A Quick Glance at "Brian Cox is Full of **it"

[StringJunky]

This thread, Tom Swanson's blog and the replies/counters have, I believe, been rather edifying for science. It clearly demonstrates the fallacy of those who regularly claim that there is a monolithic dogmatism about science. Tom may have been rather salty in his initial post/title (blame the navy experience) - but the public event of real heavyweights duking it out beautifully demonstrates that no one is above reproach. I wish I knew enough to come down firmly on one side or another - although the Sean Carroll article seems to confirm that Tom was right to raise a flag of caution.

 

This and the FTL Neutrino results which the researchers held up for outside scrutiny shows how uncrompromising the established science community is in the overall collective pursuit of trying to describe how Nature really behaves and its subsequent dissemination...great stuff! Dogmatic?...my arse!

 

It also reminds us that nobody is perfect, and I hope it cautions us that one error should not undermine the credibility of anyone — this doesn't change all of the correct things that he's said — especially if (as I hope Cox eventually does) one acknowledges their mistakes. And I can be convinced that I'm wrong, I will acknowledge it. But so far, there have been no examples presented that seem relevant, and my counterexamples haven't really been challenged.

 

If I had know the level of scrutiny this would get I would have put more thought into the title, but then, a tamer title might not have brought the same level of scrutiny. Quite a conundrum.

 

At the end of the day he's not a Professor for nothing and cock ups are part-and-parcel of being human. I hope he will find this episode a cathartic experience and will move on having learned something ultimately positive in the end...that scientists are always watching each others backs. The Peer Review process is quite ruthless but awesome at the same time imo.

[Xittenn]

OK here is a crazy thought, what if we don't see band structure in atoms as a consequence of this underlying interaction where there is some quantization that occurs surrounding distinct bands related to certain states . . . . . In other words the infinitely outreaching bits contribute to the band somehow. I have something vested in this one, it holds with everything I have suspected for so long about the further structuring of underlying quantization and order. I kind of want to see the underlying principle hold, but I understand as it stands we see nothing like the Sodium D. <=== blinking distraught face! Just to be clear the double well thing to me still sounds hoaky, especially if it relies on a universal state of entanglement. I have serious issues with action at a distance, which includes entanglement, if such a thing implies a completely disjoint interaction.

Edited February 24, 2012 by Xittenn

[DrRocket]

I still respect Prof. Cox and think the work on publicising physics is great. The trouble is trying to communicate deep mathematical ideas to a general audience. One always risks at best saying something misleading or at worse just wrong. In this case Prof. Cox said something wrong in the lecture, which may or may not have some other more meaningful interpretation.

 

In which case he ought to acknowledge the mistake and move on.

 

By defending nonsense he does nothing but deepen the confusion he engendered in the minds of the lay public and degrade any understanding that he may have imparted. Not to mention making himself look like an egotistical fool.

 

...my, oh my. Which Ph.D to believe?

 

Don't believe ANYTHING because of who said it. Base your belief on what was said.

[Xittenn]

Why does everybody care so much about what the damn public thinks. They'll think whatever they want anyway and there will never be an end to mystics and mysticism. Why not worry more about formulation for the purpose of physics instead of formulation for the purpose of securing the public mind. I mean look at his audience . . . . oh tee hee I have shake things really fast it does stuff. The last thing that is going to affect the minds of the public is some crackpot physicist claiming he can affect an electron on the other side of the universe through an electron on this side of the universe--note the public seems to like the crackpot physicist, can't go wrong. If the public opinion is such a concern there should be more interest in putting scientists in government, even if the end consequence of this would be a public completely subdued by a handful of individuals! Excellent . . . >:|

 

 

this is in fact a question, I don't get it

[imatfaal]

Xittenn - I think Brian Cox, and many notable others (Stephen Hawking, Brian Greene, Marcus du Sautoy, Stephen Jay Gould etc) care not only about their science; they feel duty bound to share their wonder and passion for the subject. I think it is a laudable human frailty - when we are excited we want to share that sense of amazement with more people than is strictly necessary. But, as we see almost daily on this site (amongst very many others) there is no easy road to scientific understanding. There is an essential dumbing down - physics books with no maths - but the attempt to engage with the public is a noble enterprise. Apart from the sharing of an academic passion, these charismatic and story-telling scientist do engender enthusiasm from children. Physics application for University in the UK are at a high at present - UK: Celebrity physicist triggers boom and the more bright kids avoiding rubbishy degrees and doing hard science the better.

 

Personally I think the world would be a much poorer place without the work of the greatest popularizer of science - Richard Feynman. Aside from his amazing contributions to physics at the highest academic level, his public lectures, his set of BBC interviews, his writing and autobiographies are work of the highest possible order. He shows a mixture of sensitivity and brashness, humility and absolute confidence, but most of all his passion for knowledge shines through - he cared what the general public thought, enough to spend a decent amount of time trying to teach them.

 

science is the world's greatest adventure - and I can see why people like Brian Cox might sometime lose their way when trying to get that across to a lay audience.

[Xittenn]

And I appreciate that, which is why I have never picked up a book by Stephen Hawkings or any popsci title on the market. Until recently had never read a physics book that didn't have a math equation in it. Last year I had accidentally picked up Zero Time Space: How Quantum Tunneling Broke the Light Speed Barrier by Günter Nimtz thinking it was a complex study on evanescence, which it wasn't. I'm just seeing people using the public as an argument against having thoughts and I don't feel they should be dictating how much other scientists will be allowed to scrutinize these ideas inside of science. Right now I'm literally seeing the argument, don't think outside of what we know is true, because it might create woo woo; what did we know again? Literally, we weren't quite sure what was happening in the first place, let's review but not include that thought because it might insight mass hysteria.

 

Some might argue that the thoughts were included, but in my opinion to properly compare and contrast the validity of ideas one must also consider the case of it being right, where if it isn't we will see a proof by contradiction. And as Swansont has pointed out, there is contradiction in terms of what has been observed, but I have yet to see anyone attempt to incorporate any ideas that might explain why and I, someone who is less knowledgeable, have already come up with some thoughts on a plausible partial explanation that fits with modern approaches to systems and could be explored further. I'm sure this will not happen anywhere, any time soon; I'm really not worried about it though, just a little taken back.

 

At any rate, I'm very happy about having been privy to the idea even though it came from a popsci source because it gave me something to think about, and it actually does affect a lot of what I'm trying to work on at this moment. It doesn't change my own stance on reading popsci material, honestly I do not have the time and I don't see how any other scientist would either. There is just too much damn work to do!

[DrRocket]

Xittenn - I think Brian Cox, and many notable others (Stephen Hawking, Brian Greene, Marcus du Sautoy, Stephen Jay Gould etc) care not only about their science; they feel duty bound to share their wonder and passion for the subject. I think it is a laudable human frailty - when we are excited we want to share that sense of amazement with more people than is strictly necessary. But, as we see almost daily on this site (amongst very many others) there is no easy road to scientific understanding. There is an essential dumbing down - physics books with no maths - but the attempt to engage with the public is a noble enterprise. Apart from the sharing of an academic passion, these charismatic and story-telling scientist do engender enthusiasm from children. Physics application for University in the UK are at a high at present - UK: Celebrity physicist triggers boom and the more bright kids avoiding rubbishy degrees and doing hard science the better.

 

Personally I think the world would be a much poorer place without the work of the greatest popularizer of science - Richard Feynman. Aside from his amazing contributions to physics at the highest academic level, his public lectures, his set of BBC interviews, his writing and autobiographies are work of the highest possible order. He shows a mixture of sensitivity and brashness, humility and absolute confidence, but most of all his passion for knowledge shines through - he cared what the general public thought, enough to spend a decent amount of time trying to teach them.

 

science is the world's greatest adventure - and I can see why people like Brian Cox might sometime lose their way when trying to get that across to a lay audience.

 

There are various types of popularizers. There are a few great scientists -- Steven Weinberg, Richard Feynman -- who have given lectures and written books for popular consumption that do a great service and accurately reflect the beauty and wonder of science. There are great scientists, Stephen Hawking, who have written excellent books (A Brief History of Time) but later succumbed to commercialism (The Grand Design) and pursued popularizations apparently for money. There are hacks, Michio Kaku leaps to mind, who peddle all sorts of tripe for personal gain and ego satisfaction.

 

I laud the former and decry the latter. I pick and choose among the works of those in the middle.

 

Brian Cox seems to be in the process of characterizing himself, and based on his response to valid criticism I am leaning toward putting him in the bottom third.

 

Good popularization (category 1) serves the very valuable purpose of educating intelligent laymen as to some of the beauty of science, though a full appreciation requires depth that is impossible in a popularization. It also serves to help the public appreciate the importance of science to the progress of civilization, progress which is impossible without the financial support of that same public.

 

Bad popularization sells books and feeds egos but ultimately damages the reputation for intellectual integrity that characterizes a true scientist. It titillates the public but ultimately damages everyone by giving false impressions of what science has accomplished, what it may accomplish and what lies outside the realm of the possible.

 

Hurray for Feynman and Weinberg. A pox on Kaku and (now) Cox.

Edited February 24, 2012 by DrRocket

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Nicely done, swansont:

 

 

That's the chart of pageviews per day for the entire SFN Blogs network.

 

Picking fights with famous people is a good idea, apparently.

[swansont]

Nicely done, swansont:

 

 

That's the chart of pageviews per day for the entire SFN Blogs network.

 

Picking fights with famous people is a good idea, apparently.

 

This isn't the kind of feedback that's going to moderate my phrasing in the future. I've got >1.1k page views in the last 24 hours, which is a distinct bump for my blog, and that post has >3k visits (which doesn't count visitors who go the main site and read it).

 

Controversy sells.

[Xittenn]

I think Brian should invite Swansont onto a live broadcast to get down at it!

[ajb]

I think Brian should invite Swansont onto a live broadcast to get down at it!

 

 

Hmmmmm, I like Tom, but then I like Brian. But which one is best? Only one way to find out! FIGHT!

 

(For those that don't get the cultural reference, look up Harry Hill)

[CharonY]

Some interesting (and important) things from this thread alone;

The disappointing part for me is he's defending his position, and not being particularly nice about it.

 

One thing in academia is that the systems often leads to ego issues. We put our name on everything and it is often hard (for some/many) to be associated with something that has been shown to be inaccurate (which sometimes still is OK) or false (really bad). Both, reputation and ego are (unfortunately) are tangible elements in the science business.

 

Don't believe ANYTHING because of who said it. Base your belief on what was said.

 

Cannot be stressed enough.

[swansont]

Hmmmmm, I like Tom, but then I like Brian. But which one is best? Only one way to find out! FIGHT!

 

Youth and enthusiasm are no match for age and treachery. But I'm not that much older than he is.

[Schrödinger's hat]

Youth and enthusiasm are no match for age and treachery. But I'm not that much older than he is.

 

Perhaps you can make it up in treacherousness?

[DrRocket]

This isn't the kind of feedback that's going to moderate my phrasing in the future. I've got >1.1k page views in the last 24 hours, which is a distinct bump for my blog, and that post has >3k visits (which doesn't count visitors who go the main site and read it).

 

Controversy sells.

 

Whoa !!

 

Yes controversy sells. But the value of your blog also lies with your integrity, not with sensationalism. If you were to airm for sensationalism you would be joining the camp of the likes of Cox and Kaku and that would be a shame.

 

The number of visits is less impressive to me than quality of opinons and scientific integrity.

 

 

"Few but ripe" -- C.F. Gauss

 

Hmmmmm, I like Tom, but then I like Brian. But which one is best? Only one way to find out! FIGHT!

 

(For those that don't get the cultural reference, look up Harry Hill)

 

Where can I get a ticket ?

 

Harry Hill ? Is that British humor ? What is British humor ? Is there such a thing ?

Edited February 25, 2012 by DrRocket

[Appolinaria]

"Few but ripe" -- C.F. Gauss

 

That's genius

[alan2here]

Cox may have slipped up here, but he's ofc still an excelent describer/propagator of science.

[Xittenn]

Someone had to agree with him, his colleagues are on his side, his book was published. Is he surrounded by semi professionals? Swansont's is the only argument I've seen that actually details the problem as a whole without rambling or getting off topic. Is Swansont the only pro physicist in the world? This isn't snarky sarcasm in case anybody might think so. Sean Carroll's argument goes into long bits that don't really stay on topic and do not offer up near as precise statements to why this is wrong. Comments a wrought with half statements and insinuations. :/

[DrRocket]

Someone had to agree with him, his colleagues are on his side, his book was published. Is he surrounded by semi professionals? Swansont's is the only argument I've seen that actually details the problem as a whole without rambling or getting off topic. Is Swansont the only pro physicist in the world? This isn't snarky sarcasm in case anybody might think so. Sean Carroll's argument goes into long bits that don't really stay on topic and do not offer up near as precise statements to why this is wrong. Comments a wrought with half statements and insinuations. :/

 

I know people who were fired because they wrote a book when they should have been doing research. A book proves very little.

 

I have seen several pertinent arguments, addressing various different reasons why Cox's statements were off base. There is more than one reason why Cox is wrong.

[Xittenn]

I have seen several pertinent arguments, addressing various different reasons why Cox's statements were off base. There is more than one reason why Cox is wrong.

 

Are there better ones that you could point at, it's hard for me to easily spot them. Some start off looking like rebuttals, but then turn into attempts at trying to prove, but then fail. Some kind of say well this big idea here and then down the page someone smacks them. I'm sure they are their but they are definitely more subtle than Swansont's new post that just says bam. And I guess his argument is easiest for me to understand because he is making remarks about structure and I have done an amount of reading on the topic. I mean if there is one or two that immediately come to mind. . . .

[swansont]

Someone had to agree with him, his colleagues are on his side, his book was published. Is he surrounded by semi professionals? Swansont's is the only argument I've seen that actually details the problem as a whole without rambling or getting off topic. Is Swansont the only pro physicist in the world? This isn't snarky sarcasm in case anybody might think so. Sean Carroll's argument goes into long bits that don't really stay on topic and do not offer up near as precise statements to why this is wrong. Comments a wrought with half statements and insinuations. :/

 

I think Sean bent over backwards to try and find a scenario (beyond the PEP) in which Brian's statement could be interpreted as being right, and still couldn't do it. I took it at face value and went straight for the counterexample(s).

[IM Egdall]

There are various types of popularizers. There are a few great scientists -- Steven Weinberg, Richard Feynman -- who have given lectures and written books for popular consumption that do a great service and accurately reflect the beauty and wonder of science. There are great scientists, Stephen Hawking, who have written excellent books (A Brief History of Time) but later succumbed to commercialism (The Grand Design) and pursued popularizations apparently for money. There are hacks, Michio Kaku leaps to mind, who peddle all sorts of tripe for personal gain and ego satisfaction.

 

I laud the former and decry the latter. I pick and choose among the works of those in the middle.

 

Hurray for Feynman and Weinberg. A pox on Kaku and (now) Cox.

 

I agree that Hawking's A Brief History of Time is a very good book, but I found few lay people could follow it. My brother-in-law calls it the best seller that nobody read. I also agree that his book The Grand Design was pretty bad. I use Feynman's classic QED, the Strange Theory of Light and Matter in my quantum course for lay students. It is wonderful.

 

I also use Brian Greene's The Elegant Universe and The Fabric of the Cosmos in my courses. I would be interested to know what you think of Greene's popularizations.

Edited February 26, 2012 by IM Egdall

[Xittenn]

Is there a book like Messiah's that very accurately depicts the whole of the subject both mathematically and through common modern English? I would personally gain so much traction if the subject was covered using the presentation techniques that are commonly found in the textbooks of today.

 

I mean the Engel and Read Physical Chemistry equivalent to QM.

[Ben Banana]

@imaatfal

I can see why people like Brian Cox might sometime lose their way when trying to get that across to a lay audience.

No, that never happens.

 

 

Edit:

Maybe to broaden this.

 

Richard Feynman, quite contrarily to Brian Cox, appears to have a concern over the rampant distractions of self image and importance, hence manifested:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Do_You_Care_What_Other_People_Think%3F

 

But both seem to share disappointment by a distracted humanity.

Edited March 5, 2012 by Ben Bowen