[xqcgrek2]

The whole String Theory affair is amusing but also a sad spectacle.

These people convinced the world they were geniuses, but ended up fleecing funding agencies and universities for millions with zero accountability and scientific progress.

[drpossum]

Do you have an example where funding was given out with zero accountability? I've worked at a number of universities and national laboratories for particle research and they all had multiple layers of accountability. At the top of any public funding structure is congress and the president and bigger initiatives will even be line items in public agency budgets. At the bottom are the required regular reports (I had biannually) to grant monitors and often independent review panels and committees (for one big project I had to do that annually on top of reports). In the middle are people who make it their jobs to find ways to save money, get money to the most promising projects, and communicating up to elected/presidentially appointed officials and down to researchers to keep this together. Both DOE and NSF funding are structured this way and represent virtually all federal channels to get money for particle physics, both experiment and theory.

What's the funding you're referring to with zero accountability?

[f1shy]

The question, I think, is “how many alternative theories were dismissed by no funding?” IF there was other people asking for funding for other topics or theories were dismissed because “strings are cool” then I expect some explanation. And boy there were other theories and projects asking for funding!

[drpossum]

Do not read "the system is perfect" or even "good" from my post. I'm focusing only on the claim from the post above that there is "zero accountability". The people accountable are everyone in the chain I described and the whole thing hinges on people that ultimately answer to elections.

[exe34]

> how many alternative theories were dismissed by no funding

it's an interesting question - you should be able to request this information from the funding bodies!

[drpossum]

Do you think you can't? It's all covered under FOIA. Bureaucratic stuff like this is in fact FOIA's wheelhouse.

[exe34]

No I was suggesting that he should ask for it, instead of assuming there weren't good reasons for the choices that were made.

[moralestapia]

>Do you have an example where funding was given out with zero accountability?

Yes, this article and the whole crisis it references.

Will people be removed from their position? Prosecuted, even? No.

That's what zero accountability means.

[f1shy]

Well, that people are really smart. Also I do bot think is bad faith. It just seems to not deliver all the answers we would like.

[baggachipz]

I think it just goes to show how desperate we are to find a unified theory after all this time and effort.

[api]

The worst of it reminds me of cryptocurrency schlock and how it has drained capital from our industry with little to show for it.

The pattern is similar: an infinitely fascinating puzzle to solve full of interesting math with potentially revolutionary implications if only… if only… but not enough people ask if it’s the right math solving the right problems in the right way or if it’s even applicable.

This phenomenon of smart people being nerd sniped to this degree reminds me of that episode of Star Trek TNG where they figured out a way to possibly destroy the Borg by giving them an infinitely fascinating unsolvable geometry problem to ponder until they lost their minds.

I also see some similarity to how people get triggered and sucked into and addicted to spirals of culture war and political rage or fear mongering or other media driven mind traps. This is less intellectual but seems similar in that you’ve got this meme that hooks us and creates a discourse around it that hooks us more and not enough people poke their heads out of the vortex and say “hey everyone is this really this big of a deal?”

We should become skeptical when we see a big idea accrete a lot of sound and fury around it but it’s not producing much and the main focus of the community circling it is self referential fascination with the idea itself.