Author Archives: woit

The String Theory Backlash

Posted on June 19, 2006 by woit

Over at Cosmic Variance Sean Carroll has a posting about The String Theory Backlash. Probably best if anyone who wants to discuss it do so over there, so I’ll turn off comments here. Update: More about this here. Update: The … Continue reading →

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Strings 2006

Posted on June 18, 2006 by woit

Strings 2006 is about to get underway in Beijing, at a hotel next to Tiananmen Square, with public talks by David Gross, Andy Strominger and Stephen Hawking. Jonathan Shock reports that an agreement was formally signed today creating the KITPC, … Continue reading →

Posted in Strings 2XXX | 35 Comments

Richter Talk at SUSY06

Posted on June 17, 2006 by woit

Burton Richter’s talk at the panel on “Naturalness” at SUSY06 is now on-line. Richter blasted his three theoretical colleagues on the panel (two of whom are his colleagues at Stanford) in forceful terms as no longer doing science: … I … Continue reading →

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More Landscape, and Peer Review

Posted on June 16, 2006 by woit

The anthropic string theory landscape seems to be having ever greater success in taking over fundamental physics and turning it into pseudo-science. It’s being promoted by no less than 2008 presidential candidate Wesley Clark, the following is from a transcript … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 77 Comments

Censored Comments From the Reference Frame

Posted on June 15, 2006 by woit

Since many people have been posting off-topic comments here that were censored over at Lubos Motl’s Reference Frame, I’m creating a separate posting so that there will be an appropriate place for these. Also, if you want to try and … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 94 Comments

The Scientific Curmudgeon

Posted on June 15, 2006 by woit

John Horgan has an excellent new blog that he has recently started up, called The Scientific Curmudgeon. Horgan may be best known for his provocative 1996 book The End of Science, which was one of the first books for the … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 17 Comments

Various and Sundry

Posted on June 14, 2006 by woit

As usual recently, so much going on that I don’t have time to write much about a lot of it, but here are some quick links and comments. The SUSY 06 conference is taking place this week, hosted by UC … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 36 Comments

More in the Times

Posted on June 12, 2006 by woit

In Monday’s London Times there’s a piece by Anjana Ahuja about my new book and the controversy over string theory. Ahuja worries that I might have multiple spleens, so I want to reassure her and others that I only have … Continue reading →

Posted in Not Even Wrong: The Book | 37 Comments

Not Even Wrong in the Sunday Times

Posted on June 11, 2006 by woit

Today’s edition of the London Sunday Times has a review of Not Even Wrong by John Cornwell in its book review section. Cornwell is a British historian of science, based at Cambridge University. The review is very positive and pretty … Continue reading →

Posted in Not Even Wrong: The Book | 42 Comments

Blogs, Blogs, Blogs

Posted on June 9, 2006 by woit

All sorts of news very recently on the science blogging front: Seed’s ScienceBlogs site has been revamped, with 25 new blogs for a total of 43 science bloggers. First it was Cosmic Variance with 5 bloggers, now it is ScienceBlogs … Continue reading →

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