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"string theory lied to us and now science communication is hard"
(www.youtube.com)
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this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2023
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It seems a little over-the-top to be angry at physicists from 30-40 years ago for being wrong.
Scientists aren’t priests, and science isn’t a religion. Expecting scientists to always be right, always be humble, and everything they add to “science” to be sacred and correct and immutable is a little silly.
This is how science works. It’s messy. It goes in delicious looking directions that turn out to be dead ends. Humans create ideas (with all the hubris and errors of being human) that other humans test (with all the hubris and errors of being human.)
I was struck by how angered she was by physicists thinking they were right and saying “we’re doing something real”. They were doing something real: they were exploring and testing an idea. Without that work, the idea could never have been proved wrong.
(My personal “string theory” is that string/cordage is humanity’s greatest invention, and my user name is a joke.)
I didn't see it as her being angry at the ones 40 years ago, but the ones who continued the hype even though it was obvious string theory wasn't falsifiable
The ones who were human and were full of hubris and errors and didn’t want to give up their pet theory?
Being angry at humans for being human is kinda futile. Humans have always done this, and always will.
And the excited physicists didn’t destroy science communication any more than Stephen Jay Gould did. People can be wrong. People can cling to things they cherish and that they poured their heart and years of effort into.
People are people, and this too shall pass.
It's also very human to commit murder; humans have always committed murder, and always will. That doesn't mean I can't be mad at someone for doing it..
I think murder might be a leeeeeeeetle bit different than refusing to give up on a theory you worked on for 30 or 40 years.
My point is that saying you can't hold something against someone because it's human nature isn't a reasonable argument.