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> He is critical of string theory on the grounds that it lacks testable predictions and is promoted with public money despite its failures so far,[1] and has au

> He is critical of string theory on the grounds that it lacks testable predictions and is promoted with public money despite its failures so far,[1] and has authored both scientific papers and popular polemics on this topic. His writings claim that excessive media attention and funding of this one particular mainstream endeavour, which he considers speculative, risks undermining public faith in the freedom of scientific research. His moderated weblog on string theory and other topics is titled "Not Even Wrong", a derogatory term for scientifically useless arguments coined by Wolfgang Pauli. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Woit#Criticism_of_string_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Woit#Criticism_of_string...

verisimi 2y ago
I'm sure he is expressing a valid principle. By funding one area excessively, you can soon build up reams of scientific literature and interest, but this area needs have nothing or little to do with genuine scientific interest. Funding determines the interest. It's all about money unfortunately, even science.
- logtempo 2y ago
  I had the same feeling doing a phd two years ago. I think there is an unpopular opinion in science about the limits of what we can look at and what is required to achieve that. My conclusion was that the requirements are an economy of infinite growth and a society based on consumption. I did a parallel in my mind between the idea that "knowledge will always grow" and "economy will always grow". The limits are heavily related to social stability/agreement, and the tools we can have given the money(=social and environmental)/physical constraints. I have the opinion that the FCC is the example of such bias: we don't really know what to look for, but we (the scientific community) have to survive so we'll build a political argument to keep getting funds. I think the proposal was during a severe heatwave, and I also though "where is the social goal in that science? What does it will bring to society? Do we really need to know that far those things?". I think it's at this moment that I started loosing motivation too.
perihelions 2y ago
- "...and is promoted with public money despite its failures..." The amusing thing for me* is this is just coffee budgets for pen-and-paper theorists. What they say about academic disputes: the lower the stakes, the more intense the politics. *(Observing from a safe distance!)
- pbmonster 2y ago
  > The amusing thing for me* is this is just coffee budgets for pen-and-paper theorists Unfortunately not. From his website [0], the extent of the grant funding involved is much more than just coffee budget: > The Black Hole Initiative that features this on its website: $16 million from the Templeton Foundation, $3.6 million from the Moore Foundation. > The Simons Collaboration on Celestial Holography: $8 million from the Simons Foundation. > NSF Grant: $400,000 from the NSF. > DOE Grant: $3.5 million from the DOE. This kind of money could fund a whole lot of other theory. Hell, it even could fund a lot of experiments (albeit not in high energy physics). [0] https://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=13770 https://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=13770
  - smokel 2y ago
    The funding mentioned does not go directly to string theory research. Investments in quantum computing research are orders of magnitude larger, even in Europe alone. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_Flagship https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_Flagship Edit: Removed snark, add reference.
  - perihelions 2y ago
    In my view, those are very trivial amounts, for an entire subfield of research. I can think of individual federal grants no one on HN has heard of or cares about that are are larger than all of those put together, which are outright fraudulent—those are dime-a-dozen. Also, note that your first three examples aren't public money, rather private philanthropy. No one can speak against where Jim Simons gifts his billions (and in point of fact Simons is an expert in quantum field theory himself—no one's scammed him, if he's decided string theorists are worth donating to. He reads and understands the papers they write). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Simons_(mathematician) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Simons_(mathematician) - "(albeit not in high energy physics)" It's a fair anchoring point, isn't it? It's the theory and experiment side of the same field. We're just spending 0.01% of the experimental budget on some (possibly wrong and possibly dead-end) theory ideas, and the coffee that produced them.
tunesmith 2y ago
What is he in favor of? He seems to be criticizing both further experiments in string theory due to being not even wrong, and further experiments with the standard model, since it's either expensive or not getting anywhere. (I'm not a physicist and understand very little.)
- aleph_minus_one 2y ago
  > What is he in favor of? See the category "Euclidean Twistor Unification" in his blog: > https://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?cat=31 https://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?cat=31
  - auntienomen 2y ago
    It's not necessary to be in favor of anything, in order to criticize what's already out there. You can point out fatal flaws in an idea without needing to have an alternative in mind. Woit himself is working (pretty casually to my eyes) on some mathematical reformulations of the Standard Model. He's not advocating aggressively for these ideas, and I'm pretty sure if you asked him, he'd say there's no evidence that any one idea should dominate the research landscape the way string theory did. None of what exists out there is particularly compelling. (This is one of the reasons people worked so much on strings. It's the best of a bad lot.)

verisimi 2y ago

I'm sure he is expressing a valid principle. By funding one area excessively, you can soon build up reams of scientific literature and interest, but this area needs have nothing or little to do with genuine scientific interest. Funding determines the interest. It's all about money unfortunately, even science.

logtempo 2y ago
I had the same feeling doing a phd two years ago. I think there is an unpopular opinion in science about the limits of what we can look at and what is required to achieve that. My conclusion was that the requirements are an economy of infinite growth and a society based on consumption. I did a parallel in my mind between the idea that "knowledge will always grow" and "economy will always grow". The limits are heavily related to social stability/agreement, and the tools we can have given the money(=social and environmental)/physical constraints. I have the opinion that the FCC is the example of such bias: we don't really know what to look for, but we (the scientific community) have to survive so we'll build a political argument to keep getting funds. I think the proposal was during a severe heatwave, and I also though "where is the social goal in that science? What does it will bring to society? Do we really need to know that far those things?". I think it's at this moment that I started loosing motivation too.

perihelions 2y ago

- "...and is promoted with public money despite its failures..." The amusing thing for me* is this is just coffee budgets for pen-and-paper theorists. What they say about academic disputes: the lower the stakes, the more intense the politics. *(Observing from a safe distance!)

pbmonster 2y ago
> The amusing thing for me* is this is just coffee budgets for pen-and-paper theorists Unfortunately not. From his website [0], the extent of the grant funding involved is much more than just coffee budget: > The Black Hole Initiative that features this on its website: $16 million from the Templeton Foundation, $3.6 million from the Moore Foundation. > The Simons Collaboration on Celestial Holography: $8 million from the Simons Foundation. > NSF Grant: $400,000 from the NSF. > DOE Grant: $3.5 million from the DOE. This kind of money could fund a whole lot of other theory. Hell, it even could fund a lot of experiments (albeit not in high energy physics). [0] https://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=13770 https://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=13770
- smokel 2y ago
  The funding mentioned does not go directly to string theory research. Investments in quantum computing research are orders of magnitude larger, even in Europe alone. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_Flagship https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_Flagship Edit: Removed snark, add reference.
- perihelions 2y ago
  In my view, those are very trivial amounts, for an entire subfield of research. I can think of individual federal grants no one on HN has heard of or cares about that are are larger than all of those put together, which are outright fraudulent—those are dime-a-dozen. Also, note that your first three examples aren't public money, rather private philanthropy. No one can speak against where Jim Simons gifts his billions (and in point of fact Simons is an expert in quantum field theory himself—no one's scammed him, if he's decided string theorists are worth donating to. He reads and understands the papers they write). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Simons_(mathematician) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Simons_(mathematician) - "(albeit not in high energy physics)" It's a fair anchoring point, isn't it? It's the theory and experiment side of the same field. We're just spending 0.01% of the experimental budget on some (possibly wrong and possibly dead-end) theory ideas, and the coffee that produced them.

tunesmith 2y ago

What is he in favor of? He seems to be criticizing both further experiments in string theory due to being not even wrong, and further experiments with the standard model, since it's either expensive or not getting anywhere. (I'm not a physicist and understand very little.)

aleph_minus_one 2y ago
> What is he in favor of? See the category "Euclidean Twistor Unification" in his blog: > https://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?cat=31 https://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?cat=31
- auntienomen 2y ago
  It's not necessary to be in favor of anything, in order to criticize what's already out there. You can point out fatal flaws in an idea without needing to have an alternative in mind. Woit himself is working (pretty casually to my eyes) on some mathematical reformulations of the Standard Model. He's not advocating aggressively for these ideas, and I'm pretty sure if you asked him, he'd say there's no evidence that any one idea should dominate the research landscape the way string theory did. None of what exists out there is particularly compelling. (This is one of the reasons people worked so much on strings. It's the best of a bad lot.)