I read on one of the stickied threads that sciforums does not aim to be like (physorg?) and have an anti-string theory bias. what theories are anti-string theory? someone mentioned Lee Smolin's theories in one thread. does that count as anti-string theory? Don't really understand any of the above. Am trying to improve my science this year to see if i will go through with getting a science degree. cos i have frustrations
It sounds strange to talk about anti-string theory. There is a "political" factor, which may be what the reference to Smolin involves. He (I believe) thinks that there are relatively too many theoretical physicists working in string theory and not enough working on alternatives, such as loop quantum gravity.
Hi Lilalena: I would understand "anti-string theory bias" to be an outright dismissal of string theory as legitimate science: particularly, if I was a moderator of a forum, and carried an anti-<X> bias, I would not allow any threads discussing <X> to remain in my forum. (As a moderator, I have an anti-bad science bias, and try to move crackpot threads to their appropriate place, ASAP.) Those who dismiss string theory out-of-hand are typically uninformed, or are not scientists. I don't know if physorg has an "anti-string theory" bias, but if it does, it's a good reason for serious scientists to stay away from that site. No serious scientist can claim that string theory isn't important, or is completely wrong, thus no website which purports to promote open and honest discussion about frontier physics, yet prohibits discussion of string theory, or carries a bias against the same, can be considered "serious" in any sense of the word. (PS: you should tell them I said that.) Second: One must be careful to separate "science" from "sociology". Most people who bash string theory do so on sociological grounds, rather than on any scientific grounds. Bashing string theory on scientific grounds is ok, and as a former string theorist, I will say there is plenty to bash. Almost without exception, though, most critiques of string theory as a discipline begin with an assault on the "scientific establishment" and end with the attacker promoting his own, wrong, pet theory. The rest of the attacks are basically paragraphs plagiarized from one of Lee Smolin's books, or from Peter Woit's blog. Without exception, I can say, in my six years of posting on physics blogs, I've never seen an argument against string theory that wasn't in one or both of the above categories. If you wish to have an open discussion about the problems with string theory, there are several posters here who either are or were theoretical physicists, and are in the process of or have completed a Ph.D in the field. (I fall into the latter category.) At least two that I can think of (myself and another poster) have contributed significantly to the string theory literature (read: peer-reviewed journal articles). There are other (non-stringy) theoretical and experimental physicists here, as well, who have their own proficiencies and interests, but all of whom understand string theory at a professional (read: paid to do science) level. I will caution you that there are also a few "armchair physicists" around, who will be happy to rehash the old sociological/non-scientific attacks against string theory, or quote passages from Smolin's book.
The mod of physorg posts here and while physorg isn't as good as here (thru no fault of said mod) it doesn't have an anti string theory bias, at least that isn't the mode view. If there is a massive anti-string thread then point me to it, I'll knock them into next week Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! there are plenty of questions which should be asked about string theory, the nay sayers never understand enough to ask them though.
I found the post that I was referring to. Sorry, I got it mixed up. You were talking about physicsforums not physorg. I quoted the wrong forum to you so can I ask, did you mean the same thing re: 'anti-string theory bias' for physicsforums as for physorg?
Oh right---there's one or two posters in that forum which are idiots, but pass themselves off as experts.. In particular, one poster (marcus I think?) probably touches himself to a picture of Lee Smolin before he goes to bed. That's just a guess, though.
I can't help but feel like I'm being referenced personally when you say "armchair physicists", Ben. I'm pretty sure I've never said anything about String Theory one way or the other on this forum. In fact, it was Brian Greene's "The Elegant Universe" that got me hooked to Physics. Also, I've never read anything by Smolin, but I did save the following Amazon review of one of his books because I found it humorous:
Sorry to extend this but... What's the difference between scienceforums.net and scienceforums.com in terms of how qualified the science advice you get will be? Are physicsforum and sciforums considered more serious or something? I just want to have a general idea of the science forums available. This is pathetic I know: I ended up posting here more just because the logo was more memorable. Some years back I posted (just once or twice) at the other forums ( fora?) but quickly got confused where I was/had been...
I've only visited a handful of forums but I can tell you my opinion: PhysForum.com was my first experience, and by far my worst. There was (at the time, which was a few years ago) a cadre of complete idiots that quickly sapped any intellectual value from any thread very quickly. It was more of a social forum in the spirit of 4chan than a true science forum. Another site is PhysicsForums.com. This is, in my opinion, the most high-quality site I've found. The general demeanor there is extremely mature and polite, albeit boring as hell. I mean, we're on the internet discussing SCIENCE, so you can't really expect a mature conversation to be horribly riveting. The bar there is quite high, so if you're looking for a textbook answer to a question, it's wonderful; if you're looking for speculation on an ambiguous area of unsettled Science, look elsewhere. That leaves SciForums.com. This site, for me, strikes a nice balance between decent, reliable information and a contribution by the cranks. The cranks here serve the purpose of provoking a rigorous defense of your thought process and understanding of Physics. And in the end, we're all smarter for it (in theory) Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! I believe it's because he's a high-profile and fairly successful book-writing Physicist that is very critical of String Theory. String Theory (M-Theory) is a bit of a darling pet theory in Physics and, unless I'm mistaken, the current leading contender in the search for the T.O.E. (tm)* *"theory of everything"
I'm in the theoretical physics community right now, and AFAIK Lee Smolin is not particularly unpopular. I take issue with your appraisal of string theory: String theory is right now the only known theory of quantum gravity. Lee Smolin advocates another approach that has not been proven to be a consistent theory of quantum gravity called loop quantum gravity. LQG is a pretty small field, and Smolin has the lions share of the brains of the outfit - he's a smart guy. LQG is not well understood at all (and by me not at all), but I did hear about some work that had been done on it that claimed LQG was a way of rewriting string theory - ie, they are the same. Not sure what happened to this idea though. Even if string theory turns out to be a dead end or the wrong theory of quantum gravity, the study that has gone into it has not been wasted because it has led to us understanding lots of things about quantum field theory, and in particular strongly coupled field theories like QCD. The only other way to study these guys is to do numerical simulations so string theory really is important in this area. Maybe the guy you're thinking of is Peter Woit who doesn't like string theory. He is an idiot, who hasn't published a proper physics paper since 1989.
Yeah, I really don't know Smolin's views on string theory directly. As I said I haven't read any of his books, but BenTheMan's earlier comments, plus Smolin's involvement with LQG, plus the review of Smolin's book that I quoted gave me the impression that Smolin has String Theory "in his sights".
Ok, so no comments on scienceforums.net and scienceforums.com ? I'm curious because I like the interface on those 2. The right hand panels are quite useful, they give you a summary of your recent posts. I used one of these forums (cant remember which - they look alike) about 2 years ago and remember finding that panel handy.
