This is a critical response to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18609375 ; in the comments is a response by Jamie Farnes, the author of the paper, and a rebuttal by the blog's author.
To clarify, the response and rebuttal benwr mentions can be found in the comments on the blog post, not in the HN comments from the previous thread. :)
I have absolutely no idea who is right, but I don't see why Dr. Hossenfelder is being so patronizing? In her rebuttal in the comments she says
>Trust me, I do not enjoy doing this, but I do not want false claims to spread in the popular science literature.
The only way to stop popular science lit from misinterpreting/aggrandizing scientific findings and publishing what eventually amounts to false claims would be to just never publish anything provocative at all...and then they'd still probably find some BS to publish. I don't really see why such reasoning would prompt this response for the paper.
> I don't see why Dr. Hossenfelder is being so patronizing
This is her personality. I don't think it's productive to resolving scientific disagreements and don't endorse it; she looks obnoxious in contrast to the author's polite reply in the comments. But it's definitely her natural state, and it seems to produce a writing style that readers enjoy.
> The only way to stop popular science lit from misinterpreting/aggrandizing scientific findings and publishing what eventually amounts to false claims would be to just never publish anything provocative at all
Hossenfelder is claiming much more than that the work is provocative. She's claiming it's highly disfavored for widely known reasons that the authors do not sufficiently address. She's probably also implicitly suggesting the authors are allowing their work to be marketed directly to the lay public, who do not have the expertise to assess the work, for personal gain. Obviously you can always give alternative explanations (the establishment is close-minded, or whatever), but keep in mind that Hossenfelder is waaaay outside the establishment.