Why the foundations of physics have not progressed for 40 years: Physicists face stagnation if they continue to treat the philosophy of science as a joke | Sabine Hossenfelder

I talked to a few students some two years ago when I overheard them talk about getting the right answer to their research question. They didn't immediately understand when I told them that the result is the result and that the aim shouldn't be to prove the question right; whatever is the result of the research is the answer.

They found that weird and I had to convince them, which I did, gladly. (I remember once watching a Richard Dawkins debate or monologue where he spoke of a researcher being corrected on his lifetime(?) research by an audience member. He invited the audience member up and hugged her/him... Is an argument I used.

Comment by vrkas at 14/01/2020 at 07:50 UTC

6 upvotes, 0 direct replies

So I'm an experimental particle physicist who dabbles a bit in philosophy of science.

What Hossenfelder is against is twofold as far as I can tell.

The first is that since our existing experiments have not been able to make inroads into new physics we should slow, if not halt, development of more energetic particle accelerators. There are plenty of pedagogical and technological reasons I don't like that idea but it's not the main thrust of this article.

The second is that in the absence of any hints from experiment theorists have been getting into more and more esoteric models for new physics. These are often based around mathematical beauty as opposed to any ground up approach. Because Noether's theorem has been such a powerful descriptor of our physical theories to date, the assumption is that it will hold for future theories, a reasonable one. So then models are built around group theory and higher algebraic structures.

Whether that is a good idea I can leave up to others, but I find the "solving inconsistencies" a bit of a throwaway line which doesn't hold much weight. What does she think we do all day? It's evaluating the standard model of particle physics at high or low energy in the most precise way possible. When we find inconsistencies, like the g-2 of the muon or the neutron decay thing or the flavour anomalies in meson decays, we do more refined and sophisticated experiments. Theorists make more refined models with lower uncertainties too. In addition we also look for the signatures of new physics in dedicated searches, based on what is most likely to happen then working our way to the more esoteric.

Comment by [deleted] at 13/01/2020 at 20:58 UTC

5 upvotes, 1 direct replies

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Comment by Philoso9445544785 at 14/01/2020 at 11:46 UTC

4 upvotes, 0 direct replies

I don't really see how philosophy really helps with any of the problems outlined.

It's not going to suddenly make experiments cheaper to do by determining which hypotheses are better to test since without any information there's noting recommending one over the other and without experiments you can't get the information.

It's not going to help with smarter ways to share information and make decisions in large, like-minded communities so as to avoid group-think. That is a practical technological and behavioral problem that would be solved with the appropriate sciences.

I don't really see how it's going to help with people putting forward baseless speculation since the problem is seemingly just that nobody has happened to come up with a theory that could be tested yet. I mean, presumably theoretical physicists aren't choosing to make so called baseless speculation when they could be making more grounded ideas. There's not really much to do about that problem except propose an alternate hypothesis and then you're just doing science not philosophy.

I mean, aren't people working on resolving inconsistencies. Isn't string theory, one of the so called baseless speculations, a type of quantum gravity. That is to say, an attempt to resolve the inconsistency between gravity and quantum mechanics. As I recall, supersymmetry solves several problems including potentially what dark matter could be which would resolve the inconsistency in various cosmological observations. Even multiverse theory solves the inconsistency between the wave function and the observation.

Philosophy doesn't even solve the problem that physicists can make a living writing papers on things that will perhaps never be observed. That's an economics problem or perhaps a sociology problem.

Maybe her criticisms require a deeper understanding of theoretical physics or the philosophy of science to grasp but if so then this article fails to convey the point. How does philosophy of science help with these problems? I've read the article and still don't know.

Comment by [deleted] at 13/01/2020 at 20:55 UTC

11 upvotes, 2 direct replies

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Comment by [deleted] at 13/01/2020 at 21:55 UTC*

5 upvotes, 1 direct replies

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Comment by BernardJOrtcutt at 13/01/2020 at 22:06 UTC

1 upvotes, 0 direct replies

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Comment by In_shpurrs at 14/01/2020 at 02:47 UTC

3 upvotes, 2 direct replies

"[...]mathematical fiction as “healthy speculation” – entirely ignoring that this type of speculation has demonstrably not worked for decades and continues to not work".

It's lazy and arrogant. "Nature has nothing left to offer me, I am better". Disregarding the fact that humanity has opened its eyes a few centuries ago. We've barely made it past the ozone layer. (Voyager isn't human).

Comment by uselessscientist at 13/01/2020 at 21:00 UTC

5 upvotes, 0 direct replies

Whilst I tend to agree that certain experiments get a disproportionate amount of funding, this article is ludicrous.

The author is targeting one small subset of physics, which is particle physics, whilst neglecting the leaps and bounds made in condensed matter, astro, and other fields.

Comment by lolograde at 13/01/2020 at 21:05 UTC

6 upvotes, 0 direct replies

Just FYI: The author is a reputable and accomplished physicist herself. Disagree with it, but it's worth reading the article before judging it by its headline.

Comment by [deleted] at 13/01/2020 at 21:41 UTC

2 upvotes, 1 direct replies

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Comment by [deleted] at 15/01/2020 at 09:53 UTC

2 upvotes, 0 direct replies

Super interesting. I would have liked for her to describe in greater detail what exact mechanisms she believes one should use to choose which experiments to attempt, though

Comment by [deleted] at 13/01/2020 at 21:03 UTC

5 upvotes, 1 direct replies

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Comment by BobGaussington at 13/01/2020 at 21:21 UTC

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So she’s complaining that the easier discoveries have been made, and it takes increasingly more work to find new discoveries?

Comment by [deleted] at 13/01/2020 at 21:09 UTC

1 upvotes, 1 direct replies

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Comment by In_shpurrs at 14/01/2020 at 02:31 UTC

1 upvotes, 0 direct replies

"This cycle must eventually lead into a dead end when experiments become simply too expensive to remain affordable. A $40 billion particle collider is such a dead end."

Interesting.