Half-baked Republican Presidential Fruitcakes (and fellow confections)

joseph brand

Peregrinus wrote: »

This is ironic, though. Morrell quotes Tyson to the effect that "‘the good thing about science is that it’s true whether you believe in it or not". But he himself asserts that Galileo was locked up by the church for nine years for advocating the theory that the world is not flat, and that it is not the centre of the universe. This is, of course, untrue on two levels. First, the flatness of the world was not in issue. Both Galileo and his antagonists affirmed the roundness of the earth. In fact, SFAIK, a flat earth has never been the subject of religious controversy. And as for the theory that the earth is not the centre of the universe, it it correct that it is not but Galileo's own theory, that the sun was the centre of the universe, was equally false.

Science may be true whether we believe in it or not, but not everything we believe in is science. Just because Sen. Morrell's ideas are not religious doesn't mean they're not every bit as wrong as Sen. Guillory's ideas.

(PS: Is there any basis for Guillory's claim that "people were burned for not believing that the world was flat"? It strikes me as B.S., but it's the one claim that Morrell doesn't contradict. Mind you, Morrell's grasp of the facts doesn't appear to be much better than Guillory's, so maybe I shouldn't read too much into that.)

Unless I'm somehow reading this wrong, it looks like you're saying that Guillory and Morrell are as bad as each other. How could anyone actually believe that it was scientists going around accusing people of heresy? Besides, who really expects Morrell to be an expert on Galileo. AFAIK, he's no historian/ astronomer/ scientist.

Britannica

Galileo’s increasingly overt Copernicanism began to cause trouble for him. In 1613 he wrote a letter to his student Benedetto Castelli (1577–1644) in Pisa about the problem of squaring the Copernican theory with certain biblical passages.

But the tide in Rome was turning against the Copernican theory, and in 1615, when the cleric Paolo Antonio Foscarini (c. 1565–1616) published a book arguing that the Copernican theory did not conflict with scripture, Inquisition consultants examined the question and pronounced the Copernican theory heretical.

[Galileo] was admonished by Robert Cardinal Bellarmine (1542–1621) not to “hold or defend” the Copernican theory. An improperly prepared document placed in the Inquisition files at this time states that Galileo was admonished “not to hold, teach, or defend” the Copernican theory “in any way whatever, either orally or in writing.”

Wiki

Galileo was found "vehemently suspect of heresy," namely of having held the opinions that the Sun lies motionless at the center of the universe, that the Earth is not at its centre and moves, and that one may hold and defend an opinion as probable after it has been declared contrary to Holy Scripture. He was required to "abjure, curse, and detest" those opinions

PopePalpatine

Uh...can we talk about whiny neckbearded MRAs in here? One of them is leading a boycott against the new Mad Max movie, a writer for that cesspit of insecure bigots called "Return of Kings".

KomradeBishop

Peregrinus wrote: »

This is ironic, though. Morrell quotes Tyson to the effect that "‘the good thing about science is that it’s true whether you believe in it or not". But he himself asserts that Galileo was locked up by the church for nine years for advocating the theory that the world is not flat, and that it is not the centre of the universe. This is, of course, untrue on two levels. First, the flatness of the world was not in issue. Both Galileo and his antagonists affirmed the roundness of the earth. In fact, SFAIK, a flat earth has never been the subject of religious controversy. And as for the theory that the earth is not the centre of the universe, it it correct that it is not but Galileo's own theory, that the sun was the centre of the universe, was equally false.

Science may be true whether we believe in it or not, but not everything we believe in is science. Just because Sen. Morrell's ideas are not religious doesn't mean they're not every bit as wrong as Sen. Guillory's ideas.

(PS: Is there any basis for Guillory's claim that "people were burned for not believing that the world was flat"? It strikes me as B.S., but it's the one claim that Morrell doesn't contradict. Mind you, Morrell's grasp of the facts doesn't appear to be much better than Guillory's, so maybe I shouldn't read too much into that.)

Ya good points - one of my favourite subjects is 'agnotology' (study of culturally induced ignorance/doubt), and the demarcation between science and 'science'/pseudoscience, and you would be surprised at some of the things regarded as scientific, that are not:
Physics is regarded as one of the most respected scientific fields out there, yet string theory is the most prominent area of research for theoretical physics right now - and it is arguably not even a science, because it is unfalsifiable.

It's funny how scientists in some of the most well respected scientific fields, actually seem to have an extremely poor grasp of the 'philosophy of science' itself - and how it is becoming increasingly common now, for branches of research/industry, to try use accusations of science-denial against critics, even when their research/business is often backed/defended by fraudulent research/studies.

Similarly, there are claims of economics being a 'science', and (also, as people might guess, being one of my favourite topics ) I have not encountered a single other topic in existence (possibly even including religion - i.e. I think it even challenges religion in this regard), which has perpetuated so much misinformation among the public.

There's a lot of Bad Science out there - and a hell of a lot of fraud in science too; this doesn't diminish the credentials of genuinely good/undeniable science, but it does show how it's becoming more of an ideological tool lately, to try and bring discreditable/fraudulent research/business under the umbrella of scientific legitimacy, to try and make it immune to criticism.

silverharp

KomradeBishop wrote: »

There's a lot of Bad Science out there - and a hell of a lot of fraud in science too; this doesn't diminish the credentials of genuinely good/undeniable science, but it does show how it's becoming more of an ideological tool lately, to try and bring discreditable/fraudulent research/business under the umbrella of scientific legitimacy, to try and make it immune to criticism.

reminded me of a post in the Astronomy forum

Short but interesting article on this exact topic here:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2015/0...eas-in-science

Cosmology is the study of the universe as a whole: its structure, its origins and its fate. Fundamental physics is the study of reality's bedrock entities and their interactions. With these job descriptions it's no surprise that cosmology and fundamental physics share a lot of territory. You can't understand how the universe evolves after the Big Bang (a cosmology question) without understanding how matter, energy, space and time interact (a fundamental physics question). Recently, however, something remarkable has been happening in both these fields that's raising hackles with some scientists. As physicists George Ellis and Joseph Silk recently put it in "Nature":

"This year, debates in physics circles took a worrying turn. Faced with difficulties in applying fundamental theories to the observed Universe, some researchers called for a change in how theoretical physics is done. They began to argue — explicitly — that if a theory is sufficiently elegant and explanatory, it need not be tested experimentally, breaking with centuries of philosophical tradition of defining scientific knowledge as empirical."

oscarBravo

KomradeBishop wrote: »

Physics is regarded as one of the most respected scientific fields out there, yet string theory is the most prominent area of research for theoretical physics right now - and it is arguably not even a science, because it is unfalsifiable.

Is this really the case? I mean, sure: by it's nature it's not observable, but a good theoretical model can be used to make predictions, and if the predictions don't come true, then the model is falsified.

The theoretical work around the Higgs boson was first undertaken in the early 1960s, and it's probably fair to say that at the time it was unfalsifiable, because the technology didn't exist to build a suitable experiment. That didn't change the fact that it was accepted orthodoxy well before the particle was discovered in 2013.

String theory is probably more mathematics than physics, but it can provide a fundamental explanation for much of physics, particularly at the quantum level. If experimental physics produces findings that contradict string theory, then string theory will have been falsified.

robindch

oscarBravo wrote: »

Is this really the case? I mean, sure: by it's nature it's not observable, but a good theoretical model can be used to make predictions, and if the predictions don't come true, then the model is falsified.

Sorry to be a pedant here, predictions can be true, indeterminate or false. A model is falsified if its predictions are found to be false. If the predictions are true or indeterminate, then the model simply hasn't been found to be false.

So far as I'm aware, String Theory is generally regarded as unfalsifiableat the moment, thereby discounting it from the scientific realm.

I'm not going to go checking where he says this as I've to run now, but AFAIR, Richard Feynman covered this falsifability in his first lecture:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3mhkYbznBk

KomradeBishop

silverharp wrote: »

reminded me of a post in the Astronomy forum

Ya it's worrying indeed, the way theoretical physics is (further) turning - the mathematician/physicist Peter Woit is a very good writer on this topic, and his book Not Even Wrong is an excellent account of the problems with string theory:
http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/

KomradeBishop

oscarBravo wrote: »

Is this really the case? I mean, sure: by it's nature it's not observable, but a good theoretical model can be used to make predictions, and if the predictions don't come true, then the model is falsified.

The theoretical work around the Higgs boson was first undertaken in the early 1960s, and it's probably fair to say that at the time it was unfalsifiable, because the technology didn't exist to build a suitable experiment. That didn't change the fact that it was accepted orthodoxy well before the particle was discovered in 2013.

String theory is probably more mathematics than physics, but it can provide a fundamental explanation for much of physics, particularly at the quantum level. If experimental physics produces findings that contradict string theory, then string theory will have been falsified.

That's the problem though: String theory can't be used to predict anything.

One of the biggest problems with string theory, is that there are something like 10^500 or 10^*insert big number here* valid ways of arranging the laws-of-physics/constants in the theory, such that you can find a way to make string theory fit any physics theory (meaning, there is nothing that can practically falsify it, as one of the 10^500 models is going to match whatever you throw at it).

The problem then, is narrowing down the dizzyingly large number of possible variations of string theory, so that you can actually make any falsifiable predictions - and even more difficult, make predictions that are within plausible reach of our experimental physics abilities (I think there are some predictions made, which can only be tested through a 10^*silly-number* increase in the energy present particle accelerators are capable of - i.e. again pretty much untestable).

It could - quite literally - take centuries (maybe millenia) before it can actually be made falsifiable. With the Higgs, this was different, as the ability to test for it was well-within our foreseeable capabilities, and it is a part of the hugely successful 'standard model' - string theory is not even close to providing any experimentally testable predictions (that don't require silly/impossible amounts of energy, to test), and has none of the credentials/success that the standard model has backing it.

magicbastarder

lee smolin wrote about his concerns about string theory in 'the trouble with physics'.
my issue with it is that it seems more complicated than what it is trying to explain. not that that's a comment on whether it's correct or not, but i just don't like it.

KomradeBishop

Peter Woit - the author I mention above - wrote Not Even Wrong, which I thought was a reasonably accessible book on the topic (though it does have parts aimed for mathematicians/physicists only):
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Not-Even-Wrong-Continuing-Challenge/dp/0224076051

Long time since I read it though, and there are some things that Woit would write differently today, but very good book.

oscarBravo

I'll defer to Michio Kaku:

To the critics, however, these mathematical developments still don’t answer the nagging question: how do you test it? Since string theory is really a theory of Creation, when all its beautiful symmetries were in their full glory, the only way to test it, the critics wail, is to re-create the Big Bang itself, which is impossible. Nobel Laureate Sheldon Glashow likes to ridicule superstring theory by comparing it with former Pres. Reagan’s Star Wars plan, i.e. they are both untestable, soak up resources, and both siphon off the best scientific brains.

Actually, most string theorists think these criticisms are silly. They believe that the critics have missed the point. The key point is this: if the theory can be solved non-perturbatively using pure mathematics, then it should reduce down at low energies to a theory of ordinary protons, electrons, atoms, and molecules, for which there is ample experimental data. If we could completely solve the theory, we should be able to extract its low energy spectrum, which should match the familiar particles we see today in the Standard Model. Thus, the problem is not building atom smashers 1,000 light years in diameter; the real problem is raw brain power: of only we were clever enough, we could write down M-theory, solve it, and settle everything.

KomradeBishop

oscarBravo wrote: »

I'll defer to Michio Kaku:

The problem being: How long will it take to solve? It could take thousands of years of wasted effort (literally thousands - there is no end in sight), only for it to become falsified.

That's potentially thousands of years of many different physicists brainpower (whole lifetimes/careers, spent on a potentially fruitless effort), that could be better spent elsewhere.

String theorists nowadays, are more like salesmen (or theologians even), who try to sell/evangelise the theory which provides them with a high-status position academically and keeps them funded, while papering over the fact that we could be looking at a centuries/millenia long research project, that may come to nothing.

That's money/effort that is almost certainly better spent elsewhere - and in the meantime, mathematics as a field will still be constantly improving, slowly providing advances that might justify giving string theory another shot later on - but while getting better things done in the present, and not wasting resources on string theory.

oscarBravo

KomradeBishop wrote: »

The problem being: How long will it take to solve? It could take thousands of years of wasted effort (literally thousands - there is no end in sight), only for it to become falsified.

That's potentially thousands of years of many different physicists brainpower (whole lifetimes/careers, spent on a potentially fruitless effort), that could be better spent elsewhere.

String theorists nowadays, are more like salesmen (or theologians even), who try to sell/evangelise the theory which provides them with a high-status position academically and keeps them funded, while papering over the fact that we could be looking at a centuries/millenia long research project, that may come to nothing.

That's money/effort that is almost certainly better spent elsewhere - and in the meantime, mathematics as a field will still be constantly improving, slowly providing advances that might justify giving string theory another shot later on - but while getting better things done in the present, and not wasting resources on string theory.

That's a really, really strange thing to say.

What are the competing candidates for a grand unifying theory of everything that you personally feel that theoretical physicists should be working on? Or is your problem with the very idea of theoretical physics? If you can't hit it with a hammer, it doesn't exist?

Scientists are working on string theories because they are fascinating. They offer a tantalising glimpse of a mathematical explanation for literally everything. If that seems like a waste of time to you, then, I'm sorry, we have very different definitions of what science is actually for.

Tell me: who's job do you think it should be to dictate to scientists what they have permission to research?

Hotblack Desiato

KomradeBishop wrote: »

The problem being: How long will it take to solve? It could take thousands of years of wasted effort (literally thousands - there is no end in sight), only for it to become falsified.

You mean like if, after seven and a half million years of calculation, the answer turns out to be 42?

robindch

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

You mean like if, after seven and a half million years of calculation, the answer turns out to be 42?

At that point, you'd be unsure what the question actually was.

KomradeBishop

oscarBravo wrote: »

That's a really, really strange thing to say.

What are the competing candidates for a grand unifying theory of everything that you personally feel that theoretical physicists should be working on? Or is your problem with the very idea of theoretical physics? If you can't hit it with a hammer, it doesn't exist?

Strange in what way?

To read up on my reply, before writing it, I found this article from Woit - which addresses this and is good:
https://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=7005

Flicking through his book on it as well, and he has a good analogous quote, regarding string theory being 'The only game in town':

A guy with the gambling sickness loses his shirt every night in a poker game. Somebody tells him that the game is crooked, rigged to send him to the poorhouse. And he says, haggardly, ''I know, I know. But it’s the only game in town." ~ Vonnegut

It's also kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy: If string theory is sucking up so much of the resources of the theoretical physics community, then that kind of helps ensure that it stays 'the only game in town'.

That, however, is pretty much the strongest argument in favour of string theory: That there is no other candidate for a Theory of Everything.
That is not really a very good argument though, considering that it may easily take centuries/millenia, to be able to find out whether it is false or not - starving resources from the rest of the theoretical physics community, in the process.


As for setting standards, how about this: If a theory can not come up with a falsifiable prediction within 50 years, or once those 50 years are up, can not provide a roadmap for how it can provide a falsifiable prediction within the next 100 years, then it should not take up more than a small amount of the theoretical physics communities resources?

That seems very generous as far as time scales and human effort are concerned, and would give string theory a little bit more time.

oscarBravo wrote: »

Scientists are working on string theories because they are fascinating. They offer a tantalising glimpse of a mathematical explanation for literally everything. If that seems like a waste of time to you, then, I'm sorry, we have very different definitions of what science is actually for.

Tell me: who's job do you think it should be to dictate to scientists what they have permission to research?

Neoclassical economists fetishize 'free markets' because they are fascinating - they also don't exist.
You're claiming string theory provides a mathematical explanation for literally everything, but well, that's the whole problem: We don't know whether it does or not, and won't find out for possibly millenia

I think first of all, that the jury is out on whether string theorists are actually scientists - and its the job of 'philosophers of science' to determine whether they are or not - and it's the job of the government departments around the world that are funding them, to decide whether to fund their research or not.

They can research whatever they like - but why should they be getting such a huge share of public resources, when there are others areas of theoretical physics to research, other than theories-of-everything?

oscarBravo

I had a long response typed out, but meh: I'm no more qualified to talk about what constitutes "science" than you are. I will say that it depresses me to see it reduced to "what we should be spending money on", because it's a short step from there to "what will maximise shareholder value".

Turtwig

M-Theory falls into the same exemption that theology does. You can't criticise it until you understand it but to understand it will take 30 years of your life.

Fwiw, I think String theory and all its variants are science. As long as the the end goal is to derive something is testable. To this end, some papers have been published proposed experiments. Others, have been published dismissing these designs for experiments. As long as the theory isn't validated by elegance alone. I'm fine with it.

Mathematics is another field where empiricism takes a back seat. I consider that to be science also. Just so people have an inkling for what spectrum I define science under.

KomradeBishop

oscarBravo wrote: »

I had a long response typed out, but meh: I'm no more qualified to talk about what constitutes "science" than you are. I will say that it depresses me to see it reduced to "what we should be spending money on", because it's a short step from there to "what will maximise shareholder value".

Much of the funding for theoretical physics, comes from public funding in various countries around the world - which has no tie to shareholder value, as that would only be true for private funding - and the budgets are limited and constantly getting tightened.

So, it's a situation where putting disproportionate funding/effort into string theory, is crowding out funding/effort from research in other theoretical physics efforts.

I think it's depressing to see that theoretical particle physics, and the search for something greater beyond the Standard Model, seems to have stagnated - and I would love to see string theory advanced to a stage where it becomes falsifiable - but there's got to be a stage where we say "ok, we've been pursuing string theory for 50 years, time to put it on the shelf, and come back to it in another 25-50 years".

I think there should always be some core funding for string theory, to keep the knowledge built up in the community alive, but in many ways it's the perfect trap for derailing an entire scientific field, into a potentially hugely wasteful effort:
A theory so elaborate and complicated, that it could take hundreds/thousands of years to disprove, and which perfectly straddles the border between what is science and what isn't.

KomradeBishop

Turtwig wrote: »

M-Theory falls into the same exemption that theology does. You can't criticise it until you understand it but to understand it will take 30 years of your life.

Fwiw, I think String theory and all its variants are science. As long as the the end goal is to derive something is testable. To this end, some papers have been published proposed experiments. Others, have been published dismissing these designs for experiments. As long as the theory isn't validated by elegance alone. I'm fine with it.

I think that placing it close to the same exemption as theology is fair alright - however, I don't think you need to be an expert in M-Theory to be able to criticize it, you only need to have a good knowledge, of the Philosophy of Science and demarcation problem

If you follow Woit's blog, you'll see that pretty much all claims of proposed experiments for string theory, are either misleading and not true experiments of string theory (e.g. the LHC disproving supersymmetry won't work, because string theorists will just shift the goalposts by picking one of the other 10^500 possible models, usually by edging the energy requirements for discovering SUSY particles, just above what the LHC or 'insert present most powerful accelerator' can reach), or are experiments which require a 10^*silly* increase in experimental energy levels.

So, again: Likely hundreds or maybe thousands of years before we can even test it, and in the meantime, string theorists are engaging in a form of extremely misleading hype/marketing, in order to keep themselves funded.

Turtwig wrote: »

Mathematics is another field where empiricism takes a back seat. I consider that to be science also. Just so people have an inkling for what spectrum I define science under.

The thing is though, string theory is trying to describe the real/physical world, so it's something that mandatorily has to be empirical

String theory could be a perfect and very mathematically interesting abstraction of what a world (or rather, many worlds) could be like - but if it turns out to not be an accurate depiction of what this world is like, then it's just a fancy mathematical playtoy (with useful mathematical implications).

It's almost precisely analogous, to how many economic mathematical models, might be very interesting playtoys representing perfect free markets - it's just, that doesn't represent the real world accurately at all, and is very misleading

joseph brand

Who could have foreseen a discussion on M-theory in a thread dedicated to the GOP. Nobody. That's who.

Perhaps an intermission is in order, so I have discovered an image which comprehensively sums up Republicans as succinctly as possible:





Now, back to Quantum gravity and strings . . .

oscarBravo

KomradeBishop wrote: »

I think there should always be some core funding for string theory, to keep the knowledge built up in the community alive, but in many ways it's the perfect trap for derailing an entire scientific field, into a potentially hugely wasteful effort:
A theory so elaborate and complicated, that it could take hundreds/thousands of years to disprove, and which perfectly straddles the border between what is science and what isn't.

Two things: I think theoretical physicists should decide what avenues of research to pursue, because they are the only ones with enough of a grasp of the subject to make that decision. Also, the unwritten premise behind your dismissal of string theories is that there is an alternative theory of everything that isn't elaborate and complicated; that's easily falsifiable; and that's languishing for want of research dollars. If that's the case, I haven't heard anything about it.

KomradeBishop

oscarBravo wrote: »

Two things: I think theoretical physicists should decide what avenues of research to pursue, because they are the only ones with enough of a grasp of the subject to make that decision. Also, the unwritten premise behind your dismissal of string theories is that there is an alternative theory of everything that isn't elaborate and complicated; that's easily falsifiable; and that's languishing for want of research dollars. If that's the case, I haven't heard anything about it.

Well, I would say that Philosophers of Science and Epistemologists in general, are the primary ones who are responsible for judging the quality of any fields research (and whether it deserves to command so much funding) - string theorists don't seem to make for good philosophers of science; if they pass that judgement though, then yes - I'd agree that string theorists are then the second-in-line experts, of how research should be guided/funded.

In the same way, you don't need to be an expert on religion/theology, to know epistemologically, that most/all religious beliefs, start with an unfalsifiable 'leap of faith' - so, you don't need to be a string theorist, to know that it's not presently falsifiable (and may not be for centuries/millenia).


Also - my current position is that there is no other Theory of Everything at the moment, and I think that is the best argument in favour of string theory - but I also think it's a very bad/weak argument, and that string theory should command only a small amount of the theoretical physics communities resources, unless it can show (after 50 years say), some definite signs of progress towards falsifiability.
If an alternative Theory of Everything can be discovered, then it is highly unlikely to be discovered, while string theory is commanding such a huge amount of the theoretical particle physics communities resources.

I think there should be a lot of diversity in the research that is funded here - historically, many of the best scientific discoveries come completely unexpectedly, out of nowhere - funding should have a certain amount of 'randomness' in it, it shouldn't have a huge/disproportionate amount of it pumped into one theory, which shows no signs of progress towards falsifiability in 40+ years, and has become stagnant as a field of study, just because we have no better ideas:
That just guarantees that nobody will have the freedom to explore potentially better ideas, because they'll only be likely to get funded if they go into string theory.

I think it's very arrogant of string theorists, to command such a disproportionate amount of funding in the theoretical physics community - they've had 40+ years to get somewhere, and they've failed - and they can't even reliably promise progress anytime in the next millenium.

Brian Shanahan

robindch wrote: »

After failing to win sufficient support for his policies, Nigel Farange announced his resignation last Friday:

http://www.bbc.com/news/election-2015-32654046

After failing to win sufficient support for his resignation, Nigel Farange announced his unresignation yesterday:

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-32696505

Carswell to rejoin the Tories, or more likely, go independent in about six months then. I reckon this latest stunt will destroy the 'kippers, along with the increasingly far-right make-up of the Tory party the farther into the current parliament time goes.

Brian Shanahan

oscarBravo wrote: »

What are the competing candidates for a grand unifying theory of everything that you personally feel that theoretical physicists should be working on? Or is your problem with the very idea of theoretical physics? If you can't hit it with a hammer, it doesn't exist?

The problem with that line of thinking is that there very well may not be a unified theory which will explain everything. Remember, the very best we are going to ever get from our* scientific inquiries is an approximate^ model of reality.

In all honesty, the name "string theory" is a bad misnomer, it is still barely at hypotheis stage, and only has been given the appellation of theory because it is currently so in vogue with physicists.

*as a species.
^albeit an increasingly accurate one as our knowledge broadens.

Turtwig

KomradeBishop wrote: »

I think it's very arrogant of string theorists, to command such a disproportionate amount of funding in the theoretical physics community - they've had 40+ years to get somewhere, and they've failed - and they can't even reliably promise progress anytime in the next millenium.

Getting somewhere in science is pretty much grounded in failure. Cancer research that doesn't find a treatment option for cancer provides us with an insight into what doesn't work. I like to describe science as logical sequence of failed approximations towards less inaccurate approximations. Part of the danger in the field nowadays is people wants that 'buzz' moment of credit and acclaim. There's a really stupid reliance on publication. Scientists are less inclined to actually re-check performed experiments. Anyway, I digress. Failure in science is pretty much a given. That's why religions just make sht up. :pac:

There are two principle ways to view string theory:
One: it's a physical theory.
Two: it's a language by which physical theories can be described. String theory is to modern physics what calculus was newtonian mechanics.


Physics is a vast field. String theorists aren't halting progress in any other areas of its research. Nor are they really robbing money from it. If you want to put things in context, most public money in physics is wasted on particle and astro physics. Theoretical physics is considerably cheaper in comparison. It's very much like maths. I have no issue with maths, history, art receiving public funding. I don't think string theory should be made an exception to this. I also think its worth pointing out that although its called "string theory" it's really just the mathematical pursuit for a description of everything. Yeah, some scientists go overboard with hyperbole. Others have their research misrepresented. Same as everything really.

Finally, 'classical physics' was 'broken' for over 300 years. I think 40 years is a little harsh a period to judge any discipline in physics. Not everything can appear to follow a trend like Moore's "law" does.

KomradeBishop

String theory doesn't count though, as part of a logical sequence of failed approximations - we don't know if it's anything more than just a mathematical playtoy at the moment, with potentially no application to physics (at least - not physics as it applies to this world, only providing indirectly useful mathematical tools).

What you describe - a logical sequence of failed approximations - that describes a gradually progressive field of research, but what we have with string theory is a degenerative field of research, where we are getting nowhere, with no progression and with no end in sight.

I don't see how description 'Two' above can hold: That seems to inherently assume that string theory is a valid description of all physical theories - which seems to imply it is inherently neutral - which means it must include the (yet undiscovered) physical theory which correctly describes reality (i.e. that one of the 10^520 'solutions'/models of string theory, correctly represents reality) - and that inherently assumes that string theory is valid; there's no basis for this.


Physics is a vast field, yes - but theoretical physics isn't quite as vast, and people like Peter Woit and others, have well documented the detrimental effects of string theory, on funding in the theoretical physics community.
On reading up my reply, I found a good comment from Woit:

"doing non-string theory mathematical physics [is] about the best way to make oneself unemployable in any US physics department"

Matt Strassler himself, also seems to share a similar view of string theory (but less one-sided compared to Woit) - despite being on the other side of that debate:

"I am by no means a flag waver for the string theory community; the theory’s been spectacularly over-hyped, and the community’s political control of high-energy physics in many U.S. physics departments has negatively impacted many scientific careers, including my own. On the other hand, I am also not going to tell you that string theory, as a theory, is somehow evil incarnate; I have done a certain amount of string theory research, and not only have I learned a great deal from it that I could not have learned any other way, doing the research had a positive effect on my career."
...
"Personally, I feel string theory’s possible application to “everything” has been wildly over-promoted; for this purpose, string theory cannot be tested at present, and that situation might continue for a very long time, perhaps centuries. Meanwhile we have too many string theorists teaching at the top U.S. universities, and not enough theorists doing other aspects of high-energy physics, including Standard Model predictions, such as carried out by the BlackHat folks. As a result, far too few particle physics theorists were trained at top universities in the U.S. in recent years, and our theoretical LHC research is now spread very thin."

String theory is not comparable to classical physics either though Classical physics had a background of progressive advances in theory, and even if it became stagnant, it still had successes under its belt - string theory has no such success under its belt.

BuilderPlumber

In recent times, the Republican party has come to be regarded as a hawkish rightwing one. The Dubya Bush administration certainly didn't help its cause, an administration many believe to be the worst presidency in US history. Admittedly, it is hard to argue against this and Bush 2's legacy remains.

But how different are the Republican's to the much more favoured Democrats? Not much if truth be known. First off, most admins follow continuity and there was not much difference between Reagan, Bush 1 and Clinton for example. Bush 2 wasn't as different to his predecessors as some would want you to believe either. Admittedly, Clinton, Obama, Bush 1 and Reagan were/are all better presidents than Bush 2 but their policies were all similar. We associated the Saddam Hussein wars with the Bushes but Clinton also shared the same views. We associate major wars involving the US with the Bushes, but didn't Clinton go to war against Milosevic and also bombed Saddam from time to time. 9/11 would have lead to a war against the Taliban whether Bush, Obama or Clinton was in power.

But the second Iraq war is what mattered. I opposed this war vehemently and I believe it has a lot got to do with all that is wrong in today's world. What was controversial about this war was it was against a weak enemy who was already contained. All the anti-Saddam propaganda related mostly to imagined WMD and atrocities dating back to the Iran-Iraq war era. Sure, US involvement in Kosovo was not any better but Milosevic and his mass murders were giving the war its propaganda. The Afghan war was broadly necessary and those who could do something like 9/11 did have to be stopped. And no one was going to lament the fall of the then worst dictatorship on the planet: Taliban Afghanistan.

Because of the Iraq war, the US Republican party has become a dirty word almost. Its poor image is very hard to shake. But the Republicans were once the much more moderate of the two main US parties. And it was a Democrat president in the 1960s who faced the same issues as Dubya did: Johnson's escalation and very poor handling of another totally unnecessary war in Vietnam virtually handed the Republicans the presidency. Nixon, Ford and Carter thus wound down US involvement in wars. But by the 1980s, it seemed in vogue again for the US to go to war. From 1991 to date, the US has been involved in 6 major wars mainly in the Middle East and Yugoslavia. From 1991 to date, both Republicans and Democrats have been in the presidency!

Brian Shanahan

BuilderPlumber wrote: »

The Afghan war was broadly necessary and those who could do something like 9/11 did have to be stopped. And no one was going to lament the fall of the then worst dictatorship on the planet: Taliban Afghanistan.

And to do that the US chose the wrong war. Who was it that trained, funded and provided the Al-Qaeda killers? Saudi Arabia, up to and including the top two families in that country the ibn Sauds and the bin Ladens.

While I've never held a candle for the Taliban, vile and vicious as they are, we have to remember two things, 1) 11-9 came at the wrong time for them, five days before they had smashed their only resistance, the equally bad Northern Alliance, and killed the only leader it had Masood. The last thing they needed was an act which would bring the US down on them. And 2) before 11-9 they wanted bin Laden dead more than the US did, he was seriously destabilising their security with his training camps and inflammatory rhetoric against the West and their Gulf allies. All the Taliban wanted was to be left alone to recreate their medieval "paradise" in the arid uplands of Afghanistan, they wanted no part of the rest of the world.

And one final point which should show you how little the Taliban had to do with bin Laden and the crime of 11-9-2001, they offered to track bin Laden down and hand him over to a neutral third party friendly to the US, likely Turkey, even before the US decided to invade. Shrub* rejected this out of hand, because he saw in the 11-9 attacks, not a crime to be avenged, but an opportunity to remake the world in his own image, starting with finishing the job pappa Bush failed to complete in '91.

*Don't underestimate Shrub, while no genius, nor even a clever man, he knew enough to know exactly what was going on, and if he wanted to could have easily thrown over those around him and impose his will directly.

Thargor

Brian Shanahan wrote: »

And to do that the US chose the wrong war. Who was it that trained, funded and provided the Al-Qaeda killers? Saudi Arabia, up to and including the top two families in that country the ibn Sauds and the bin Ladens.

While I've never held a candle for the Taliban, vile and vicious as they are, we have to remember two things, 1) 11-9 came at the wrong time for them, five days before they had smashed their only resistance, the equally bad Northern Alliance, and killed the only leader it had Masood. The last thing they needed was an act which would bring the US down on them. And 2) before 11-9 they wanted bin Laden dead more than the US did, he was seriously destabilising their security with his training camps and inflammatory rhetoric against the West and their Gulf allies. All the Taliban wanted was to be left alone to recreate their medieval "paradise" in the arid uplands of Afghanistan, they wanted no part of the rest of the world.

And one final point which should show you how little the Taliban had to do with bin Laden and the crime of 11-9-2001, they offered to track bin Laden down and hand him over to a neutral third party friendly to the US, likely Turkey, even before the US decided to invade. Shrub* rejected this out of hand, because he saw in the 11-9 attacks, not a crime to be avenged, but an opportunity to remake the world in his own image, starting with finishing the job pappa Bush failed to complete in '91.

*Don't underestimate Shrub, while no genius, nor even a clever man, he knew enough to know exactly what was going on, and if he wanted to could have easily thrown over those around him and impose his will directly.

Isnt the event generally referred to as 9-11 not 11-9?