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u320

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what does this mean?

Sabine is, uh, somewhat controversial.

> Sabine is, uh, somewhat controversial.

At the same time people never really seem to be able to give a reasonable explanation as to why, beyond that they disagree with some of her takes.

Depending on what counts as “reasonable” (the bar seems rather high for you, as I’ve seen plenty of laymen-friendly explanations reasonable to me, e.g. the sibling comment), you may need to have at least been to a PhD program in high energy physics to understand the explanation.

From someone who happens to have been to one.

Why she’s controversial? That’s easy, it’s because she repeatedly pushes theories that are not widely accepted and disagrees vocally with the direction that she thinks physics is going in. This means that almost every discussion of her devolves into “wow she is a genius who is speaking truth to an entrenched and rigid field” versus “she’s a crank that just says unsubstantiated stuff for popularity”. This means that any comment section that involves her is somewhat tiresome, honestly.

She is a physicist who is not into string theory or dark matter, which is definitely more controversial of a position within the physics community than outside.

She also made a video on capitalism, which was politically controversial (obviously) but also made several blatantly, objectively wrong claims that were based on no research whatsoever (cough barter economy cough).

Most people have bad takes outside of their field of expertise. I haven't seen her video on capitalism, but honestly no matter how horrible it is, i doubt it would change my view on her videos on physics.

Her take on capitalism is in line what most economists think though. It was only controversial amongst people outside of that field.

Nobody remotely agrees with the barter economy thing. She also completely omitted any mention of the political economy, while basically saying the solution to climate change is the political economy. Like, really, why does she think a carbon tax hasn't already been implemented? Political economy.

I think, more often than not, those people are scientists and engineers, and physicists seem to be the most willing to do so.

It's a good idea to not listen to Physicists talking about Economics, or Economists on Physics either.

An even better idea would be people not producing these "authoritative-seeming hot takes outside of their field of expertise" in the first place though.

It is known that some of her positions are "somewhat controversial".

But how controversial is this one?

Which position? In the video she simply embedded an interesting anecdote into textbook knowledge. Don't know what the flagged comment said though.

The one that she articulates at 7:10 onwards in the video. Starting with "What does this all means? it means that Quantum gravity just might..."

The position is: quantum gravity might not be that big of a mysterious problem as most physicist make it out to be so they would rather ignore that prediction by Wetterich.

That's it, that's the entire position. I don't know, that's not a lot of substance to work with. I don't think it's a particular controversial stance. It does fit very well into her "I'm not like the other physicists" shtick, though.

> That's it, that's the entire position ... that's not a lot of substance

With reference to 2 specific papers, one by Weinberg, the other by Shaposhnikov and Wetterich; which she claims are overlooked; and the correct prediction in the second paper. Is that not a little more substance?

I don't think so. She's making a meta comment about those papers. Also, it feels like you're trying to get me to say something, but I don't know what. I already said that I don't think this position is particularly controversial. She thinks QG is less mysterious than other physicists believe, big deal.

I'm not trying to get you to say any particular thing; rather to engage with her claims (tell us how they're wrong if you like). I think we're now approaching that, so thank you for the commentary.

Those that are worth listening to often are.

Many that are worth listening to are controversial. But many that are controversial are not worth listening to. Which is which is a hard question to answer :)

yes, but this means that if you divide people into those with controversial opinions, and those without, you should direct 100% of your listening to the first group. at some point you will have to be more selective than that, but that's clearly the first step

The cutting edge of progress is going to be found in controversy, but the "boring" established fact is often correct.

Non controversial people are worth listening to as well.

There's also a question of who is best poised to extract value from professional or expert controversy. IMO generally not amateurs.

clearly. ideally, in a field you don't know well, you would listen to only the uncontroversial opinions of people who also have controversial opinions, which you should ignore since you're not equipped to evaluate them

You can't make that division. Controversialness is not binary. Almost every researcher has a few controversial ideas, that's just natural when trying to push the envelope. Unfortunately, some like to be controversial for the sake of being controversial, and some are so far out there that it would be a waste of time to listen to them.

having controversial ideas is unavoidable when you think, and sure, you can have more or less of them. but if you have none then you're not thinking and there's no benefit in listening to you

Unless I misunderstood you, you're saying that every undergrad textbook is not worth reading, which cannot be right. Are you assuming everyone is already aware of all the uncontroversial opinions?

I listened to many uncontroversial opinions in undergrad and grad school, and it was well worth it because they were all new to me. It's like Picasso said: you need to know the rules before you can break them. Learn the uncontroversial status quo first, then listen to the uncontroversial stuff or come up with your own. Skipping the uncontroversial would be a mistake.

you have a point. while biology textbooks might be controversial among creationists, and physics textbooks might be controversial among flat-earthers, in mainstream society the only thing controversial about them is the idea that they're worth devoting attention to

on the other hand, if the authors of the textbooks don't have any controversial ideas, they probably aren't qualified to write the textbooks and will fill them with their half-understood memories of what someone else told them, which is more likely than not false in the first place. (examples abound: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2001/01/16/1...) ideally you want the authors of your textbooks to habitually practice the kind of critical thinking that will enable them to avoid filling the textbooks with errors, and which also guarantees that they will have controversial opinions

case in point: you're a lot better off learning chemistry from linus pauling's physical chemistry than from 95% of current textbooks, both because it's better written and because it's better thought out and more carefully written. as far as i can tell, the book doesn't have any controversial opinions in it, but pauling notoriously did; at some point he became convinced megadoses of vitamin c were great for your health. i'm pretty sure he was wrong about that, but at the time it was controversial

I said “many”, not all. There’s plenty of leeway to listen to established experts on boring things. You don’t have to be at the cutting edge of every single field, all the time. Nobody needs to listen to controversial opinions about the shape of the planet.

i've known a number of established experts in different fields, and they all had controversial opinions. sometimes not in the fields they were recognized in, but somewhere

This is how you become a flat-earther.

She incompetent and generally doesn’t know what she’s talking about.

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