I ran into this post on /r/physics which covers how crackpots on YouTube slinging garbage make a real impact on students and people interested in physics. What I found interesting is this guy is...
I ran into this post on /r/physics which covers how crackpots on YouTube slinging garbage make a real impact on students and people interested in physics. What I found interesting is this guy is not muddying the waters on the low-level introductory science topics you'd expect people to mess with (relativity, quantum mechanics, cosmology, etc.) but is attacking a rather technical topic while still getting a pretty big following.
Quantum electrodynamics (QED), by numerical precision, might be the most accurate theory in all of science. Specifically, I'm referring to the magnetic moment of the electron where theory and experiment agree to something like one part in 10 billion. That's an astonishing level of accuracy. So, to have somebody tearing it down is a special kind of dark comedy.
I have a physics PhD but was always kind of bad at it. I love the crackpot theories though, and loved reading them trying to find flaws or neat ideas. They got me in trouble a few times when I...
I have a physics PhD but was always kind of bad at it. I love the crackpot theories though, and loved reading them trying to find flaws or neat ideas. They got me in trouble a few times when I forgot they were non-mainstream and accidently mentioned them in casual conversation. "Not everyone believes that you know..." But... Like I said. I was bad at physics.
I do tend to think they're good for science, and the people who dismissed them with "we already know x perfectly and there is no reason to ever question it" kinda bothered me more than the crackpots.
I didn't bother to watch this though and I got mo idea who this guy is. I left the field and what little info I ever had left my head immediately. Maybe he's super dangerous.
Meh, as much as I don't like it, it's not really acutely dangerous, but rather very frustrating and annoying. People always like underdogs so the narrative of the terrible academic ivory tower is...
Maybe he's super dangerous.
Meh, as much as I don't like it, it's not really acutely dangerous, but rather very frustrating and annoying. People always like underdogs so the narrative of the terrible academic ivory tower is inherently attractive (and there's no shortage of real reasons to have a beef with academia either). The issue I find is that it's far easier to gain an audience if you don't need to actually sell truth. The video in question makes absurd claims about Schwinger's publications that are easy to prove false if you have a physics background. But that's a big barrier to most folks. Working physicists who can counter this stuff are themselves however busy... well... doing physics. There are good physics YouTubers out there: Scishow, PBS Spacetime, MinutePhysics, Sixty Symbols, 3Blue1Brown (more math really) to name a few, so all hope is not lost. These people however focus on making their own interesting content rather than the depressing work of debunking and I don't blame them.
In my experience, this is the fastest way to radicalize crackpots. A person who claims "we already know x perfectly" can rarely formulate a solid counterargument to pottery, so it's easily...
"we already know x perfectly and there is no reason to ever question it" kinda bothered me more than the crackpots.
In my experience, this is the fastest way to radicalize crackpots. A person who claims "we already know x perfectly" can rarely formulate a solid counterargument to pottery, so it's easily defeated. Contrary to some opinions, conspiracy theorists aren't unintelligent or ignorant—they can use their intelligence to argue, and they know the claims of "both sides", but simply have a strong emotional bias. Basically like running malware on a (usually) perfectly fine hardware.
Those who have a strong emotional bias towards what happens to be science (i.e. the more consistent / better evidenced etc. model) for no good reason they know of are just broken clocks. One well-aimed disinfo piece when they're vulnerable, and they're gone.
A disturbingly vanishing number of people focus on actual bodies of evidence, and I'm afraid it won't ever change for the better—science is hard work.
I ran into this post on /r/physics which covers how crackpots on YouTube slinging garbage make a real impact on students and people interested in physics. What I found interesting is this guy is not muddying the waters on the low-level introductory science topics you'd expect people to mess with (relativity, quantum mechanics, cosmology, etc.) but is attacking a rather technical topic while still getting a pretty big following.
Quantum electrodynamics (QED), by numerical precision, might be the most accurate theory in all of science. Specifically, I'm referring to the magnetic moment of the electron where theory and experiment agree to something like one part in 10 billion. That's an astonishing level of accuracy. So, to have somebody tearing it down is a special kind of dark comedy.
I have a physics PhD but was always kind of bad at it. I love the crackpot theories though, and loved reading them trying to find flaws or neat ideas. They got me in trouble a few times when I forgot they were non-mainstream and accidently mentioned them in casual conversation. "Not everyone believes that you know..." But... Like I said. I was bad at physics.
I do tend to think they're good for science, and the people who dismissed them with "we already know x perfectly and there is no reason to ever question it" kinda bothered me more than the crackpots.
I didn't bother to watch this though and I got mo idea who this guy is. I left the field and what little info I ever had left my head immediately. Maybe he's super dangerous.
Meh, as much as I don't like it, it's not really acutely dangerous, but rather very frustrating and annoying. People always like underdogs so the narrative of the terrible academic ivory tower is inherently attractive (and there's no shortage of real reasons to have a beef with academia either). The issue I find is that it's far easier to gain an audience if you don't need to actually sell truth. The video in question makes absurd claims about Schwinger's publications that are easy to prove false if you have a physics background. But that's a big barrier to most folks. Working physicists who can counter this stuff are themselves however busy... well... doing physics. There are good physics YouTubers out there: Scishow, PBS Spacetime, MinutePhysics, Sixty Symbols, 3Blue1Brown (more math really) to name a few, so all hope is not lost. These people however focus on making their own interesting content rather than the depressing work of debunking and I don't blame them.
Gosh, imagine how bad some of us are xD
In my experience, this is the fastest way to radicalize crackpots. A person who claims "we already know x perfectly" can rarely formulate a solid counterargument to pottery, so it's easily defeated. Contrary to some opinions, conspiracy theorists aren't unintelligent or ignorant—they can use their intelligence to argue, and they know the claims of "both sides", but simply have a strong emotional bias. Basically like running malware on a (usually) perfectly fine hardware.
Those who have a strong emotional bias towards what happens to be science (i.e. the more consistent / better evidenced etc. model) for no good reason they know of are just broken clocks. One well-aimed disinfo piece when they're vulnerable, and they're gone.
A disturbingly vanishing number of people focus on actual bodies of evidence, and I'm afraid it won't ever change for the better—science is hard work.