Arne Babenhauserheide
The Problem With Sabine Hossenfelder:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70vYj1KPyT4
Such a video was sadly overdue.
I stopped watching Sabine, because I could no longer bear listening to her after a while. While I did my PhD and postdoc in atmospheric physics, I worked with many different scientists from several different countries, and every single one of them lived the idealism of scientific integrity and put it before the harmful incentives (that actually exist).
Arne Babenhauserheide
Aside: I’m working as software developer now, but a few of my former colleagues at the institute can still work in science and are doing great work.
Arne Babenhauserheide
@dzu The problem pointed out is not "there are issues in science", but sowing generalized distrust of science.
I have unfollowed male commenters for far less than what Sabine did, so while there may be some mansplaining happening, the problems in her take on science are sadly real.
Since I don’t follow Dave, your ending polarization ("either Sabine or Dave") is misplaced.
I’m in neither team, but I used to like Sabine’s videos. That changed and Dave’s criticism shows some of the reasons.
Detlev Zundel
@ArneBab Sabine posted a comment on the YT video, but that seems to have been deleted. In the meantime she does offer comment on her channel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQVF0Yu7X24
Also, Sabine is not a "lone knight". As an example I'd like to point to Peter Woits latest blog post:
https://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=14214
It may also be instructive to recall the "Wormhole Quantum Computer" publicity stunt which happened only recently.
I think my attention is still spent better on Sabine than on "Prof Dave".
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Detlev Zundel
@ArneBab As a member of "Team Hossenfelder" I wasn't aware of this video, so thanks for pointing to it.
However, I can not follow your reasoning. Actually I had to stop watching the mansplaining video after a certain time as I could not take the criticism of "clickbait title" in a video named "The Problem with Sabine Hossenfelder" from a self-titled "professor" serious anymore.
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Arne Babenhauserheide
@dzu The comment by Peter Woits shows one aspect that got me to stop watching Sabines Videos: clickbaity, outrage-driving algorithm peddling.
I’ve already written about problems in years ago, e.g. that the incentives given by scientific institutions are problematic¹ and that scientific communication is breaking down as it does not adjust to the massively rising number of scientists,² but Sabine’s takes harm trust in robust scientific results.
¹ https://www.draketo.de/english/science/quality-assurance
² https://www.draketo.de/english/science/challenges-scientific-publishing
Arne Babenhauserheide
@dzu I stopped watching her videos in part due to that sowing of generalized distrust long before I saw the video by Dave.
I often thought “what are you doing there, Sabine?” until I finally stopped my subscription and stopped watching her videos altogether.
Detlev Zundel
@ArneBab Yep, I heard that the criticism is "sowing generalized distrust of science". However, I do not see this in Sabines videos and I did not hear from other people that they got that message from her videos. On the contrary, as a commenter pointed out "You're better than a cheerleader for science - you're science's best friend who loves it enough to tell it if it stays on its present course, it will get thrown in jail for drunk driving."
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Arne Babenhauserheide
@dzu for the quote you gave: do you see how that shows exactly this generalized distrust in science?
It’s no “there’s some problems in some fields” or “damn, maybe the string theorists lost sight of verifiability”, but generalized distrust in science.
So you basically proved my point — at least for this one commenter.
Why did you pick just that quote?
Arne Babenhauserheide
@dzu do you mean you didn’t follow my reasoning that every single scientist I know lived the idealism of scientific integrity and put it before the harmful incentives (that actually exist)?
Besides that: sure, it’s personal judgement how to weight problems and benefits and you’re free to have your own. Actually I prefer you using your own judgement than following mine.
Detlev Zundel
@ArneBab Sure, you are free to stop watching her videos, no question about it. I just wanted to point out that I do not follow your reasoning and that's also fine for me to do.
To be completely honest, I also have my own "problems" with some content of Sabines videos, but I do not expect to meet people being correct 100% all the time. The actual positive input that I received from Sabine far outweighs minor discrepancies which are totally normal (in my opinion).
Arne Babenhauserheide
@dzu Can we get from these two different readings to some shared understanding of the comment?
Arne Babenhauserheide
@dzu That’s really a completely different reading then.
When I read "science" I take that as meaning science, not some subfield or some research institute, and "drunk driving" as general misbehavior, not just some aspect that is going wrong.
By my reading that comment includes the opinion "science is currently drunk driving".
And after having worked in scientific institutions (and leaving them seven years ago), I strongly disagree with that generalization of specific problems.
Detlev Zundel
@ArneBab Hm, I have the feeling that I read that sentence differently. As I pointed out with my link to Peter Woits blog, I think there are many people in Theoretical Physics that believe String Theory is a failed attempt that should just be given up on instead of cheering it on. For me the quote just says "if there is something wrong, then we need to address it" and as I argued many people see that there is something wrong. I do not read the breadth of meaning into it like you do, sorry.
Arne Babenhauserheide
@dzu I have a first productive takeaway from our discussion here: I realized that in my article https://www.draketo.de/english/science/quality-assurance I had also generalized too much, so I just added a footnote:
https://www.draketo.de/english/science/quality-assurance#fn:integrity
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