A number of people have been privately asking me about
the recent Guardian article (and
accompanying Op-Ed
by Oxford mathematician Marcus du Sautoy) gushing over a supposedly
revolutionary new unified theory of physics by a man who officially left
academia 20 years ago. Or, as I’ve taken to calling it, Eric
Weinstein’s Amazing New Theory That Solves Every Puzzling Conundrum in
Theoretical Physics Only He Hasn’t Written An Actual Paper Yet So
Physicists Can’t Check All Those Hard Mathematical Details But Trust Us,
It’s Gonna Be Awesome!
Ahem. First, a couple of caveats. I’ve met Weinstein. He’s a nice
guy. He’s wicked smart. He knows way more math than I ever will (which
admittedly is not saying much). I don’t doubt his sincerity, or that of
some of his supporters, which apparently includes Berkeley
mathematician Edward Frenkel. And while I doubt his grandiose claims
will be borne out once all the details emerge, he deserves to have those
ideas heard, debated and evaluated (once there’s an actual paper) by
his peers. But that’s so far above my pay grade, it’s a task best left
to the professional physicists, who I’m sure are sharpening their knives
as I type. (“
Fresh meat!”)
No, my beef is with the
Guardian for running the article in
the first place. Seriously: why was it even written? Strip away all the
purple prose and you’ve got a guy who’s been out of the field for 20
years, but still doing some dabbling on the side, who has an intriguing
new idea that a couple of math professors think is promising, so he got
invited to give a colloquium at Oxford
by his old grad school buddy. Oh, and there’s no technical paper yet —
not even a rough draft on the arxiv — so his ideas can’t even be
appropriately evaluated by actual working physicists. How, exactly, does
that qualify as newsworthy? Was your bullshit detector not working that
day?
I’ll tell you what happened: the
Guardian was seduced by the narrative offered by a man who, in his dual post as
Simonyi professor for the public understanding of science,
has proved himself to be highly adept at manipulating the media. It
pains me to say this, since this is my field we’re talking about, but
the
Guardian got played, plain and simple.
Admittedly, it’s a very seductive narrative. Who doesn’t thrill to
the idea of an obscure unknown genius toiling away in the shadows,
snubbed by the stuffy, closed-minded academic establishment, who defies
the odds and manages to achieve what all those brilliant scholars failed
to do, thereby ensuring his or her scientific immortality? I love a
good story! But this is science, not
Good Will Hunting, and that narrative just isn’t true — or rather, it’s too simplistic.
Granted, sometimes there
is such an odds-defying
breakthrough, quite notably in mathematics. Ramanujam was largely
self-taught and worked in isolation, and nonetheless made extraordinary
contributions to mathematical analysis, number theory and infinite
series. And just this last week, there was
a major advance in prime numbers
by a relatively obscure math professor at the University of New
Hampshire who hadn’t published a paper since 2001. But by and large,
most significant breakthroughs occur through established scientific
channels — especially when it comes to modern cosmology and theoretical
physics.
“I’m trying to promote, perhaps, a new way of doing science. Let’s
start with really big ideas, let’s be brave and let’s have a
discussion,” du Sautoy told
The Guardian. Great idea! Except it’s not really a new way of doing science. And as Oxford cosmologist Andrew Pontzen
pointed out in a New Scientist op-ed, nobody thought to invite any of the Oxford
physicists.
[
UPDATE 5/26/13:
Pontzen emailed me over the weekend correcting his original statement:
"Unfortunately this statement now turns out to be wrong. Marcus Du
Sautoy did in fact think to invite the Oxford physicists, sending an
email to the head of department along with A3 posters; unfortunately
no-one spotted the talk because the email, unbeknown to Du Sautoy, was
not widely circulated or advertised on the internal web page. Apologies
to all concerned that I didn't look into this deeply enough to uncover
the extra complication to the story. The remainder of my piece stands."]
You know, the people most qualified to evaluate Weinstein’s work. It’s
hard to have a collegial dialogue that way, especially with no technical
paper on hand to provide the necessary background information. This
seems more like trying to do science via press conference.
I do give props to reporter Alok Jha — whom I like and respect
enormously, so this is a doubly painful post for me to write — for at
least TRYING to inject some common sense into the piece, via theoretical
physicists David Kaplan — who affirms that Weinstein is “serious” and
not your typical crackpot, in that his theory actually exhibits
coherence — and the University of Surrey’s Jim al-Khalili. [corrected
spelling] Both men strike appropriate notes of caution, emphasizing that
— du Sautoy’s insistence that Weinstein’s ideas “feel right”
notwithstanding — ultimately, any such theory must go beyond pretty
mathematics and fit the real-world data. Per al-Khalili:
“My main concern with Weinstein’s claims is that they
are simply too grand – too sweeping. It would be one thing if he argued
for some modest prediction that his theory was making, and importantly
one that could be tested experimentally, or that it explained a
phenomenon or mechanism that other theories have failed to do, but he
makes the mistake of claiming too much for it.”
Credit: Sidney Harris. http://www.sciencecartoonsplus.com/index.php
Nicely put. I’d like to buy both of them a pint for their measured
restraint on the record. But those qualifiers are utterly lost in the
surrounding hype, such as breathlessly noting the similarity between
“Weinstein” and “Einstein” — as if that means anything. (Also, as the
Time Lord tartly observed on Twitter: “Pretty sure Einstein actually wrote research papers, not just gave interviews to newspapers.”)
Furthermore, the entire tail end of the article undercuts everything
Kaplan and al-Khalili say by quoting du Sautoy (and, I’m sad to say,
Frenkel) at length, disparaging the “Ivory Tower” of academia and
touting this supposedly new, democratic way of doing physics whereby
anyone with an Internet connection and a bit of gumption can play with
the big boys.
It’s disingenuous — and pretty savvy, because it cuts off potential
criticism at the knees. Now any physicist (or science writer) who
objects to the piece can immediately be labeled a closed-minded big ol’
meanie who just can’t accept that anyone outside the Physics Club could
make a worthwhile contribution.
Do I sound a little angry? It’s closer to irritation. I’m currently
at a conference exploring the frontiers of cosmology and theoretical
physics at the University of California, Davis, where for the past
several days, some of the top physicists in the world have been
vigorously debating all kinds of wildly creative, speculative,
alternative ideas about inflation, dark matter, dark energy, the
multiverse, string theory, and so forth, and the implications for the
various theoretical models in light of the latest
experimental results from the Planck mission.
Two weeks ago, I was at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics for
a week-long conference in which physicists grappled with fitting their
theoretical models to confusing results from a number of dark matter
detection experiments.
This is what truly free and open scientific discussion of brave/bold
new ideas looks like. The tradition is alive and well in that stuffy old
academic establishment. I’ll let Pontzen have the last word:
At what point during this long and difficult process
does it become legitimate to proclaim a breakthrough? It’s a line in
shifting sands, but that line has certainly been crossed. Du Sautoy –
the University of Oxford’s professor of the public understanding of
science, no less – has short-circuited science’s basic checks and
balances. Yesterday’s shenanigans were anything but scientific.
Preach it.
ADDENDUM (5/29/13): As more details have emerged, a
few other voices have chimed in over the last few days and I thought I’d
link to them in this original post — rather than writing a new one —
for those interested in following the ongoing discussion.
Cosmologist Richard Easther
provides some insight
into some potential sticking points — albeit with the most limited of
information. Du Sautoy’s op-ed mentions that Weinstein’s theory posits a
dynamical dark energy (cosmological constant), which is contradicted by
all our observational data to date, showing a constant cosmological
constant. Important point:
this does not mean Weinstein’s theory is flat-out wrong
and Easther (and others), as responsible scientists, are not saying
that. Not until they’ve had a chance to see the details. But it doesn’t
exactly inspire confidence either.
Easther points out that despite all the hyperventilated comparisons
of Weinstein to Einstein, “the Swiss-German patent clerk played by the
rules.” And he also has the single best take I’ve read so far on why a
bit of conservatism and rectitude is a good thing when it comes to
promoting cutting-edge science:
“My own favorite example of this sort of rectitude is
the discovery of the microwave background, which was announced in a
paper entitled ‘A Measurement of Excess Antenna Temperature at 4080
Megacycles per Second,’ as opposed to ‘We Have Discovered the Birth of
the Universe, Now Can We Please Have a Nobel Prize.’ Really good work
usually sells itself. Conversely, over-hyped proposals typically
under-deliver.”
University of Richmond physicist Ted Bunn
echoes my own concerns about how the
Guardian
coverage implicitly reinforces the stereotype of a hidebound academic
“establishment” not open to new ideas, insisting on people following
those pesky rules and procedures, which just cramp a lone genius’s
style, dude! It’s The Man being all elitist and exclusive! (I am opting
for snark because that’s my style; Bunn is more measured in his take.)
As
Peter Coles pointed out,
“I think it would be very unfortunate if this episode
led to the perception that physicists feel that only established
academics can make breakthroughs in their own field. There are plenty of
historical examples of non-physicists having great ideas that have
dramatically changed the landscape of physics; Einstein himself wasn’t
an academic when he did his remarkable work in 1905. [JLP: But see Easther's earlier point about Einstein nonetheless playing by the rules.] I think we should give all theoretical ideas a fair hearing wherever they come from.”
For a curmudgeonly counter-take, Weinstein’s fellow academic outsider, the Ronin Institute’s Jon Wilkins,
has a bit of harrumphing
about this silly notion that one should have some kind of actual paper
for one’s scientific peers to check details before giving a colloquium
or whatever. I think Wilkins misunderstands the spirit of the objections
in a pretty fundamental way — but read it and make your own
assessment.
I haven’t seen
anybody claim Weinstein shouldn’t have been
invited to give a colloquium at Oxford, and had his claims been less
extraordinary, I’m sure nobody would have minded if he gave some
preliminary details without a paper. They’re more informal affairs,
these colloquia; they
should be about exciting new ideas. But
given his grandiose claims, it would have been wise to have provided
physicists with the gory details beforehand so they could better assess
the merits and target their questions accordingly. That’s how science
advances. Combine that with an ill-advised major media splash — well,
that’s a recipe for a PR trainwreck, which is precisely what happened.
For my part, I’ve been especially struck by how careful every single
physicist I’ve seen comment on this publicly has been to correct this
misperception that the physics community is unwilling to listen to
radical new ideas from outside some kind of elistist “Inner Circle.”
Again, it’s an appealing narrative; that’s why this particular framing
was used, to cut off any immediate objections at the knees. No doubt
there are some hidebound traditionalists lurking in the Ivory Tower, but
there are far more dynamic, passionately engaged physicists excited
about any new revolutionary ideas that could set physics on an exciting
new course — regardless of where they come from.
As always, the reality is far more nuanced.
No comments:
Post a Comment