Today is the fifth anniversary of the start of this blog, something that has caused me to go back and take a look at some of the early postings, and meditate a bit on what has happened during the past five years.
The first posting was content-free, just an experiment to see if the software worked. The inspiration for starting the blog included the examples of Jacques Distler’s Musings, which had been around for a while, and Sean Carroll’s Preposterous Universe, which he had just started. At the time I had finished writing the book Not Even Wrong, and was in the process of getting it published. The initial idea behind the blog was that it would be a place to comment on and share information with others about topics in math and physics that interested me, including following the on-going story of string theory, which plays a crucial role in the intersection of the two subjects.
A few days later, the first substantive posting was a discussion of a talk by David Gross at CUNY on The Coming Revolutions in Fundamental Physics. Gross had been giving similar talks for several years (you can see a version from 2001 here), and continues to do so to this day (in a few weeks, he’ll be at UC Davis, see here). I don’t see anything I’d want to change in my posting from five years ago, and find this in itself somewhat remarkable. One thing that I’m sure has changed in the more recent versions of the talk is that they don’t include the prediction that 2007-8 will see a headline in the New York Times about the discovery of supersymmetry at the LHC. One feature of many theorist’s talks in recent years has been consistently overly optimistic predictions about when results from the LHC will arrive.
The next posting was an attempt to balance the previous one with something positive and uncontroversial, a discussion of the importance of understanding electroweak symmetry breaking, along with speculation that this might end up having something to do with our still imperfect understanding of chiral gauge symmetry at a non-perturbative level. I found the reaction to this posting truly bizarre, and it gave an inkling of some of the strange chapters to come in what some started to refer to as the “string wars”. Over the years I’d heard from some people that quite a few string theory enthusiasts were convinced that the only possible explanation for skepticism was the ignorance of skeptics. String theory is certainly a remarkably complex and difficult subject, and many skeptics will freely admit to not understanding the subject well, but my own personal experience talking to string theorists was that they were well-aware that there were good reasons for skepticism. Over the years, even many experts who had worked on the subject had come to the conclusion that string theory unification was not as promising as initially hoped, and had moved on to work on different things.
A few months later, Harvard’s recently promoted faculty member Lubos Motl started up his blog, The Reference Frame, which kicked the pathological nature of the discussion of string theory up to a whole new level. By the way, it seems that the main character of one of the most popular shows on US television is based on Lubos, and there’s a campaign to get an Emmy for the actor portraying this character. You really couldn’t make stuff like this up.
Five years later, some things have definitely changed. String theory remains a very powerful political force in the theoretical physics community, but the very public debate over the problems of the subject has taken a huge toll. Perhaps the most accurate indicator of how an academic field is doing in the marketplace of ideas is how many universities are investing in tenure-track appointments in the field. At least in the US, the situation here for string theory is dire. I may be missing someone, but taking a look at the latest information about particle theory tenure-track positions in the US available here, I don’t see any string theorist even making it to the short lists. At least in the US these days, if you want a permanent position in particle theory, you need to be doing something in phenomenology or cosmology. From what I hear, a common situation in physics departments is that the argument for string theory that “let’s wait for the LHC results for vindication” has been taken to heart, with departments figuring that now is not the time to hire in string theory, deciding instead to wait a few years and see if it collapses completely or gets revived by whatever comes out of the LHC.
One sad aspect of all this is that it includes a generalized backlash against the use of sophisticated mathematical ideas in particle theory. Many physicists have drawn the conclusion from the failure of string theory that the problem was too much mathematics, rather than a wrong idea (even string theorists are moving away from mathematics: unlike many years, I see no mathematicians listed as speaking at Strings 2009). Maybe LHC results will point the way forward, but if not, and progress instead requires a deeper mathematical understanding of quantum field theory, the only place for people to get hired working on this will be mathematics, not physics departments, and this is a less than ideal situation for many reasons.
The devolution of string theory unification into pseudo-scientific argumentation about the multiverse is another cause for physics departments to shy away from the subject. This has also been deadly for the public perception of the subject. For this week’s example, see a story in the Boston Globe which compares the scientific status of string theory with that of alchemy:
And at the cutting edge of modern physics, string theory purports to offer a complete but possibly unprovable explanation of the universe based on 11 dimensions and imperceptibly tiny strings.
Alchemists wouldn’t recognize the mathematics behind the theory. But in its grandeur, in its claim to total authority, in its unprovability, they would surely recognize its spirit.
Searching the NSF physics awards database for the strings “multiverse” or “anthropic” turns up nothing, and I suspect that even the proponents of this research are well aware that their colleagues want nothing to do with it. For funding they may have to turn to other sources, including the Templeton Foundation, which recently financed a meeting at a resort in the Cayman Islands which brought together people from the world of business and philanthropy with an array of physicists, including the multiverse crowd. A report on the meeting, with some slides of presentations, is available here.
A somewhat related piece of news is that yesterday the Templeton Foundation announced that Bernard d’Espagnat is the latest winner of its $1.4 million Templeton Prize. d’Espagnat has a long career of serious work on the philosophy and interpretation of quantum mechanics, but what makes him eligible for the prize is having indulged in a certain amount of obscurantism concerning quantum mechanics, coupled with an indulgent attitude towards religion:
Classical physics developed by Isaac Newton believes it can describe the world through laws of nature that it knows or will discover. But quantum physics shows that tiny particles defy this logic and can act in indeterminate ways.
D’Espagnat says this points toward a reality beyond the reach of empirical science. The human intuitions in art, music and spirituality can bring us closer to this ultimate reality, but it is so mysterious we cannot know or even imagine it.
“Mystery is not something negative that has to be eliminated,” he said. “On the contrary, it is one of the constitutive elements of being.”
…
“I believe we ultimately come from a superior entity to which awe and respect is due and which we shouldn’t try to approach by trying to conceptualize too much,” he said. “It’s more a question of feeling.”
I’m looking forward to seeing what happens over the next five years. Surely we’ll finally start seeing results from the LHC and maybe they’ll re-invigorate particle physics. The wide variety of work on mathematics inspired by quantum field theory may also lead to progress of one sort or another. As ever, obscurantism and pseudo-science will find proponents, but I don’t think they’ll make much headway in the scientific community, even with funding from the wealthy. Undoubtedly things will happen that I can’t possibly imagine at this point. I hope that they’re positive things for mathematics and physics, or, at least, entertaining.
Peter what will happen if LHC sees nothing, not even a Higgs?
Will that reinvigorate particle physics? Also you haven’t mentioned
anything about neutrino physics in this post or in most other blog posts.
Do you think neutrino physics tells us nothing about particle physics?
Non-0 neutrino mass has been the
most (only) new discovery in particle physics in the last 10 years
and that has invigorated particle physics much more, I think.
Or do you think neutrino physics does not tell us much about electroweak symmetry breaking and other stuff?
Shantanu,
If the LHC just sees a SM Higgs, that won’t reinvigorate particle physics at all. The best-case scenario is no Higgs, which means there is something else behind electroweak symmetry breaking, and the LHC should be able to go searching for this something else, whatever it is.
Non-zero neutrino masses are a clue about what lies beyond the standard model, but unfortunately just a clue, one we don’t know how to interpret. Unless there’s some unexpected new result from neutrino experiments, I fear this will remain the case.
Maybe the best non-LHC bet for something dramatic would be from the experiments looking for dark matter. But I think these remain a long shot.
Happy bloggiversary 🙂
Thanks, Peter. BTW is non-zero neutrino mass evidence for physics beyond standard model? I thought so, but Tomasso and others pointed out to
me at that non-0 neutrino mass can be accomodated in the standard model (which was news to me).
Do you agree with Tomasso and others?
Shantanu,
You can just treat neutrinos the same as other leptons, giving them mass by introducing right-handed neutrino fields and Yukawa couplings to the Higgs. This isn’t really a significant extension of the minimal, no neutrino mass standard model, and people often mean this when they say “standard model” now. If you do this, there’s no reason for neutrino masses to be so much smaller than other masses, but then again, you have no idea why any of the Yukawa’s have the values they do.
Due to the fact that a right-handed neutrino field transforms trivially under SU(3)xSU(2)xU(1), there are other interesting possibilities for how to get a mass term, ones where the smallness of the mass would be natural, and these involve introducing new physics. It’s in this sense that non-zero mass is a “clue”.
I looked around for a minute and found this nice explanation of the neutrino mass situation:
http://library.lanl.gov/cgi-bin/getfile?25-04.pdf
congrats on 5 great years!
Alchemy isn’t provable? I don’t think that’s really fair to alchemy. It was provable, and its practitioners ran experiments of a sort, it just happened to eventually be proven wrong.
String theory, on the other hand, is not even….well you get the idea.
Happy bloggoversery.
So what were alchemists proved wrong about? That gold and lead were made of the same fundamental particles? It is true that they never turned lead into gold, but they weren’t necessarily wrong to try.
Happy fifth!
Neutrino masses can be accommodated in the standard model without the addition of extra fields. The point is that the mass arises from a higher dimension operator and is thus suppressed by the inverse of a cutoff scale at which you expect new physics. Since that scale’s a bit less than the Planck scale, there’s good reason to expect it isn’t the standard model all the way up to quantum gravity.
I have thoroughly enjoyed the blog over the years. I hope in five years we can talk about really new things.
I think some of the backlash against the culture of mathematics, as it exists inside physics, is justified. People are not taught to think physically and so cook up all sorts of preposterous ideas. Physics is not blameless for endorsing wishful thinking all too often. I am amazed that it required so many years for a coherent voice about the matter (you) to emerge. Anyway it is good that you had the courage to do all this.
-drl
Peter,
Has anyone besides Lubos really suggested that Sheldon Cooper (the string theorist on The Big Bang Theory) is based on Lubos? I consider myself pretty well acquainted with both characters and I don’t see the resemblance – except that they are both well off the mass shell.
But,
Happy Blogoversary!
happy blogiversary Peter!
Happy 5, Peter!
So this blog is Old Enough for Kindergarten.
What is string theory is Old Enough for?
Congratulations on 5 years. It is rare that a professional can keep a popular public blog without it (sadly) undermining their career. Regarding string theory, my opinion is that it does show that there is a way to unify quantum mechanics and general relativity, however, at first glance the whole idea of little strings being the answer is childish in its simplicity. It was probably a mistake for physicists to call it string theory.
I would argue that outside your dislike of string theory, you do share the same sort of contempt for the misuse of physics that your infamous rival Lubos has. I hate to say this, but there is a small circle of blogs that offer some of the most intellectually stimulating entertainment that one could ask for, and Not Even Wrong is a well established member.
However, I will also happily say this, my own education stopped prematurely due to my own career and obligations, and if it weren’t for Not Even Wrong, The Reference Frame, Back Reaction and Cosmic Variance, and a few other blogs, I doubt my recent progress in self-education in physics would have been remotely successful or even possible.
Looking forward to your 10th anniversary!
Thanks CIP,
I’ve only watched the show a few times, and the first episode I saw had Sheldon going on about the superiority of string theory to LQG, and how stupid LQG supporters were. At the time, my first thought was “Wow, somebody at this show has been reading The Reference Frame…”
Thanks for sharing so much during those past 5 years Peter. Through your blog, you have made it possible for people like me to have a better appreciation of contemporary and historical ideas in physics and mathematics research. We wish you all the mental stamina to keep it going for a few more years.
I’m not informed enough to comment often, so this seems like a good opportunity to say thanks for an interesting and informative blog (I enjoyed your book as well).
Best regards,
– Steve Esser
Ther are some string theory-educated people on the faculty short-list : Harold Steinecker, David Shih, Sebastian Franco
Peter Woit, thanks for the blog. It’s one of the better ones on the Internet.
I miss Lubos. I used to run into him at his old job and listened in on some of his QFT lectures. It’s too bad he left the USA (and possibly academia). The wit and humor overbalance the arrogant craziness, I.M.O.
re: alchemy, it’s just chemistry done in secret. Alchemy would have become modern chemistry and physics had there been open publication.
Thanks for this excellent blog. I am a mathematician with a casual interest in physics.
I am glad to have your critical perspective on string theory as a contrast to the frequently over-enthuiastic treatment in the media.
Hi Peter,
Thank you for your blog wich is a source of inspiration to me.
Jacob DeGoede
I cannot but join the cheering crowd for these brilliant, exhilarating, instructive, constructive five years. Keep it going strong, Peter!
Cheers,
T.
I came across your blog quite by accident a few years back and have been a visitor on and off ever since. Cheers Peter on a very nice blog.
Dear Peter,
Being a blogger-beginner, I do appreciate how hard it is to keep coming up with a new stuff for months (many persons report writer’s blog after a couple of weeks 🙂 ). You kept coming up with new stuff for years – you ARE a marathon runner.
Cheers and congratulations,
Dmitry.
Peter, thanks for the link on neutrino mass. Btw what do you (and others )think
about strong CP problem in QCD. I haven’t seen much posts on this.
Or is this a solved problem? Would you classify this as a holy grail of physics?
Is the axion the only accepted solution? do you think there is any connection between strong CP problem and problem of electroweak symmetry breaking?
Many thanks to all for the nice birthday greetings…
Shantanu,
If I had to pick a holy grail, it’s the mechanism of electroweak symmetry breaking, including understanding where fermion masses come from. The strong CP problem is more of a hint than a holy grail, like the small size of neutrino masses. Maybe it’s a hint about axions, but adding new fields just to solve this particular problem isn’t very convincing. It’s also possible that somehow, once we understand the origin of fermion masses, the problem will go away. If the bare mass of the lightest quark is zero, there is no strong CP problem. This doesn’t seem to be true, but maybe it’s also a hint…
5 years of anti-scientific ranting? Enough already. Try finding a job you can be productive in.
Thanks for all the interesting posts & greetings!
hi Peter, I remember that 10 years ago the situation in theoretical physics was discouraging: we had a big problem, but nobody wanted to openly talk about it, keeping working on the usual topics. It is impressive to see how much the situation improved now.
Probably your blog played a key role, and without this new powerful tool that you managed in a great way, all criticisms would have been ignored.
Happy birthday, Not Even Wrong! Thanks for your informative and useful blog. (You know, in some countries, children are already at school at the age of five.)
Happy Birthday Peter’s Blog!
Yes–I remember when we tried to get $1.4 million for our art, but the foundations supporting science, physics, and philosophy turned us down. Good to see they are now supporting, “art, music and spirituality can bring us closer to this ultimate reality, but it is so mysterious we cannot know or even imagine it.”
Yes–it is so mysterious we cannot know nor imgaine it, which is why I gave up on physics and wrote “I wanna be sedated.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMD7Ezp3gWc
We’re applying to Templeton to get a second camera for our next video, a mobile tripod, and more postdocs than shown in this shoot.
“hi Peter, I remember that 10 years ago the situation in theoretical physics was discouraging: we had a big problem, but nobody wanted to openly talk about it, keeping working on the usual topics. It is impressive to see how much the situation improved now.
Probably your blog played a key role, and without this new powerful tool that you managed in a great way, all criticisms would have been ignored.”
Could you be specific? What are some objective indications that the situation has improved?
Can you name any prominent theoretical physicists whose research direction has changed for the better, by your standards? Or any other concrete signs of improvement?
I don’t doubt you are right, a. By my criteria there has been an big improvement. What I want is to understand your criteria.
I hope I’m not too late to wish your blog a happy birthday! I’m a relatively new reader of your blog and an amateur maths-physics follower. I didn’t realize the stakes against string theory until I started reading ‘Not Even Wrong’ . I really do hope mathematicians and physicists make some progress in TOEs and all before I’m too old to care 😉 ! Meanwhile, I will keep reading, wondering, and learning from your blog. Thanks!
Russ Van Rooy
Hello Marcus,
One of the invaluable services Peter has performed has been to provide a moderate, well-reasoned, honest voice. It is not easy sifting through the volumes of hype of our era and then summarizing it all in concise words, while enduring anonymous attacks from well-funded apponents and their hired fanboys. We had the same problem with Dexie’s Midnight Runners and Bon Jovi in the early eighties but we ended up in the Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame. Just as the univeristy presses were told not to publish Peter’s book, the major labels were told to steer clear of our rock’n’roll. But truly, it is the music that makes the label, not the label that makes the music. And by rejecting Peter’s book while embracing strings/convulted/obfuscatory math, the university presses took themselves down a notch, just like AIG/Merrill/Fannae Mae. This is sad, because math is a great and powerful entity; and now people are losing trust in it, just as people are losing trust in music because of American Idol and the Jonas Brothers.
The good news is that Peter is spearheading a renaissance in the university, where cleared of the string theory (antitheory) administrators, the schools will again be able to focus on more exalted maths and further real physics:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BL4od3xzthM
Towards the end you can see the LHC creating black holes in a brillaint explosion where it neither proves nor disproves string theory, which is beside the point, as far before that we see proof that Phenomenologists (in black leather jackets) Sing and Dance Better Than String Theorists.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2005/07/21/do-phenomenologists-sing-and-dance-%20%20%20%20better-than-string-theorists/
Over the past five years Peter’s blog has shown that science can also be pursued in the spirit of truth-seeking, in addition to driving traffic to websites to sell ad space. Rock-rock-rock-rock-rock-and-roll-high-school!
In what universe could this be a meaningful or fair criticism? Is Gross is at fault for failing to anticipate – by some type of clairvoyance, I suppose – that the LHC schedule would slip by several years? Back in 2001, I seem to remember the plan was that operation would start in 2005/6 and data start flowing in 2006/7. Why would one not take this at face value?
Just what attitude should Gross and other theorists have taken to avoid these cheap shots with five years’ hindsight? ‘LHC will probably be late and break down, so there’s no point trying to plan how we’re going to deal with the data’?
Someone who never goes on the record about what the state of the field might be in 5 years’ time will never be wrong – but such a person also deserves no voice in allocating scientific resources. Many big experiments have to be scientifically motivated and planned 15 years in advance. In context, the quoted remark is more than myopic.
And who could ever have predicted that mathematical physics would suffer from a prolonged publicity campaign against a field where large numbers of the most talented mathematical physicists work?
Thomas,
In my original 2004 posting, I pointed out that Gross’s prediction of a 2007 announcement of discovery of supersymmetry was unrealistic, given the schedule in place then, even ignoring the fact that schedules on projects of this kind almost always slip. The criticism of his prediction as unrealistic was a rather minor one, but I continue to think it was valid. More generally, I think particle theory as a whole has suffered for a long time from too much wishful thinking about how the LHC is any day now going to solve all problems.
The current bad reputation of string theory comes not from my blogging, but from the combination of the way it was (and continues to be) overhyped, together with its complete failure as an idea about unification, and the unwillingess of its proponents to admit publicly what has happened. Sure, it was possible to predict that this would cause serious damage to the willingness of other physicists and society in general to support particle theory, especially in its more abstract forms. The hope that this could be stopped before it did a lot of damage was one motivation for why, back in 2001, I started pointing out the problem.
Hi Joey,
We have had all sorts of people contributing to this blog: not just high-energy physicists, but engineers, philosophers, science writers, and all the possible shades of loons. Despite this, they have all had one thing in common: they have all been alive. With your posting, though, the blog can claim something unique – a contribution from a dead person. I look forward to more insightful comments from you, and hope that you can persuade some of your fellow dead people to contribute also. Personally, it would be the insights of Paul Dirac and Ernst Stueckelberg that I would most value. So if you could have a word …
Joey Ramone, that was indulgent nonsense.
Thanks Simon. Congrats on American Idol and all the educational shows it has helped inspire:
http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=1520
http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=1237
Chris–it is a little known fact that Dirac was our ;lead science advisor on this video for rock ‘n’ roll high school:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiDvKqRjYn0&feature=related
Not content to merely have the leading science/hollywood experts of our day and age advise our artistic creation, we hopped on Michio Kaku’s time machine and went back in time to ask Dirac questions. You can see the results about five seconds before the end.
We knew we could do better than those who brought you Dr. Manhattan in The Watchmen–who owes his blue glow to quantum black hole creation in an LHC experiment designed to probe higher dimensions, test string theory, and prove the existence of parallel universes.
It has been a lot of fun hanging out with Einstein, Feynman, and Bohr. None of us can stop laughing. Please do keep it up everyone! Never in the history of mankind has such supreme satire been conducted for so long with such straight faces. Ha!
I’m happy to have discovered your blog a few weeks back and I hope it continues for at least another 5 years. I know you’re one of those complex math types so the content is reflective of that, but I’m more turned on by the introspective articles like this one. I like that you brought up the trend of private groups funding “far out” research, because I think this is an area where academia has really fallen behind. Organization like Templeton and the Singularity university are going to leave university sponsored research in the dust, not just in the ideas that they validate, but in the way those ideas are actually applied to the broader society.
I have some gripes about your characterizations:
“d’Espagnat has a long career of serious work on the philosophy and interpretation of quantum mechanics, but what makes him eligible for the prize is having indulged in a certain amount of obscurantism concerning quantum mechanics, coupled with an indulgent attitude towards religion”
First off, the quote you provided mentions nothing specifically concerning religion, but does however address “art, music and spirituality.” I don’t see where you’re coming from when you label these memes “obscurantism” considering their prominence and scope in the course of human development. I’ll realize this is a somewhat specifically targeted blog, but surely you are aware that the topics you cover here (bosons, fermions, twistors, etc.) are exponentially more obscure to most people on this planet than music and art. And why is that?
Is there a connection between the waning interest in academic research, the growing enthusiasm for private research, and the widening gap between “mainstream”, scientific theory and the various ontological theories that the public has locked on to? Why is occultism growing in variety, scope and sheer numbers of believers, concurrent with “real” scientists’ efforts to explain everything through empirical means? In my mind it’s a failure of the educational system to bridge the divide between scientific data about reality and public perception of reality. Can science explain my experience of the world?
I think the groups that attempt to answer these questions will become increasingly relevant to the common person as the years roll on, regardless of the legitimacy of their answers. If scientists cannot explain the implications of their research to the life of the individual, someone else will, and they will be believed, crack-pot of not.
“…crack-pot or not.”
Also, I wish there was some way to edit a submitted comment. Thanks for your reference to the Cayman Islands conference. The site you linked to has some really interesting blog topics:
http://www.fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/427
http://www.fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/429 (check out the ‘Quantum Darwinism’ link)
http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/414
http://www.fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/401
Happy birthday Peter, well done and long may you keep it up. I myself have already started to repeat myself, two weeks shy of my 1st birthday!
Re “D’Espagnat says this points toward a reality beyond the reach of empirical science”, I’m surprised. This looks like a fairly clear misunderstanding of HUP – as you know, it is not an uncertainty in our knowledge of position/momentum, but an inbuilt fuzziness in the quantities themselves…some philosopher!
Peter,
almost five years ago I asked myself: “Is there a single person in the world who is independent and courageous enough to stand up against the string theory hype?” I started to Google word combinations like “string theory”, “wrong”, etc. The first thing I found was your blog. I have been reading it non-stop since then. Congratulations!
Hi Peter,
happy birthday for this very informative blog.
Concerning d’Espagnat being awarded by the Templeton prize, it is of no surprise since, you might not know, he is member of “Université Interdisciplinaire de Paris” (UIP) [1]. On their website, the presentation of UIP is as follows: “The mission of the Interdisciplinary University of Paris (UIP) is to disseminate and bring into contact different visions of the world based on the study of contemporary scientific paradigms, mainly in the area of astrophysics, quantum physics, the theory of evolution, the neuro sciences and the philosophies of the spirit.” In fact, UIP is the French equivalent of the Templeton Foundation (and they have partnerships). The veiled-reality concept from d’Espagnat was largely used by UIP members (including d’Espagnat but especially Jean Staune, the perpetual General Secretary of IUP) to advocate reconciliation between science and religion [3]. See also the article in Science [4].
[1] http://www.uip.edu
[2] See eg http://www.templeton.org/templeton_report/20080723/
[3] See eg http://www.uip.edu/gpss_major/spip.php?article73
[B. d’Espagnat, “The concept of ‘Veiled Reality’ and its relevance to the dialogue between Science and Religion”]
[4] http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2009/316/1?rss=1
Revlin,
I don’t think obscurantism and pseudo-science are an increasing problem among the general public. There have always been many sources of this, and they don’t seem to be doing any better than in the past. The coverage of science in the media and the understanding and respect the public has for science seem to me as healthy as ever. The problem I do see is an increasingly large number of respectable scientists engaging in this kind of thing, and that’s very dangerous. If you don’t have real progress to promote, it’s tempting to start hyping things which are not scientific progress, and too many people have been doing that.
“the understanding and respect the public has for science seem to me as healthy as ever. ”
Ah, but what is “science” in the public mind? What you call “obscurantism and pseudo-science” is what many others commonly infer as being based on “science.” In a certain loose way it is based on science, but would you say it is science or in any way validated by science?
You are voicing my exact point when you say, “The problem I do see is an increasingly large number of respectable scientists engaging in this kind of thing, and that’s very dangerous.” This trend is going to continue in the upward direction and the division between what these guys profess and what you would call “real” science will become more and more blurry. Remember your entry on What the Bleep? Remember your frustration at having been in a minority group of critics of the scientific legitimacy of this films statements (relative to the millions who said, “Hmm, that was really interesting?”–how many people recommended the film to you?) That is evidence of the wide gulf between your circle of colleagues and everyone else.
I also don’t see how you can say the general public is well informed about anything, especially through observation of states of media coverage, which are so disparate from real public perception. Try going to the mall and asking a random sampling of people what they think about the federal reserve central banking system. The breadth and consistency of ignorance about most worldly info is unbelievable, even when that info is overtly related to everyone’s day-to-day existence.
Revlin,
Maybe I’m an incurable optimist, but my take on “the general public” seems to be different than that of a lot of my Ivy League classmates. What I’ve seen over the years of talking to people is that, sure, they’re often ill-informed about science, economics, whatever (although they’ll often surprise you with how much they know). At the same time, they often are well-aware that they don’t know much about these subjects, have a lot of respect for them, as well as common sense about them.
But, in the end, I’m in some ways an elitist. I just don’t think it’s very important if the general public is well-informed about, say, elementary particle physics. It’s important that they have a general idea what the subject is about, and an openness to the idea that it’s worth studying, even if they don’t want to do so themselves. The serious problem worth worrying about is the quality of the thinking on a subject by its experts. If experts in particle theory are devoting their time to studying Boltzmann Brains, that’s a big problem, far worse than whatever misconceptions the general public may have.
Similarly, the general public may not understand how the Federal Reserve works, but it’s not clear that that’s important. What is important is what happens with the people who do understand how it works, e.g. those who run it. We’re in the middle of a world-historical disaster caused by the experts who run large financial institutions, including those most expert at the technicalities of how they work. That the average person does not understand these technicalities is both not surprising and mostly irrelevant.