| In the past, how did we figure out Mercury's orbit? We looked for Vulcan for half a century before Einstein figured out that our maths needed another term. Was the search for Vulcan founded on "entirely baseless speculation", in Sabine's words? No, there was a strong expectation that, since other planets had been found this way, particularly Neptune, only a few decades prior! By analogy, the string theorists did present some falsifiable guesses, not based purely on speculation, but based on generalizations of mathematical patterns which were first observed in the beginnings of QM. They guessed at supersymmetries, and we've falsified most of the low-energy (easy) possibilities. This is fine; this is science as normal. And the string theorists have reacted to an inability to design new experiments by parameterizing the swampland. Sabine doesn't seem to care that, during this same time period, we've seen weakening of more classical symmetries too! Remember charge-parity symmetry? These days we're down to CPT, and neutrinos are even weirder than we thought, and we can't explain all of this yet, but the maths needs to become more and more flexible to model these interesting observations. To quote Sabine from her comment section: > This lack of careful math is basically where the idea comes from that supersymmetry solves some problem. It has never been cleanly formulated just what the supposed problem is. Instead you get this community narrative that keeps people thinking there must be something to it. And such a shared belief is basically impossible to correct once you have sufficiently many people on it. The only problem that supersymmetry solves is the problem of experimentalists wanting to be able to falsify/verify string theory. That's it. That's the only reason that it's interesting. And we failed to verify or falsify so far. This isn't bad, but people seem to think that it's bad. The main gripe that I have with these rants of Sabine's is that, at this point, if we're so direly "lost in maths", then what non-mathematical alternative is she putting forward? How are we going to escape? I feel like there's not really any substance to that part of her argument, just a vague suggestion that somehow we'd better find somebody with the new and ground-breaking thought experiments who can lead physics out of a dark and demented era. It reeks, even if the odor isn't offensive. To recall the thread-starter that got you worked up: > How dare theoretical physicists develop ideas about the world around us that can't be quickly and obviously supported by real-world observations? How dare we guess that microscopic organisms might exist before we can see them? How dare we guess that a planet might be out there before we can see it? How dare we guess that a subatomic particle might exist before we can measure it? How dare we presume symmetries before we can test their breaking points? How dare people put dark matter, dark energy, cosmological constants, or any other grandiosely-indirect hypothetical universal information into their tiny little parochial experiments done here on Earth!? At some point, this line of thinking breaks down into absurd skepticism of any sort of mathematical modelling. Okay, fine; so, instead of maths, what shall we use? |
She's not against mathematical modeling and hypothesizing -- quite the opposite. She's in favor of mathematical modeling of the kind that has worked so far -- as you acknowledge -- and from which physicists have strayed, at least according to her. She is for hypothesizing microorganisms and that is why she's against current hypotheses. She's against the latter because the former is works, and the latter is different.
Her point, as I understand it, is as follows. Theory and experimentation have worked hand in hand when there was a certain balance between them. But the cost, and therefore the nature of experimentation has changed, and, as a result, if theory wants to work as it has in the past, it must change as well in order to maintain this mutually-beneficial balance. In particular, she's talking about recognizing more or less promising hypotheses based on this balance. But even if she doesn't offer what you see as a solution, the lack of a solution does not imply the lack of a problem, and recognizing the problem is usually a good first step.
Pointing out that theory has worked in the past is agreeing with her, not disagreeing with her. If you actually disagree with her, are you saying that the nature of experimentation has not changed and therefore theory should not change? Are you saying that theory has already changed to maintain the balance? Or are you saying that the balance is not important? Because in order to disagree with her -- which I think is what you're trying to do -- you need to argue one of these.
And by the way, the existence of microorganisms was experimentally verified, and in many experiments, well before -- or separately from -- direct observation. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germ_theory_of_disease)