> I don't buy the bullshit that there's some sort of good math vs. bad math in physics
Good, because no one is saying that the math is intrinsically either good or bad. Hossenfelder says that math (in physics) works best when it focuses on things that are at least aspirationally testable. Your examples agree with her.
> I'm saying that we have no reason to expect that we are somehow doing science any more wrongly than we used to do science
Hossenfelder gives a reason: there needs to be a certain balance between experimentation and theory because that's what works, experimentation has changed, therefore theory needs to change but it hasn't. If you want to argue with the actual argument she's making -- rather than an argument you've made up and put in her mouth -- you need to challenge her premise or her conclusion, yet you're doing neither.
> It wants to discard all of what has worked
Quite the contrary: She argues that theoretical physics today is what's discarding all that has worked. She wants to continue all that has worked and discard a new approach that hasn't. Again, you're not disagreeing with anyone as you don't seem to engage with the actual argument.
> and offers no compelling replacement bedrock.
She does offer a "replacement": maintain the balance that has worked. You may not find it specific enough, but that doesn't mean that there isn't a problem, and that doing something that hasn't worked is the best we can do just because we don't know how to do what worked before.
Again, I find hard to keep this up because you seem to be responding to an argument that no one has made, and completely ignore the actual argument made. You keep saying what she says is silly, yet don't raise a single argument against her actual point. In fact, you call what she says "bullshit" and then vehemently agree with her. To actually make a couterargument you need to either say that experimentation hasn't changed, that theory has maintained its balance with experimentation or that the balance isn't important. Anything other than those three positions is irrelevant here, and certainly isn't in disagreement with Hossenfelder. I'm not a physicist, but I know a thing or two about logic, and I am honsetly interested in seeing one of these points made, but you're just lashing out without arguing anything. Which of those three possible counterarguments are you trying to express?
Science progresses by refinement of mathematical models, by crafting of narratives, by thought experiments, and by the simplifying and compressing actions of institutionalization and education.
It's irritating to be accused of not reading. Sabine's not exactly easy reading, but let's start at the top:
> In the foundations of physics, we have not seen progress since the mid 1970s when the standard model of particle physics was completed. Ever since then, the theories we use to describe observations have remained unchanged. Sure, some aspects of these theories have only been experimentally confirmed later. The last to-be-confirmed particle was the Higgs-boson, predicted in the 1960s, measured in 2012.
Oh, and why did it take half a century to confirm the Higgs? What is glossed over is that the confirmation of the Standard Model required particle accelerators, either ones we built or ones we improvised using Sol as a radiation source. We theorized, we imagined, and then we experimented and confirmed. Along the way, we discovered multiple different supporting reasons why things are the way that they are, and demolished various optimistic hopes that the answers to our questions would be simple.
To zoom out, Sabine has been slowly building up a campaign of doubting gravitational-wave observation technology. I feel like her position is that any big-science expenditure is a poor use of public funds, and that she is willing to work backwards from those conclusions.
Protip: When somebody argues against a specific thing that people are doing, but otherwise argues for the status quo, to "continue all that has worked" but "discard [a] new approach that hasn't", they are really arguing for exclusion of that specific thing. Okay, fine, but why and to what end? I feel sometimes like this is an argument that particle accelerators are a waste of public funds. (See also: top of thread.)
Y'know, you are the only person saying that I'm agreeing with you and Sabine, and then you gripe that I'm somehow saying nothing. I feel that I'm directly addressing your attempts at communication. You aren't going to make progress by accusing me of failing to commit to a position when I've been pretty open about my position from the start and when your position is framed in opposition to the thread-starting comment.
Ok, now I finally understand your disagreement with Hossenfelder. BTW, I neither agree nor disagree with her. I'm not a physicist, I just don't think her argument, if her description of the facts is reasonable, is so obviously silly, so I'm interested to know what those of her fellow physicists who disagree with her argue.
So if I understand you correctly, you agree with her premise that the gap between hypothesis and experiment is widening, but you think it's OK. She says that this view is overly optimistic, and clearly you disagree with that conclusion. I'm curious to know how you justify this optimism. Is it just because you think there is no other way or do you see some more concrete reasons for optimism?
> What is glossed over is that the confirmation of the Standard Model required particle accelerators
I don't think it's glossed over at all. I think her point is that the rising cost of experimentation should have an impact on theory as well.
> We theorized, we imagined, and then we experimented and confirmed.
Right, and I think she would say that a great percentage of the work being done now has no feasible plan for experimentation within a century, so instead of spending that time on speculation, why not let the feasibility of experimentation at least educate the theoretical focus?
> To zoom out, Sabine has been slowly building up a campaign of doubting gravitational-wave observation technology. I feel like her position is that any big-science expenditure is a poor use of public funds, and that she is willing to work backwards from those conclusions.
You may well be right about this. Not being a physicist, and not knowing her record aside from that one article, which I found to be very well-argued, I have no additional knowledge on the matter.
Good, because no one is saying that the math is intrinsically either good or bad. Hossenfelder says that math (in physics) works best when it focuses on things that are at least aspirationally testable. Your examples agree with her.
> I'm saying that we have no reason to expect that we are somehow doing science any more wrongly than we used to do science
Hossenfelder gives a reason: there needs to be a certain balance between experimentation and theory because that's what works, experimentation has changed, therefore theory needs to change but it hasn't. If you want to argue with the actual argument she's making -- rather than an argument you've made up and put in her mouth -- you need to challenge her premise or her conclusion, yet you're doing neither.
> It wants to discard all of what has worked
Quite the contrary: She argues that theoretical physics today is what's discarding all that has worked. She wants to continue all that has worked and discard a new approach that hasn't. Again, you're not disagreeing with anyone as you don't seem to engage with the actual argument.
> and offers no compelling replacement bedrock.
She does offer a "replacement": maintain the balance that has worked. You may not find it specific enough, but that doesn't mean that there isn't a problem, and that doing something that hasn't worked is the best we can do just because we don't know how to do what worked before.
Again, I find hard to keep this up because you seem to be responding to an argument that no one has made, and completely ignore the actual argument made. You keep saying what she says is silly, yet don't raise a single argument against her actual point. In fact, you call what she says "bullshit" and then vehemently agree with her. To actually make a couterargument you need to either say that experimentation hasn't changed, that theory has maintained its balance with experimentation or that the balance isn't important. Anything other than those three positions is irrelevant here, and certainly isn't in disagreement with Hossenfelder. I'm not a physicist, but I know a thing or two about logic, and I am honsetly interested in seeing one of these points made, but you're just lashing out without arguing anything. Which of those three possible counterarguments are you trying to express?