I disagreed with Sabine Hossenfelder’s attack on Lerner (https://thunderbolts.info/wp/forum3/phpBB3 ... t=45#p7776 ), but …
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technolo ... r-AA12vul6
WOW! That’s quite an assertion. She continues …Are Particle Physicists Inventing New Particles for No Reason? No, but It's Complicated
Has the entire field of particle physics collapsed, thanks to the efforts of a former physicist who is now speaking out? If you've read the latest headlines, you might be inclined to think so.
On Monday, the Guardian's opinion section ran an article by astrophysicist and YouTuber Sabine Hossenfelder that claimed particle physicists have been harboring a dark secret: They "do not believe the particles they are paid to search for exist."
In a nutshell, Hossenfelder says that theoretical particles are being conjured up out of thin air to explain some of the anomalous findings physicists have seen in particle colliders and high-energy physics experiments. She contends that an entire "zoo" has been invented featuring an array of strange particles like "wimps," "axions" and "sterile neutrinos."
Dark matter, by the way, hasn’t been found either, even after half a century of expensive experiments designed to find it. She continues …As she notes in her piece, particle physicists have been looking for the inhabitants of the "zoo," but experiments designed to find them haven't discovered anything. So, she writes, researchers are wasting time looking for made-up particles beyond the Standard Model, which she believes "works just fine the way it is." Many particle physicists disagree with that idea, noting in particular that it doesn't describe dark matter.
Isn’t that what I’ve been saying, folks? Of course, MSN being the MSM has to jump in and defend the mainstream. It’s expect of them.Still, by "inventing" new particles beyond the Standard Model, Hossenfelder appears to suggest that researchers are only serving themselves: They're able to write highly theoretical scientific papers, boosting their publication numbers and racking up citations — which have great value when trying to get more funding.
LOL! This sounds just like the sort of alarmed response that Lerner got to his article on what astrophysicists are doing and saying. But the MSM is a little nicer towards Hossenfelder, for some reason. The MSN article even says this …Worryingly, this claim inspired other publications to jump on the controversy. One headline screamed "FORMER PARTICLE PHYSICIST ABSOLUTELY ANNIHILATES THE FIELD OF PARTICLE PHYSICS" and suggested particle physicists had a "dirty secret."
But the truth is far less alarming (and requires far less Caps Lock.)
Speaking to particle physicists over the last week, it's clear Hossenfelder's claims rankled the field. "It truly hurts me," Thomas Van Riet, a physicist at KU Leuven in Belgium, told me via email.
Many view the framing of Hossenfelder's article as unfair. Some believe it simply contains mistruths and false information. The major concern I've heard is how Hossenfelder presents particle physicists working "in private" as if they've been acting conspiratorially, keeping the truth about their work from the public. "What's most annoying to me are the claims of what is said behind closed doors," tweeted Djuna Croon, a theoretical physicist at Durham University, in response to the article.
… and this …That's not to say there aren't good points in Hossenfelder's piece and particle physicists don't dismiss all of her concerns. "Without any doubt, Sabine touches upon issues that should be discussed," said Van Riet. It's the way they're presented that may be damaging.
She gets the benefit of the doubt, perhaps because she went after Lerner and defended Big Bang. Even her suggesting that particle physicists are in it for their own material gain gets the benefit of the doubt …Hossenfelder's skepticism of scientific results and theories is absolutely warranted. Science is about refining our understanding over time as new results yield new insights. In this way, Hossenfelder's critiques of particle physics can be helpful. But they're delivered in a way that's out of the ordinary for scientists.
And of course, in the end, the MSN being woke can’t help themselves …Hossenfelder's piece paints the field of particle physics with one very broad brush, suggesting "thousands" of tenured professors are "ambulance chasing" and operating in secret, some sort of shady cabal that exists purely to continue existing and siphoning up research money. Particle physicists I spoke with disagreed with these generalizations.
However, the practice of "ambulance chasing" Hossenfelder calls out in her piece is something that's worth exploring. Ambulance chasing is the idea a new result or anomaly in particle physics inspires dozens of scientific papers trying to explain the result, sometimes invoking new particles or building out new models. This certainly does happen and is important to call it out, but it's much less common than Hossenfelder suggests.
And focusing on issues like ambulance chasing misses larger, systemic issues in particle physics. It's a field that suffers from problems similar to those in other STEM fields, particularly when it comes to diversity and inclusion.
But I do think this article shows more cracks forming in the mainstream Big Science establishment. Just saying ...