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|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1675744563154272256
|name=Eric Weinstein
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|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=It is time to face up to the disaster of string theory. But we need to be fair about what failed and why. The equations of string theory can’t hurt anyone. It’s 40 years of the anti-scientific destruction of scientific standards and norms of collegiality to promote one failed theory over all other attempts that is behind this destruction of what was previously the worlds most accomplished scientific community.
 
It’s time to face up to what actually happened 40 years ago. And it ain’t pretty. 🙏
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|content=The good folks at @IAI_TV put together a reel of String Theorist, Prof. @bgreene and I debating [[String Theory]] in Wales in May at @HTLGIFestival.
 
Check it out:
 
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|timestamp=5:53 AM · Jul 3, 2023
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|content=This should really be done at a somewhat more technical level. The biggest damage done by [[String Theory]] was that it quickly redefined the most important problems in Physics to be general aspects of analysis and field theory rather than understanding our *hyper*-specific world.
|timestamp=5:53 AM · Jul 3, 2023
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|content=So, now in the current post-string era, it is perfectly acceptable for people to work on [[Quantum Gravity|“Quantum Gravity”]] without having to understand essentially anything about the mysterious 3 generations of chiral particles that actually populate our world. In short, they changed the field.
|timestamp=5:53 AM · Jul 3, 2023
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|content=Oddly, even though Roger Penrose and I were on the same side on this stage, I couldn’t subscribe to much of Penrose’s critique of strings and found myself agreeing more with Brian Greene on the technical points.
|timestamp=5:53 AM · Jul 3, 2023
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|timestamp=5:53 AM · Jul 3, 2023
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|content=To sum it up: when string theorist are no longer in a position to keep changing the goal posts set by the physical world, isn’t it the case that from A-Z maybe string theory is not being honest?
 
Again. Not personal to you. At all. But it is not a fair move to say “It’s the best yet-to-succeed approach to quantum gravity.” in front of the public. No?
 
🙏
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|content=“[[String Theory]] is absolutely
the most likely to be true set of ideas about what sits at the intersection of the [[Standard Model]] and [[Quantum Gravity|quantum gravity]].”
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|content=I can confirm this indeed blows up ones notifications.
 
But, in case of doubt or misunderstanding, string theory is absolutely the deepest, most consequential and most likely to be true set of ideas about what sits at the intersection of the Standard Model and quantum gravity.
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|timestamp=8:16 AM · Jul 7, 2023
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|timestamp=8:16 AM · Jul 7, 2023
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|content=If you said “electrons are absolutely fractional spin fields in the standard model” I wouldn’t disagree with that statement. It isn’t at all about what you think. It is a true statement.
 
Here you are assuring lay people about what is absolute about [[String Theory]] within physics.
|timestamp=8:38 AM · Jul 7, 2023
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|content=“IMO objectively true”
 
As with so many of these String Theoretic claims I have no idea what that means.
 
So for example if I make an argument that this is NOT objectively true, do you fall back on the idea that it was opinion?
 
“Objectively, Electrons are field theoretic at observed energy scales.” My opinion doesn’t enter into it. The claim that it is objectively true eliminates the role of opinion.
 
Does that mean that all who disagree with you and your String community are “not serious” as per the above?
|timestamp=5:27 PM · Jul 7, 2023
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|content=I don’t think that’s the issue Joseph. At all.
 
Feynman, Glashow, Wilczek never found them objectively or absolutely compelling.
 
String theorists like Friedan have written harshly of the Failures.
 
And what you are saying about subjective opinion and absolute objective fact doesn’t make sense. I mean you can just see that, no? Not trying to be mean here. But I don’t see what you are claiming is absolute and objective beyond your opinion.
 
What you seem to be saying is the usual trope: “The more you understand about the difficulty of quantizing a spin 2 gravitational field the more you appreciate how string theory has taught us so much about how it is to be done eventually, and that there is no remotely comparable framework for doing so!”
 
Again. Not trying to be combative. Feel free to correct me if I have this wrong.
|timestamp=10:48 PM · Jul 7, 2023
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|content=It is not objective or absolutely true that [[String Theory]] is our best theory. In fact, it has become, 40 years after the anomaly cancelation, our most thoroughly explored idea. No other path has been picked over like this one.
 
Waited a few days. I don’t think you are making sense about your *opinion* that it is *objectively* and *absolutely* dominant. And that is the problem. String theorist deliberately leave others with the impression that they are following something scientific, objective and absolute. But it is really just a shared subjective hunch. And this does science and physics a terrible disservice.
|timestamp=11:59 PM · Jul 10, 2023
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|content=Joseph. Imagine I were to temporarily stipulate to the idea that of all the known approaches to quantizing the  metric field that leads to gravitation, [[String Theory]] is by far the most advanced. I don’t think that is unreasonable whether or not it is true. It’s a solid argument.
|timestamp=3:14 AM · Jul 13, 2023
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|content=I don’t think that is the relevant argument anymore. So you are framing it in such a way that “String Theory” is the answer to a question you formulated: “Of all the approaches to quantizing  gravity which haven’t worked, which is the best?”
 
My argument is with that framing.
|timestamp=3:19 AM · Jul 13, 2023
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|content=The problem I have is with string theorists framing of the field and its issues and questions. I think [[String Theory]] is dangerous for this reason.
 
Try these instead:
 
A) Which approach is most likely to successfully alter or explain the [[Standard Model|Standard model]]?
 
B) Same as A) but for [[General Relativity]]?
|timestamp=3:22 AM · Jul 13, 2023
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|content=C) Which approach is most likely to shed light on why there are 3 generations of observed fermions?
 
D) Which approach is most likely to shed light on why the generations are chiral?
 
E) Which large community most regularly makes sweeping claims that it later must privately invalidate while publicly claiming a new revolution?
 
F) Which large community is most likely to ignore other ideas?
 
G) Which is the most aggressive large community despite no proven connection to observed reality?
|timestamp=3:27 AM · Jul 13, 2023
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|content=H) Which community is most likely to spend all their careers working on toy models with the wrong dimensions, signatures or field content claiming that we are building up the toolkit?
 
I) Which community is least likely to own up to the disaster of past public declarations about accessible energy SUSY?
|timestamp=3:30 AM · Jul 13, 2023
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|content=J) Which approach has been the most investigated and thus thoroughly picked over for low hanging fruit?
 
K) Which approach best explains the odd nature of a seemingly fundamental Higgs sector?
 
L) Which approach is most dogmatic that [[Quantum Gravity|“Quantum Gravity”]] rather than “Unification” or “Gravitational Harmony” or “Incremental understanding” etc. *Is* the path forward when we don’t even know if gravity is quantized as we expect it at all in models beyond relativitistic [[Quantum Field Theory|QFT]]?
|timestamp=3:36 AM · Jul 13, 2023
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|content=M) Which approach comes closest to explaining the origin of the internal symmetry structure group of the Standard model?
 
N) Which approach comes closest to explaining why there appear to be 16 particles in a generation with their observed internal quantum numbers?
|timestamp=3:38 AM · Jul 13, 2023
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|content=O) Which approach is most at risk of invoking “The Landscape” of impossibly many theories to test after saying that the power of the approach was that there were only 5 possible theories?
 
P) Which community brags about “postdiction” the most because it has failed at predictions?
|timestamp=3:42 AM · Jul 13, 2023
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|content=Q) Which community is least collegial and most insulting to colleagues outside the approach?
 
R) Which HEP theory community consumed the most in resources over the last 40 years?
 
S) Same for brains?
 
T) Same for producing PR and puff pieces?
 
U) Which community has broken the most trust with lay people in HEP theory?
|timestamp=3:45 AM · Jul 13, 2023
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|content=V) Which community substitutes mathematics results for results about the actual physical world we live in when talking to the public?
 
W) Which community is most likely to restore the culture of successful physics research to HEP theory?
 
X) Which not yet successful approach has been most self-critical?
 
Y) Which community is most respectful in absorbing the results by others with proper credit?
 
Z) Which community relentless makes its argument by mis framing the question as if the question were simply “What is our deepest collection of ideas of how to quantize a massless spin 2 gravitational field?” when the previous 25 framings are all arguably more important after 39 years without contact with physics?
|timestamp=3:51 AM · Jul 13, 2023
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|content=That is why this conversation doesn’t work. It is what magicians call “Magicians Choice”: the lay person is lead into thinking they are free to disagree. But the question you keep asking is DESiGNED to make it look like [[String Theory]] is our top community.
 
Joseph: it failed in the terms it gave for taking over. It chose the terms. It said what it was and what it was going to do. And it flat out failed in EXACTLY those terms it chose when it said “Hold my beer!” back in 1984.
|timestamp=3:56 AM · Jul 13, 2023
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|timestamp=4:00 AM · Jul 13, 2023
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