Comments by "Ash Roskell" (@ashroskell) on "The Problem With Sabine Hossenfelder" video.
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@dbzkidkev2 : And don’t forget that the authors, in order to qualify, don’t just have to pay publishing fees, but they also have to submit copyright to the university or educational institution where they did their work. Your thesis could be a massive breakthrough in physics, but you don’t own any of it. Academia is broken and does suck. And it doesn’t surprise me that senior academics will be among the first to take that accusation personally.
But I noted two things of real concern to me that undermine this video’s credibility:
1) Why didn’t he try to speak to her about this first, before publishing an explosive allegation packed video with a click bait title? I mean, if he is sincere, surely fixing the problem would be way more important to him than publicising it, wouldn’t it? Yet instead, he has drawn a clear line of division between them, offering no face saving way for Sabine Hossenfelder to change her ways without seeming to be brow beaten?
2) Whatever you or I might think of his arguments, we both know empirically that he is no mind reader. Yet he claims on multiple occasions to know her precise motivations for saying all of the things she has said? And he finds all of those motivations to be of the worst possible, bad faith, kind? How does he know this?
I know for a fact that he has taken at least some of these excerpts he used out of context, as I remember the videos. And he is very fast and loose when it comes to conflating her opinions with her assertions about the facts, regardless of having no basis on which to do so.
I know for an empirical fact that he has totally misunderstood the debate in physics about the, “impasse,” which exists. Even the string theorists do not debate that the impasse exists and that it happens to be the main focus of almost every top theoretical physicist’s work right now. Listing all of the latest achievements resulting from practical physics and recent experiments like that was as good as saying, “I don’t get what that debate is about,” and purely demonstrated his ignorance.
I am left wondering what his real motives are, since he didn’t try to solve the problem but rather just went into attack mode in a click bait titled video?
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This a selective presentation, unbalanced and therefore biased. You are also unreasonably dumping responsibility on Hossenfelder for the way in which others respond to, or hijack, her content. You misrepresented her statements about her experience of one university as her making an accusation about all academia. That comes off as sly.
The fact is that there is a problem with the way capitalism pervades science research and governs agendas. Yet again, when she says that most of the scientific research that, “your taxes pay for is bullshit,” she is NOT saying, “all scientific research is bullshit.” There is a clear distinction there that you are refusing to acknowledge. She is attempting to highlight a problem within the system. Using hyperbole in the manner she does may be damaging, but hardly as damning as you want to make it seem.
You are also conflating the times when she’s disagreeing with other scientists, arguing her case, with her arguments about the problems generally.
And you are showing that you don’t get the argument. Physics IS STUCK. Yes, there have been breakthroughs and discoveries in practical physics, like the examples you gave, but THAT is NOT what she’s talking about. She is talking about THEORETICAL physics. And you will not find ANY respected physicist who disagrees with this proposition: THEORETICAL physics IS STUCK. I have seen her in academic institutions, on the stage, in front of live audiences, discussing this problem with the very string theorists and others who sit firmly in different camps, debating WHY this is, not IF this is the case!
You are misinterpreting the disagreement and misrepresenting it.
Also, she is NOT, “outside of academia.” Who told you that? She is still working with universities, submitting papers and being peer reviewed. Or, so she tells us. Do you have evidence to the contrary?
It seems you have not done your homework and thus made empirically measurable mistakes. And, in misunderstanding the nature of so much of her content, you have gotten carried away with your own suspicions as to her motives. Accusing her of, “sacrificing her integrity and POISONING SOCIETY,” is, I’m afraid, not just, “overly dramatic,” but painfully misguided and wrong headed at best.
If you really are speaking in good faith, you will do more research so as to understand how you have misunderstood the nature of the impasse in THEORETICAL physics. If not, you will continue making, “click bait, for clicks and cash,” as you put it, and taking fair criticism too personally.
I too have disagreements with some of her theoretical conclusions and sometimes with her messaging and the manner in which she presents some of that. But, despite your attempts at demonstrating, “balance,” by siting her positives, you expressed no respect for her or even her endeavours in principle, which I found telling. There is something personal in this for you and if you’re honest, you will admit that. Otherwise you would have used less personally insulting language and less incendiary terms.
I would remind you however, in either case, no matter what you say, or how overwrought your presentation, you personally do not get to decide if Sabina Hossenfelder is a, “trusted science communicator,” as though she were on trial for her career, or as if your personal verdict carries any more weight than the next man or woman’s. That is up to the audience with whom she communicates.
And I suspect her audience is not quite so, “incapable of discernment,” as you think. But, at least we know a little more about what you think of YouTube viewers.
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@ : I don’t believe she is, “pandering,” to anyone, nor does the author of this complaint. I think he’s looking down the wrong end of the telescope, worrying about how others use or hijack people like her for their own purposes. He certainly doesn’t judge YouTube audiences as people capable of making their own informed judgements.
Much of his complaint is opinion, not fact. And if he was genuinely concerned in the manner pretends to be, he would have evidenced his attempts to reach out to her and discuss the problem before attacking her in a click bait video. In this video alone, he commits all of the offences he accuses her of. And he draws a clear demarcation line of division between them, rather than attempting any form of synthesis. That is audience manipulation. Don’t fall for it.
I have suspected this guy of being a little vain before, but it never influenced my opinion of his content much; rather it accounted for why he takes so long to get to the point sometimes, or can be so repetitive. But this was a very personal, personalised attack and I think ego has a lot to do with it.
I have seen most of the videos he used excerpts from and know that he’s misrepresenting them by skewing the context. I don’t trust his motives at all, since he’s taken the wrong approach and just exploded out of nowhere with a bunch of hyperbole, insinuation and accusation.
Regardless of whether you and I agree on the above, you cannot dispute that he is NOT a mind reader. He does not have a privileged insight into what’s going on inside her head, but he ascribes the worst possible motives and he has never even spoken to her about it. What does that tell you? It certainly does not fit the character of Sabine Hossenfelder that I have come to know over the years. I do not know her either, but I do not believe she is as reckless, thoughtless, selfish and dangerous as he alleges at all. That’s just not who she is.
His rhetoric reminds me of the very worst politicians whose every allegation is actually a confession.
And I know for a fact that he has totally misunderstood the debate about the impasse in physics at a fundamental level. It is simply not what he thinks it is and simply rattling off a bunch of achievements in physics is to miss the point entirely, demonstrating his ignorance.
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