So here’s where it stands: They’re compelled to stumble and make up nonsense and the rest of us are compelled to support them, cheer them on, and accept the dismal outcome, forever if need be.
Cosmology
No, seriously: Physicist longs for explanation of the arrow of time that explains as much as Darwin does
Actually, Darwin and his followers simply imposed a vision on the natural world: In their vision, masses of complex, specified information simply arise naturally in the struggle among life forms, though we have yet to identify a single example.
Sabine Hossenfelder: Can gravitational wave interferometers tell us if we live in a hologram universe?
It’s actually a good thing if theses in physics don’t gain currency just because they make good TED talks. That could be part of theirproblem.
Was a theory of everything bound to fail?
If reality truly is constructed of disparate natures, maybe no theory from inside would explain it all.
Science editor: Dark matter is real! The crisis is the words we use!
What if the true state of things is something one is not supposed to discuss? That situation is very common and leads to similar conundrums.
Why does matter, not antimatter, dominate our universe? Physicists don’t know.
Recently, theoretical physicist Ethan Siegel crossed our screen while making clear why, in his view, a multiverse MUST exist. If we know so little about the actual universe that we can’t answer the title question, what sense does it make to insist that there must be an infinity of universes?
Researchers: Experiment turns up no evidence of theoretical particle, the axion
Is it theoretically possible that the axion is so small that it is not individually measurable by any foreseeable technique but the mass of axions has an enormous effect?
Peter Woit on the quadrillion possible rescues for string theory: “pure, unadulterated hype”
“ infinitely far from having any connection to conventional science”? Wow.
Quadrillion possible ways found to rescue string theory! Physicist Rob Sheldon comments
Sheldon: It suggests that 30 years of string theorists have been searching in the wrong part of phase space. That promising solutions are not in the “weak interaction” swampland, but in the “strong interaction” wasteland. By limiting their search, they claim they have eliminated many previous solutions, and are closing in on “the solution” as one-in-a-quadrillion. Their track record would say otherwise.
Do some particles defy the universe’s push for disorder?
Question emerges: ““There is some beautiful structure that somehow coexists with a totally random environment,” Papić said. “What kind of physics allows this to happen?”
Darwinism and ethics: Does the idea of a blind, undirected cosmos govern our ideas of sexuality?
Is there a natural way to live? Are we happier if we follow it? Are we happier if we follow it? Nancy Pearcey, author of Love Thy Body: Answering Hard Questions about Life and Sexuality, defends that view.
Are the best measurements to date deepening the “cosmological crisis”?
Two things many cosmologists would like to get rid of are the Big Bang and apparent fine-tuning of the universe. Telling a different story is difficult mainly due to lack of evidence for a different story but they can make do with discrepancies. But then maybe the years have made some of us cynical.
Hossenfelder: Now they are marketing non-discoveries as discoveries
If Hossenfelder means that it won’t work scientifically, she is correct. But “won’t work” can be construed in other ways. In the age of the multiverse and “ET’s gotta be out there,” it is quite possible for something that is entirely without evidence to retain a place as science. Thus, it should easily be possible for non-discoveries to be marketed as discoveries.
Should research funding agencies move resources away from particle physics to fighting climate change?
You know particle physics is in serious trouble when the idea of just putting the money into climate change instead gets serious face time.
Astrophysicist: Photons with mass wouldn’t solve the dark matter puzzle
He examines the possibilities and decides that photons probably do not really have mass. But even if they did, that wouldn’t help much with the puzzle that we need dark matter but can’t find it.