All the people you’ve mentioned (with the arguable exception of Smolin) are extremely deep theorists, and I don’t see how anyone reasonable could label them crackpots. Sure, their recent work has been highly speculative and deviates from the theoretical mainstream in various ways, but I’d hope readers on this website wouldn’t consider those sufficient criteria for crackpottery.
I’m sure Motl has called some of them crackpots, but Motl is basically a theoretical physics troll and his judgments about his colleagues are usually laughably unfair and hyperbolic. I’d advise against treating him as a reliable source, even when he’s talking about his area of expertise. Sure, he knows his physics, but I’ve also found him to have a number of very bad epistemic habits, chief among them an abnormal aversion to admitting error.
I agree and tried to be careful saying “some people” (which is not exactly good practice, I know). As I noted below Motl is a fascinating specimen. I certainly don’t consider him to be a an authority on who is a crackpot or not, nor do I agree with many of his opinions or methods.
Still I think it is a strange mix of authors for this topic.
All the people you’ve mentioned (with the arguable exception of Smolin) are extremely deep theorists, and I don’t see how anyone reasonable could label them crackpots. Sure, their recent work has been highly speculative and deviates from the theoretical mainstream in various ways, but I’d hope readers on this website wouldn’t consider those sufficient criteria for crackpottery.
I’m sure Motl has called some of them crackpots, but Motl is basically a theoretical physics troll and his judgments about his colleagues are usually laughably unfair and hyperbolic. I’d advise against treating him as a reliable source, even when he’s talking about his area of expertise. Sure, he knows his physics, but I’ve also found him to have a number of very bad epistemic habits, chief among them an abnormal aversion to admitting error.
I agree and tried to be careful saying “some people” (which is not exactly good practice, I know). As I noted below Motl is a fascinating specimen. I certainly don’t consider him to be a an authority on who is a crackpot or not, nor do I agree with many of his opinions or methods.
Still I think it is a strange mix of authors for this topic.