He is a really interesting case. He is a real, actual, published theoretical physicist. But his popular science persona made him a bit weird. For example, in this video, alongside Roger Penrose and Sabine Hossenfelder, he looks like a sci-fi hype-man.
Sabine Hossenfelder isn’t really a good foil for someone that likes to portray that they are an expert on topics that are actually outside their expertise. Here’s a good video on why she is more similar to him than you would think: Youtube.
From my perspective, her takes on anything outside of undergrad physics are pretty shit, so forgive me if I don’t see having her involved as a good thing.
Yeah, I remember him on Art Bell back in the 90s and early 2000s. He’s never shied away from trying to inject real science into the pseudoscience crowd. Just because he’s willing to be brave enough to keep a discussion grounded in reality doesn’t mean other guests invited to some event he didn’t organize necessarily color his character. It’s the risk of being a science communicator - you want to communicate real science to people that normally don’t want to hear about it.
To be fair to a counterpoint, string theory hasn’t panned out mathematically as he probably expected, so he has a bit more time to get into all sorts of things these days. I’m more so surprised he hasn’t retired yet.
brave enough to keep a discussion grounded in reality
But that’s just it, he doesn’t keep the discussion grounded in reality. He speaks on things that are vastly out of his purview and says shit that is blatantly false because he thinks he’s an expert on everything just because at one time he did real theoretical physics. Even with physics, he says things for a “general audience” that are so dumbed-down as to be insulting, but worse, grossly inaccurate, leading people to have their misconceptions further ingrained rather than doing what a science communicator should do and clarify misconceptions.
string theory hasn’t panned out mathematically
The math pans out fine. The problem is that it can pan out in virtually an infinite number of different ways that may or may not be valid descriptions of the universe, and nothing but the math can get panned out wrt string theory, at least with current tech or tech that is conceivably feasible.
Compared to some of the more woo folks, he at least, in as far as I’ve seen, doesn’t just make up random stuff. Following a through line of hard cope futurism gets normal people engaged. That’s the difference between Star Trek and Three Body Problem. Star Trek retcons plot devices into vague science slop. Hard science scifi extrapolates the world based on what we know. What is the actual harm in taking something amazing and using that as the base from which to discuss practical applications in the future? That’s still science fiction because it’s simply not real life.
I really don’t understand the hostility towards someone genuinely qualified to make a basic statement on something as poorly understood as dark matter being upsetting to you.
![References: [1] out of his ass](https://mander.xyz/pictrs/image/7d954d56-4739-4230-b641-f7a2ed05fa5c.jpeg){kind=link}
He is a really interesting case. He is a real, actual, published theoretical physicist. But his popular science persona made him a bit weird. For example, in this video, alongside Roger Penrose and Sabine Hossenfelder, he looks like a sci-fi hype-man.
Sabine Hossenfelder isn’t really a good foil for someone that likes to portray that they are an expert on topics that are actually outside their expertise. Here’s a good video on why she is more similar to him than you would think: Youtube.
From my perspective, her takes on anything outside of undergrad physics are pretty shit, so forgive me if I don’t see having her involved as a good thing.
Yeah. I stopped watching her long ago. But I really like Penrose, so I watched that video for him.
Yeah, I remember him on Art Bell back in the 90s and early 2000s. He’s never shied away from trying to inject real science into the pseudoscience crowd. Just because he’s willing to be brave enough to keep a discussion grounded in reality doesn’t mean other guests invited to some event he didn’t organize necessarily color his character. It’s the risk of being a science communicator - you want to communicate real science to people that normally don’t want to hear about it.
To be fair to a counterpoint, string theory hasn’t panned out mathematically as he probably expected, so he has a bit more time to get into all sorts of things these days. I’m more so surprised he hasn’t retired yet.
But that’s just it, he doesn’t keep the discussion grounded in reality. He speaks on things that are vastly out of his purview and says shit that is blatantly false because he thinks he’s an expert on everything just because at one time he did real theoretical physics. Even with physics, he says things for a “general audience” that are so dumbed-down as to be insulting, but worse, grossly inaccurate, leading people to have their misconceptions further ingrained rather than doing what a science communicator should do and clarify misconceptions.
The math pans out fine. The problem is that it can pan out in virtually an infinite number of different ways that may or may not be valid descriptions of the universe, and nothing but the math can get panned out wrt string theory, at least with current tech or tech that is conceivably feasible.
Compared to some of the more woo folks, he at least, in as far as I’ve seen, doesn’t just make up random stuff. Following a through line of hard cope futurism gets normal people engaged. That’s the difference between Star Trek and Three Body Problem. Star Trek retcons plot devices into vague science slop. Hard science scifi extrapolates the world based on what we know. What is the actual harm in taking something amazing and using that as the base from which to discuss practical applications in the future? That’s still science fiction because it’s simply not real life.
I really don’t understand the hostility towards someone genuinely qualified to make a basic statement on something as poorly understood as dark matter being upsetting to you.