I did my PhD as part of one of the Higgs analyses at CERN’s CMS and then took my skills into industry. I guess I’m fairly unprincipled and mercenary… but I have seen this from the inside from a few angles. Her experience of the pathologies in fundamental theory seems to have been amplified and projected onto the rest of science. It is true that string theory and the like have become something of degenerating research programme, but it’s not like there is some grand conspiracy. Carlo Rovelli hasn’t been carted off by the theory stasi. A lot of research projects were dominated by that when I left though. That was one of my reasons for doing so. The standard model is very good but incomplete. No gravity, neutrino masses, hierarchy problem etc. String theory claims to do better but doesn’t really. No one has derived the SM as a lower energy limit of it. There are issues computing scattering amplitudes at tree level, it needs supersymmetry to have fermions, various other things I half remember. The remark about post 70s stuff refers to this and is distinct from the SM. The SM is built from two yang mills theories one of which is spontaneously broken by the Higgs field. This view definitely does not carry over to experimental particle physics. There are few experimentalists at CERN who don’t think theorists are full of shit. That’s almost part of the job description. We look askance at their tendency to push the mass ranges of their predictions up whenever the machine gets an energy upgrade. But again, that’s not a conspiracy that’s just them trying to make things work within the experimental constraints. Furthermore, the FCC is for more than just another bump hunt for a theorist’s prediction. Happy to answer any questions unless you’re one of the loons who used to spam my CERN email address. P.S. keep up to good work lads.
AdS5xS5
2024-11-13 19:38:48 +0000 UTCDo they keep doing it? Is there a Large Tiktaalik Locator that has found more Tiktaalik but not the missing link before that so an even Larger one is needed?
Emil Mi
2024-11-13 16:28:26 +0000 UTCOk. Let me give an example: say that someone comes with a paper that claims that just beyond the detection range of LHC there are "fundamental unicorn particles" and a bigger LHC should see them. Maybe you'll do it once just to be sure, but she claims that the same was done with different "fundamental X" a bunch of times and nothing was found so far. She observes that it's a very workable career path to propose some yet invisible particle or field that can be disproved only if the government of EU spends money for 30 years to build an experiment. Many people are employed and have incentives to remain so to find the answer to how many angels can dance on the head of a pin 😊
Emil Mi
2024-11-13 16:19:10 +0000 UTC34:50 she definetly thinks that some of the physicist are corrupt 😂
Emil Mi
2024-11-13 16:07:23 +0000 UTCI don't get why she dips into heterodox tropes or why she keeps name dropping Eric tbh... Guess for street creds
Emil Mi
2024-11-13 16:05:18 +0000 UTCThe methods that do not work are the theoretical, not the experimental ones. The experimentalists come up with theories that are "beautifull" (beautiful has a speciffic technical meaning - small number of parameters, constants that are close to 1 or pi or such) and then send experimentalists to disprove them which they always seem to happen for the last tens of years. She doesn't claim to know how to solve this blockage, but claims that the money that goes to these people and their ever increasing colliders that fail to see anything new could be better spent elsewhere (in the past she gave examples from solid state physics, quantum, astrophysics)
Emil Mi
2024-11-13 16:00:57 +0000 UTCExactly. And I want to emphasize "chose to". She's way too smart for it to have been a random misstep. It's like having the pieces for 1+1 and not assembling them into 2.
Z
2024-11-13 07:21:31 +0000 UTCIn Aus there is probably more money going into carbon capture research in my field than every other area of it put together. (And its pretty much based on hype)
Ema Corro
2024-11-13 06:59:31 +0000 UTCYes, I thought that as well. Knowing that something has not been found is important information to work with.
Linda Sears
2024-11-13 00:41:54 +0000 UTCMy dad taught physics at a local university from the late sixties to the early 2000s. The professors who got the big grants and promotions at that time were those who did applied physics; most of this was driven by the interests of defense contractors and industries. My dad did theoretical physics, which wasn’t considered as important, so it’s interesting to hear Sabine criticize theoretical physicists.
Linda Sears
2024-11-13 00:38:01 +0000 UTCIt’s not Sabeen, it’s Sabině. You’re hurting the European ears.
Michal Lichota
2024-11-12 19:43:42 +0000 UTCFeeling compelled to criticise the esoteric pronunciations on the podcast is a gateway drug deeper into the seedy world of decoding.
Jake
2024-11-12 19:01:00 +0000 UTCI do feel like there is this pattern where a kernel of truth gets blown up to a disproportionate size by creating more discourse. And by each turn the error is compounded. It feels like what is started with a grievance becomes more concrete and more absolute. I wonder if there is a stable conspiracy ladder that starts with a grievance that transforms into conspiracy after a number of cycles. How many times does a grievance need to be recycled to turn into a conspiracy?
CrystalJade
2024-11-12 16:25:28 +0000 UTCHaha indeed I was familiar. I joined Patreon just so I could post that.
Ron McKinnon
2024-11-12 14:52:45 +0000 UTCYou are obviously unfamiliar with how this word is pronounced in the Mattrix.
Jake
2024-11-12 13:34:57 +0000 UTCIf you are farming whatever biomass material at the same rate that you are burning it, then it is!
Brice F
2024-11-12 13:17:30 +0000 UTCI think DTG inoculated me against being impressed with any claim that begins with ‘x has a problem’ where x is a widely encompassing field or domain or just a vague denominator. I hear ‘science has a problem’ and it’s the same bs to me as ‘the left has a problem’ or the west or the media or young males. It’s nothing but an attention grab.
Idan Ca
2024-11-12 13:12:56 +0000 UTCSmall nitpick: it’s pronounced NU-CLE-UR.
Ron McKinnon
2024-11-12 12:28:58 +0000 UTCGreat episode. I won't hold my breath for it, but I sincerely hope she takes up her right to reply offer. I think Sabine is genuine and grounded enough in reality that a conversation with her hashing these critiques out could be really interesting
RipleyV
2024-11-12 12:24:04 +0000 UTCWhat a great discussion! (I was put off by Hossenfelder’s attitude to philosophy, but also unsurprised (and I don’t assume physicists have any better takes on philosophy than I do on Darwinism…). But! String theory! Can I recommend Angela Collier - a dark matter physicist - YouTube video on it? ‘String Theory Lied to Us’. A great discussion on the problems of string theory as a physical theory and the impact string theory popularity has had on the media’s attitude to physics. Collier also does a critical video on the idea that physics hasn’t advanced in 70 years, which relates to Hossenfelder’s work. Also, Collier is very casually funny and you should interview her*: https://youtu.be/kya_LXa_y1E?si=fUYJjwCPILbNFY5Z. (*or not. I’m not your dads)
Sean Power
2024-11-12 11:02:56 +0000 UTCTho it isn’t net zero when burning biomass creates much more CO2 than burning coal.
aneladgam_varelse
2024-11-12 07:21:39 +0000 UTCI just lost patience at the end. Having discounted the idea that there is an infinite supply of fossil fuel, she then advocated for the continued use of fossil fuel, just more cleanly ( technology tbc). With a finite supply of fossil fuel ( as she states), and fossil fuel acting as natural carbon capture ( carbon in a state of carbon capture is good, I think she would agree), it makes sense to aggressively reduce fossil fuel usage and accelerate uses of alternate sources of energy…which already exist, rather than relying on (carbon capture technology tbc - which, if she doesn’t have any faith in science, is unlikely to materialise). She had all the pieces of the puzzle, she just chose not to assemble them in the most logical order - giving in to her contrarian impulses. It gives off strong “chase the lady” vibes, which diminishes her ability to create the trust required to be an effective science communicator.
barbara wright
2024-11-12 05:59:56 +0000 UTCShe’s stitched together an attractive grievance narrative, but it mainly rests on the hope that her viewers aren’t really engaged with science - a field where wild hypotheses are the ones that push thinking forward - Kekulé dreaming about an ouroboros and figuring out the structure of benzene being a case in point. And more than that…you have to try a lot of different hypotheses to get one that works. If every hypotheses was a winner, you’d be a genius, or more likely, cooking the results. She’s particularly interested in a field where most of the low hanging fruit have already been picked, so it seems reasonable that the time between problems being solved would increase, as the number of problems to be solved decreases and the complexity of the problems increases. I do agree that science has significant issues, but she’s blaming science for not meeting her unrealistic expectations. That might be a her problem, not a science problem.
barbara wright
2024-11-12 03:53:30 +0000 UTCDoes anyone seriously promote biomass as a replacement for natural gas and coal? I know there’s some R&D into trying to create biofuels to replace petrol/diesel, buts that’s hardly the same burning wood to create electricity. Also, I’m not sure people deny that burning biomass adds CO2 but in an economy where biomass is farmed at scale, the carbon is also cycled out of the atmosphere at a similar rate that it is added. Not immediately of course, but over the course of a few years. Thus it is net zero. I’m all for climate mitigation efforts and disagree with people who just advocate for carbon reduction, but reduction efforts will make mitigation efforts easier in the long run. It’s synergistic!
Brice F
2024-11-12 01:51:36 +0000 UTCOne of the weirdest parts to me was when she was dismissive about how the LHC didn’t find supersymmetric particles. How were those theorists supposed to know their theory was wrong before that? I thought she wanted theories that were falsifiable!
Ben Godek
2024-11-12 01:41:35 +0000 UTCThe main criticism against her is that she conflates particle physics with all of physics or even science, but even if you restrict attention to what's going on at CERN, it's not quite true that it has "stagnated" as multiple discoveries have been made since the Higgs boson in 2012 that indicate a need for revising the Standard Model. The issue is that they're not as groundbreaking/headline worthy as Sabine wants them to be, and there is an argument to be made that all the "easy"/cheap discoveries have already been made such that if you want real experimental progress in things like supersymmetry and quantum gravity you're gonna need the GDP of a small country no matter how you twist and turn it. But she is far from alone in voicing these concerns, in fact they have been mulled over and debated for years and years already by the very people she's criticizing with proposals for more affordable experiments a dime a dozen. As for the theoretical side of things I'd wager most string theorists are painfully aware of the issues with it which is why there's not that many of them left. The fact that the 80s and 90s generated a lot of exaggerated headlines doesn't mean the optimism among working physicists wasn't justified at the time as they didn't have the benefit of hindsight. Furthermore there are ideas that popped out of string theory that are now burgeoning research areas in mathematics and other areas of physics so it hasn't been completely useless. With respect to beauty in theory construction I'm still not sure what she means by it. She might be referring to the Paul Dirac quote from a century ago where he claims "it is more important to have beauty in one's equations than to have them fit experiment". The particle physics group is right next door here and I don't know anyone who uses this as a guiding principle. Is she talking about simplicity? That's more a convenience than an aesthetic judgment and more often than not the calculations that turn out to be correct are horribly ugly and unwieldy. Ramblings over
Reinert
2024-11-11 23:56:11 +0000 UTCFor clarification: I don’t believe such thing as “clean coal” is possible and imo research into that is false hope/waste of resources, but I noticed that argument “climate change is caused by fossil fuels” has some unexpected ramifications stopping degrowth.
aneladgam_varelse
2024-11-11 22:59:07 +0000 UTCRe: what is the problem, climate change or the fossil fuels? I’m with Sabine on this one, because people tend to focus on moving away from fossil fuels rather than on reducing effects on climate. It really isnt synonymous! For example so-called biomass isn’t fossil fuels yet isn’t better alternative: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-02676-z?utm_source=Live+Audience&utm_campaign=4b9b7634b5-nature-briefing-daily-20240820&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b27a691814-4b9b7634b5-51277672 Also I had not long ago argument irl if humankind should stop developing aviation because of climate change (my position is yes absolutely), the other person couldn’t process that planes fueled with biomass instead of fossil fuels aren’t neutral now, because it doesn’t matter how it’s fueled, it matters how much CO2 it emits - and in case of aviation that it emits it directly into higher parts of atmosphere.
aneladgam_varelse
2024-11-11 22:47:58 +0000 UTCYeah there were significant gaps in the model when Mendeleev first came up with it and it was completed as recent as 2010 with the discovery of 118(now Oganesson). Whether there are even more stable elements is an open question as far as I'm aware but "flights of fancy" doesn't have anything to do with it.
Reinert
2024-11-11 22:38:28 +0000 UTCDo you consider probability of a claim directly related to incentive the person have?
aneladgam_varelse
2024-11-11 22:07:52 +0000 UTCI’m at 27 min and I feel obligated to point out that chemistry indeed first invented some elements according to periodic table and then started searching for them in real life. The search was finished with success.
aneladgam_varelse
2024-11-11 19:27:44 +0000 UTCI heard about Sabine in 2019. Originally she had good criticism of theoretical physics. But it's sad that she had chosen to flirt with science denialism, because there's room for science communicator with feet on the ground. Tucker Carlson section was in my opinion damning, because it showed how she needs to provide fan service to her science denying audience, while claiming to be honest truth seeker. Firstly Sabine didn't bother to mention that COPs and parts of the IPCC have always had political components. In every climate conferences there's political debate about exact wording of documents and so on. Maybe the quote was removed due to political process not by scientists. Secondly there's nothing controversial about CCS (carbon capture and storage) and it's included as a one mitigation method. IPCC even hosted meeting solely on CCS in this this year. However Sabine didn't bother to mention this and instead implied that climate science wants to silence the discussion.
commutercomputer
2024-11-11 18:13:26 +0000 UTCI haven't finished listening to the episode yet but I am a layman physics appreciator myself. I think when Sabine was sayingthat progress in fundamental physics has stagnated- she was referring to the fact that we know that the standard model and general relativity are incompatible with each other and also are thought to be incomplete. They make exquisitely precise predictions which have been confirmed but there was a lot of hope that the LHC would provide evidence for theories beyond the standard model. I think her argument was that these big projects like the LHC and it's successors are consuming are inordinate amount of resources and not delivering on their promise of new physics. I think that applies to string theory as well in that there has been a lot of money and manpower thrown at the problem without ultimately adding anything new to our current understanding of physics. I think her title "Lost in math" comes from her view that our pursuit of mathematical elegance and beauty in physics has led the field astray and that all the incentives structures are set up so that there is no desire to a stop the gravy train of funding for these big projects. I know plenty of physicists including Sean Carrol have taken an issue with that framing
Saad Ahmed
2024-11-11 18:11:39 +0000 UTCI did think it was funny that she was like “imagine if biologists just made up a species then went to go look for it” because that’s kind of how Tiktaalik (the fossil of the first quadruped to come onto land). People hypothesized that there would be a transition species and had a rough idea of where to look so they went and looked for it and found it
KT
2024-11-11 18:05:10 +0000 UTCThe final ~10m of this episode is just excellent pandering to anti-science nutjobs https://youtu.be/FBsP-bmDLOo
Sujeet Akula
2024-11-11 18:03:44 +0000 UTCOk got thru this episode and re the final question posed (will a trump vs a Harris presidency cause more guru activity)- the answer is “yes” ☺️ the last trump presidency was like watching a soap opera with a revolving cast of characters so I’m very curious to see which of our gurus cycles in and out of the trump orbit. Hoping that the rfk downfall is before he decides I’m only allowed to treat my crohns with vit D 😬😅
KT
2024-11-11 17:36:03 +0000 UTCSilly Matt and Chris, theoretical physics is science--everything else is stamp collecting. If it's not progressing, science is doomed. If only you were physicists, you'd understand. 😄
Trees
2024-11-11 16:34:48 +0000 UTCThe fossil fuel industry has done much to make themselves the villains.
Tim Tripp
2024-11-11 16:30:25 +0000 UTCSabine comes across as your stereotypical physicist: someone who is very very smart, but thinks that makes them knowledgeable in every field they put their mind to for even 5 seconds.
weltysparrow
2024-11-11 16:12:12 +0000 UTCThis is the first time I have heard Sabine and I find her hyperbolic and off putting.
Tim Tripp
2024-11-11 15:58:17 +0000 UTCBeen looking forward to this! Although I enjoy much of her content, I've found Hossenfelder a bit offputting in recent years. There's something about the matter-of-fact way of speaking and deadpan delivery which makes it hard to disagree with what she's saying if one is predisposed to antiestablishment thinking. And if I'm not mistaken I think Dave's criticism boils down to the fact that fans of hers who are themselves academics will read one thing into it which aligns with their own possibly justified frustrations while non-academics, who might be the majority of her viewership, will interpret it in quite another direction which is much closer to IDW rhetoric. She says she doesn't care that some people misinterpret her message but IMO she should.
Reinert
2024-11-11 15:23:48 +0000 UTCmine came up
Jake Kortum
2024-11-11 14:03:15 +0000 UTCSo grateful to have this off topic decoding. As much as I look forward to y’alls take on the election, I’m also so good not hearing about it for now.
KT
2024-11-11 12:53:15 +0000 UTCGotta love Sabine for pronouncing Eric's last name the German way
Kit Zullasson
2024-11-11 11:51:49 +0000 UTCUP UNTIL THIS POINT I've enjoyed your content, but now I see the decoder Matt-rix is a sham! Anyway. I appreciate Sabine because unlike literally every science communicator that's appeared at my desk, she takes the time to form a genuine understanding of a topic instead of just trying to print a flashy headline. Frustration with academia is very common amongst working scientists, but Sebine should really understand why physics is so very, very difficult in 2024. "Chemists inventing a hidden dark sector of the periodic table", THIS IS HOW ELEMENTS HAVE BEEN DISCOVERED SINCE 1870!
Jack
2024-11-11 11:23:33 +0000 UTCTo me, she has anti science generalities thrown in here and there all the way back to her first videos.
Dean
2024-11-11 11:19:42 +0000 UTCI don’t think she did dunk much on Tucker.
Christopher Kavanagh
2024-11-11 10:54:19 +0000 UTCfound Sabine dunking on Tucker way too enjoyable Almost feel guilty. Almost
mobitobi
2024-11-11 09:33:24 +0000 UTCRegarding youtube thumbnails: Editor Andy really needs to bully you two into a youtube-thumbnail-face photoshoot! The views and audience dynamics demand it
mobitobi
2024-11-11 08:34:19 +0000 UTCReally curious about the episode! Watch one of her videos maybe 1 or 2 years ago. She seemed refreshingly down to earth and non-guru ish at that time
mobitobi
2024-11-11 08:11:55 +0000 UTCAre you guys going to sound like some' of those science bitches that have been wrong in the past? 😒
Ion
2024-11-11 08:08:04 +0000 UTCOh this was recorded on Tues so you're prob already gone
James P.
2024-11-11 08:03:17 +0000 UTCHey Matt, you're in my hood. You coming through phoenix?
James P.
2024-11-11 08:01:53 +0000 UTCBreakfast is saved!
Elias Bjaaland
2024-11-11 07:33:49 +0000 UTC
