The Only Game in Town (TOGIT)
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Marcus has asked me to delay my return to the US. I will be giving a talk on Geometric Unity for the 3rd time. Some ground rules to follow.
A) I responded as a *non-physicist* to invitations from Oxford/theGuardian after avoiding this circus for decades. It's as simple as that.
B) Those who have lived w/ 30 years of String Theorists talking to the press have every right to counter the 'only game in town' offensive.
People ask me how you can tell whether scientific experts are leveling with them if the lay public doesnât understand deep science.
Here an interviewer asks a leading String Theorist how things are going after 25 years since popularizing String theory in a well received book:
If Brian Greene publicly said he doesn't believe in string theory anymore it'd be the end of the field. He'd ruin the lives of thousands of people. Even if it was what he thinks, I strongly doubt he'd ever admit it.
The issue isnât String Theory which has obviously failed in the terms it set for itself.
The issue is the âString Theory is the only game in townâ which appears designed to destroy fundamental physics itself. If you have spent 40 years bragging and failing, wouldnât you at least ask âDoesnât anyone have any other ideas?â before finally going over the edge of the cliff?
*Absolutely* not. And that tells you that string theory isnât a theory. Itâs some kind of a suicide pact. Better that the field die than we ask âWhat if the string theorists were always wrong including pronouncements about quantum gravity and against other theorists? What if âthe only game in townâ was always an obviously totally unethical anti-scientific move to destroy and poison the market place of ideas?â
cc: @bgreene.
Yes, but that wasn't my point. My point is that Brian is a highly visible string spokesperson, I'd say second after Witten, but Witten doesn't talk much. If Brian were to renounce string theory, he'd be responsible for killing the careers of thousands of people, and he must know that. I am just saying I think it's unlikely he would do it, even if he had stopped believing it makes sense, and you need to factor this in when evaluating what he says.
I took your point. For some reason my point doesnât seem to get through.
I agree with you. He *could* make a strong statement to admit defeat. There are clear reasons not to do this from the ST perspective. It is thus unlikely.
My point was that he could do something *vastly* less expensive. And the fact that Susskind, Witten, Greene, etc wonât do even that tells us that this isnât about string theory. Itâs about no other theories or theorist being worth considering. Itâs abuse of the referee role.
Somehow, the String Theorists set themselves up as a football team that is also the *sole* source of game referees.
So even when their team loses on the field, they still win by referees decision that they are the only real team competing. Everyone else focuses on whether they have background independence, particle predictions or a renormalizable spin 2 quantization. That is a total red herring.
Sabine: Theoretical physics isnât this dumb or anti-scientific. Itâs impossible. âThe only game in townâ campaign is not a string theoretic idea. It is totally foreign to science.
Something separate doesnât want rival theories side by side. In a science we would all be expected to listen to each other. This is what my first memories of physics looked like 1983-1988. There were different ideas. Nothing like this.
The defining feature of String Theory is that it would rather fundamental physics die than that String Theory face healthy adult rivals that were not maimed, crippled, stolen, or murdered in their cribs.
Congratulations to:
@thebadstats
@daveexplains
@GurusPod
@IAmTimNguyen / @Google
@Samuel_Gregson
@C_Kavanagh
@ArthurCDent
@kagankans / @WSJ
You just showed the world why Quantum Gravity/StringTheory/M-Theory is âThe Only Game in Townâ:
Group Bullying *Kills* Scientific Dissent
Now changing my approach to this ghoulish practice of coordinated takedowns.
Sabine is a royal pain in the ass. She has misrepresented my work both casually and severely. I strongly dislike what she often says.
But sheâs a critic. PhD ghouls are not.
And science needs critics.
Despite having reached exactly opposite conclusions on funding, math & physics, I will fight like hell for her to be part of the system which desperately needs her voice, and for which she trained.
Letâs reinsert @skdh back into the institutions where she can do the most good.
âPlaying to reactionaries and angry culture warriors.â
âYour integrity here is at stake.â
âSabine is a disgusting fraud peddling propoganda for fascist oligarchsâ
These are ghoulish statements ripped out of revolutionary political struggle sessions.
They are anti-scientific.
Related Pages
- Academic Freedom
- Distributed Denial of Cognition Attack
- The Distributed Idea Suppression Complex (The DISC)
- Gated Institutional Narrative (GIN)
- Knarc
- M-theory or String Theory is the Only Game in Town (Edge Essay)
- Managed Reality TM
- Peer Injunction
- Peer Review
- Physics got NERPhed
- Physics Is Dead (YouTube Content)
- Quantum Gravity
- String Theory