Dr. Angela Collier plays the Binding of Isaac: Rebirth and talks at length about what went wrong with string theory, and how that affected science communication.
Dr. Angela Collier plays the Binding of Isaac: Rebirth and talks at length about what went wrong with string theory, and how that affected science communication.
Yes, I’m serious.
They presented their ideas the way every excited scientist does. Being angry at them for that is kind of silly. Should I be angry that I was taught the “fact” that animals and plants migrated between stationary continents via land bridges? That scientists were excitedly drawing up complex bridges and timelines? That they told everyone about their fabulous revolutionary bridges? Nope. It’s just one funny step in a funny dance humanity does.
Angrily putting up a picture of herself as a child in the 90’s who was excited about string theory and saying she was betrayed by later work? I don’t get it.
I watched the video a couple of weeks ago, I think, so my recall might not be exact. However, my takeaway wasn’t that the scientists expressed excitement about their ideas. Instead, I think her issue was that they continued to outwardly express excitement and hype their field even after it was obvious that it was an avenue of inquiry that could never be meaningfully tested. I think she found these later actions to be disingenuous and harmful to the larger field.
Whether her assessment is accurate, I can’t really say since this isn’t my field. However, I recall many of the discussions she cites in her summary and her characterization seems fair. My gut says that there is at least some validity to her criticisms.