Motl’s record of being wrong??? Who the hell are you to say? What is wrong with you people? The guy may have some questionable political opinions but he knows more about physics than all LW people combined ever will. What, do you think that being self-proclaimed “sane” group and having read a popular book here and there entitles you to make valid comments on scientific topics? Please note this isn’t reaction solely to paper-machine or thomblake or shminux, subset of who may actually have some rigorous physics education and who may or may not be simply wrong. This is a reaction to all of LW who apparently think that being intelligent or rational (putting aside the fact that most of their followers probably aren’t) makes them into self-taught science experts. I am posting it here because it is “closest” at the moment but this rant has been triggered by reading some other “science” posts today, most notably the quantum mechanics sequence. Which I am afraid fails terribly as an attempted first course on QM, is blatantly wrong in some parts and reflects that indeed Yudkowsky never had any proper physics education because he fails to understand even basic notions properly. LW movement, happily following this crazy narcissistic maniac, thus demonstrates level of scientific education and culture in its ranks. It’s sickening on one part and textbook example of confirmation bias on the other. If you are offended by the words chosen, know that no-one really cares. If you think the words chosen are too strong, it’s possible, I just came back from a mathematicians’ dinner where excessive, but not opinion changing, amount of wine was served. However, strong or not, you are (somewhere already, elsewhere becoming) a good source of laughs for actual scientists. Finally, if you really have to reply, please don’t try to address any of the physics criticism above, the sequences and comments under them have provided me with enough lay-people-trying-to-write-about-physics for a long time. Also, I know it is foolish to write science-LW relations rant here as no-one will read it but I don’t care. Let the down-voting commence!
most notably the quantum mechanics sequence. Which I am afraid fails terribly
as an attempted first course on QM, is blatantly wrong in some parts and
reflects that indeed Yudkowsky never had any proper physics education because
he fails to understand even basic notions properly.
I think he would like to have any mistakes pointed out. (Preferably math
mistakes rather than philosophical stuff that scientists don’t all agree on.)
LWer ciphergoth recently posted a Physics StackExchange
question
(and a corresponding LW
post)
about errors in the quantum physics sequence.
Let the down-voting commence!
It’s better to omit passive-aggressive stuff like this.
The guy may have some questionable political opinions but he knows more about physics than all LW people combined ever will.
This seems questionable. There are a variety of people here with math and physics PhDs. It might be accurate (and it wouldn’t surprise me) if by some rough metric Motl knew more about physics than any single LW regular. Claiming he knows more than everyone combined seems tough, especially given that we have subject matter experts here in subfields that are not Motl’s. The comment might be more valid if one restricted to something like “knows more particle physics” rather than physics in general, but even that seems questionable.
Motl also has a history of mixing his politics and his other views with his attitudes about physics in ways that don’t help his chances of being right. For example, see this example (one of many) where he says about a physicist that he disagrees with:
The difference between two of us is like the difference between a superman from the action movies who fights for the universal justice on one side and the most dirty corrupt villain on the other side. It’s like the Heaven and the Hell, freedom and feminism, careful evaluation of the climate and the alarmist hysteria, or string theory and loop quantum gravity.
He apparently added a few days (possibly weeks) after posting this bit a winky emoticon. There are other examples where he uses about as extreme or almost as extreme language.
Overall, Motl is not engaging in behavior and cognition that is likely to make him a reliable source.
Motl’s record of being wrong??? Who the hell are you to say? What is wrong with you people? The guy may have some questionable political opinions but he knows more about physics than all LW people combined ever will. What, do you think that being self-proclaimed “sane” group and having read a popular book here and there entitles you to make valid comments on scientific topics? Please note this isn’t reaction solely to paper-machine or thomblake or shminux, subset of who may actually have some rigorous physics education and who may or may not be simply wrong. This is a reaction to all of LW who apparently think that being intelligent or rational (putting aside the fact that most of their followers probably aren’t) makes them into self-taught science experts. I am posting it here because it is “closest” at the moment but this rant has been triggered by reading some other “science” posts today, most notably the quantum mechanics sequence. Which I am afraid fails terribly as an attempted first course on QM, is blatantly wrong in some parts and reflects that indeed Yudkowsky never had any proper physics education because he fails to understand even basic notions properly. LW movement, happily following this crazy narcissistic maniac, thus demonstrates level of scientific education and culture in its ranks. It’s sickening on one part and textbook example of confirmation bias on the other. If you are offended by the words chosen, know that no-one really cares. If you think the words chosen are too strong, it’s possible, I just came back from a mathematicians’ dinner where excessive, but not opinion changing, amount of wine was served. However, strong or not, you are (somewhere already, elsewhere becoming) a good source of laughs for actual scientists. Finally, if you really have to reply, please don’t try to address any of the physics criticism above, the sequences and comments under them have provided me with enough lay-people-trying-to-write-about-physics for a long time. Also, I know it is foolish to write science-LW relations rant here as no-one will read it but I don’t care. Let the down-voting commence!
Scott Aaronson (who is presumably qualified) doesn’t seem to have a very high opinion of Motl either.
I think he would like to have any mistakes pointed out. (Preferably math mistakes rather than philosophical stuff that scientists don’t all agree on.) LWer ciphergoth recently posted a Physics StackExchange question (and a corresponding LW post) about errors in the quantum physics sequence.
It’s better to omit passive-aggressive stuff like this.
This seems questionable. There are a variety of people here with math and physics PhDs. It might be accurate (and it wouldn’t surprise me) if by some rough metric Motl knew more about physics than any single LW regular. Claiming he knows more than everyone combined seems tough, especially given that we have subject matter experts here in subfields that are not Motl’s. The comment might be more valid if one restricted to something like “knows more particle physics” rather than physics in general, but even that seems questionable.
Motl also has a history of mixing his politics and his other views with his attitudes about physics in ways that don’t help his chances of being right. For example, see this example (one of many) where he says about a physicist that he disagrees with:
He apparently added a few days (possibly weeks) after posting this bit a winky emoticon. There are other examples where he uses about as extreme or almost as extreme language.
Overall, Motl is not engaging in behavior and cognition that is likely to make him a reliable source.
It’s acceptable to post rants here. It’s much less acceptable to post badly written ones.