Best regards

You are both correct. However to clarify my point is that when you use the marketplace analogy, (with or without financial payoff), you inevitably get dragged into establishing and maintaining brand identity. “Strings” in marketplace terminology is a brand name for a theory of everything. As a “brand” it has certain positive and negative attributes. But the notion that this is the correct way to look at pure science is troublesome and may bear on the process of making “investment” decisions on one approach or another even given the fact that the payoff is not financial.

My point is cautionary in that when you begin to use analogies such as these, there are some consequences that come along that may not be intended and may be counterproductive.

Elliot

I do not think that the “market place” analogy discussed in the thread is about “market value” of scientific research. I think it was what some people called “an analogy to a portfolio”: the comparison between investment on financial goods and investment on developing ideas in sciences.

Eric’s post 87 is I think a good summery of a motivation for the “market place” analogy, and let me paste a part of it:

“What is being seriously discussed is how to properly evaluate and diversify imbalances in the portfolio of approaches to advancing fundamental physics beyond the Standard Model and General Relativity.”

So, protecting fundamental science from evaluating potential “free market value” of research and investment according to the evaluations is not the topic discussed here. The question that has been raised is: “what if an alternative approach (of a topic in sciences in general), not the most popular approach, was on the right track and we would have noticed it a lot earlier had we invested on ideas more cleverly.” The question is about the method of investment on scientific research purely for the sake of the progress of the science itself, not for the sake of Capitalism.

I would like to expound upon your insights into the concept of a market-based approach to pure-science research…

I will initially point out that society has become overly obsessed with the notion that unadulterated, unabated Capitalism is compatible with all sectors of our economy. Furthermore, I will take note that there are some extremely valuable products/services within our economy which are simply not amenable to a market-driven economy. Unquestionably, research in pure-science falls under the distinct category of products/services which should be regarded as lying outside the range of free-market economics.

Because the “pure-science” sector of our economy is negatively correlated with direct and immmediate profitability, this particular sector should be granted exemption from having to adhere to marketplace economics. More importantly, we - as a society - intuitively comprehend that our financial vitality and societal well-being is positively correlated with progress made in the realm of fundamental science. Simply put, a society’s long-term profitability hinges upon having a viable infrastructure for pure-science research. Moreover, because the free market is generally not receptive to funding such venture-capital projects, society must look beyond Capitalism in order to support fundamental science.

Perhaps laissez-faire works remarkably well within the marketplace of PC’s versus MAC’s. By contrast, laissez-faire fails to deliver when it comes to unveiling Nature and/or uncovering the origins of the universe.

Please note nothing in this comment should be meant to implictly or explicitly be critical of any of String/Brane, QFT, LQG, Info-theoretic models, or any other alternative theory. I am simply worried about the use of a marketplace analogy when the marketplace is by its very nature, inherently bound up in establishing and defending “brand identity” and therefore encourages continuity vs. reexamination.

Elliot

island says:
“I believe that Lynn Margulis and others would tell you that they still don’t have it right.”

Torbjörn Larsson answered:
Perhaps - not all evolutionary theories are verified and new ones crop up daily. what I mean’t though was that Darwin’s correct ideas ideas was eventually validated.

I actually figured as much, but I took the fact that it didn’t read that way to make the point that Lynn… “and others” would also tell you that there is a predispositioning among “neo” darwinists to willfully deny any and all forms evidence that carry implications that creationists might abuse.

She’s right about that, and I most definitely can give plenty of evidence that this non-scientific mentality isn’t limited to evobiologists.

My consistently expressed point is that this extreme “anticentrist dogma” is killing science, while obscuring our vision from the true road to the ToE, via the self-evident prediction that falls when it is noted that it is extremely probable that a truly special anthropic connection to the forces of the universe will also necessitate a reciprocal link to the human evolutionary process.

So the prediction that naturally falls from this is that there exists a mechanism which enables a universe with volume to “leap” to higher orders of the same basic structure… as inflationary theory and about a dozen other projected assumptions bite the dust to empricism.

Does such a mechanism exist?

Yes, and I’ve already defined it in this thread.

http://cosmicvariance.com/2006/06/19/the-string-theory-backlash/#comment-35150

Now if we only had an honest scientist that wasn’t afraid of purpose in nature… like Einstein.

As explained by Jean Marie Lehn (Nobel also)

Complexity = MI2

P.S: I checked that Nanopoulos preprint (and other works) is copying incorrectly equations, with one of the members of the group developing the equation in the 80s.

Juan R.

Center for CANONICAL |SCIENCE)

Firstly, the arrogance displayed in this quote is quite simply breathtaking (and not a little nauseating). Secondly, as a current grad student in this area let me say that it is not at all representative of the mood within the field, at least among grad students. String theory is of course a difficult subject, but no more so than any other discipline. In fact, were I to be pushed on this, I can think of several problems in more traditional areas which are *far* more difficult than any I know of in string theory (a full proof of the Penrose inequality in GR, an acceptable definition of quasilocal mass, and a rigorous statement and proof of cosmic censorship are just three examples which spring to mind). Unfortunately, cretinous views like those quoted above do seem to be on the increase, particularly among those who have swallowed the string theory hype hook, line, and sinker (and let’s be honest, it *is* over-hyped: anyone who says otherwise is simply not living in the real world). It’s a damn shame that things are the way they are.

Still poor than that! String theorists, including the so-called smart ones, are pulling the subject in a completely incorrect and outdated way. It is very amazing to read an article on the topic or hearing some talk where presented completely crackpot stuff from some string theorist. People working in other fields simply receive the talk or the paper (or preprint) as the “joke of the day”. The problem is when undergrads, young impresionable students and the rest are the target. Then audience is seriously misinformed and that is not good for science.

It would be really difficult to summarize the crackpotism received from string theory authors during last decades (of course, this is not a criticism to any string theorist). But more difficult would be to select one single example. There are many known examples: Lagrangian theory, thermal properties, foundations of quantum formalism, unitarity, all the crackpotism about Landscape and CC, epiroktic scenarios, etc.

I think that my favourites are:

1) The completely outdated TFD Dp-brane theory, presented like “exciting” when reusing ideas implemented decades ago by other people (of course all string theory before TFD version was still more boring and oudated).

2) The claim that string theory is a TOE when does not verify the basic M2I equation of complex systems (equation working in macromolecular chemistry for instance).

3) The completely outdated ideas on recent version of non-critical string theory, copying stuff from the early 80s and copying incorrectly the equations! (e.g. equation (37) of arXiv:hep-th/9406016 v1 is both outdated and incorrect).

4) The insanity around Landscape and CC.

In last Quantum Future (1998), Claus Kiefer and Erich Joos wrote:

This is even true for tentative frameworks such as GUT theories or superstring theory. Although the latter may seem “exotic” in some of its aspects (containing D-branes, many spacetime dimensions, etc.), it is very traditional in the sense of the quantum theoretical formalism employed.

But what could one wait from researchers as Brian Greene?

He rejects without any serious discussion [...]

Freeman J. Dyson (May 2004)

Juan R.

Center for CANONICAL |SCIENCE)

Most physics grad schools are full of grad students who go in thinking they want to do string theory and end up doing anything from condensed matter experiment to astrophysics to particle theory to biophysics. The thought of anyone being forced into string theory is laughable. There are neither enough advisors nor enough funding for everyone who would like to work in the field, and most of them aren’t talented enough in the first place.

Firstly, the arrogance displayed in this quote is quite simply breathtaking (and not a little nauseating). Secondly, as a current grad student in this area let me say that it is not at all representative of the mood within the field, at least among grad students. String theory is of course a difficult subject, but no more so than any other discipline. In fact, were I to be pushed on this, I can think of several problems in more traditional areas which are *far* more difficult than any I know of in string theory (a full proof of the Penrose inequality in GR, an acceptable definition of quasilocal mass, and a rigorous statement and proof of cosmic censorship are just three examples which spring to mind). Unfortunately, cretinous views like those quoted above do seem to be on the increase, particularly among those who have swallowed the string theory hype hook, line, and sinker (and let’s be honest, it *is* over-hyped: anyone who says otherwise is simply not living in the real world). It’s a damn shame that things are the way they are.

Arun said:
“The refinements to evolution came from increasing accumulation of the working of organisms, including how inheritance works.”

It was my impression that the fossil record, that I believe is the best evidence that evolution exists, wasn’t too impressive at Darwin’s time. He started out with scarcely little facts, but saw the power in his theory to explain much. Just as string theory currently.

island says:
“I believe that Lynn Margulis and others would tell you that they still don’t have it right.”

Perhaps - not all evolutionary theories are verified and new ones crop up daily. what I mean’t though was that Darwin’s correct ideas ideas was eventually validated.

Tony says:
“however, as I said above, it is not the type of evaluation that I “ask for”, nor is it an indication of that the world of physics is now a well-functioning free market of ideas.”

If the market of ideas is a real market, some products will be refused on packaging and/or content without any real inspection of the use and quality of the products. I agree that in the case of scientific ideas a more substantial inspection and/or refusal process could be asked for, but it’s the market buyers and ultimately consumers that rules that side of the process. Producers can only make as good as or better products than the competition to be ‘bought’.

Nigel says:
“Tony, this is the problem caused by mainstream speculation: the groupthink which asserts one speculative system without any empirical evidence for it, is the same groupthink which is not interested in alternatives.”

Not necessarily if the market analog is useful, see above.