Comment by gwd
2 days ago
There's something strange about this whole narrative. I don't know anything about the science or personalities at all (except for having seen a number of Hosselfelder's videos, and what she said in her recent video about Weinstein). But here in this blog post we have story after story of people who seemed really enthusiastic about talking to Nguyen, and then later ghosted him or changed the topic of conversation or seemed to express a different opinion than the one he thought they'd had. Lots of different people -- podcasters in different domains, academics, etc.
One common denominator across all of these is of course Weinstein (since the conversations are about his work); and so one theory is that somehow he's using his influence with all these people to make them drop an interesting alternate.
But the other common denominator is Nguyen. Knowing absolutely nothing about either the content of these papers or the people involved, a priori, which is more probable: That Weinstein, who has been unable (by his own account) to be taken seriously by academia, has this massive influence across this diverse set of influencers? Or that the results of these interactions actually have something more to do with Nguyen -- either a weakness in his paper, or a quirk of communication, or a vein of unreasonableness in his character, that each person eventually runs across?
If anyone has actual knowledge of Nguyen's character or the topic at hand, I'd appreciate hearing from them.
>But the other common denominator is Nguyen
You could say the same of James Randi. But the explanation in Randi's case was that he really was dealing with charlatans, mentalists, etc. I don't think there's enough signal just from Nguyen disagreeing to think that he is the common denominator, though it's possible and you're being thoughtfully tentative about the possibility.
I would also say that scientifically non-respectable theories finding big traction in the online influencer space is the norm, and not especially difficult to explain.
This is supposed to be about science.
Tim is the only side willing to publish papers and let them be peer reviewed.
He’s also the only one willing to engage on the merits of the debate. Eric has/will not.
Agree. Science communicators should stick to talking about well-established or at least peer reviewed results. They do not need to be peddling fringe crackpottery. I don't think Tim's prose is magnificent, but the work speaks for itself: he wrote a serious technical document which stands alone with no response. Serious, credentialed physicists should platform these types and not grifters.
My path crossed Nguyen many years ago and I can vouch that he is a very smart, nice, ethical, and solid dude who knows his stuff. I’m also a physicist and know enough about the relevant math and physics to evaluate Nguyen v. Weinstein, though I haven’t processed either of their papers deeply. But, fwiw, Tim’s critique is detailed and readable. In particular, what he says about a faulty complexification step makes perfect sense and would spell death for an approach to unification that hinges on detailed accidents of representation theory (as Weinstein’s seems to). To really judge this, I’d have to delve into Weinstein’s baroque-yet-vague theory, which I’m unwilling to do as I’m pretty sure it would be a waste of time.
If Weinstein believed there was an issue with Nguyen’s personality or this was all a misunderstanding, he would not have avoided going on multiple podcasts to clear the air. That Nguyen has a character flaw would immediately be apparent in a long form interview.
Weinstein had that opportunity with Lex Fridman and instead is avoiding it. This is not he behavior of someone with a serious scientific position.
Weinstein has never alleged any kind of issue you’re suggesting, so I don’t think we need to invent any issues for him.
Timothy Nguyen’s way of introducing his grievances does feel heavy handed. Lots of emotionally laden, suspenseful language, that I usually hear from people who have an axe to grind.
But I don’t know him nor have I read material from him or his targets. Maybe he’s right on a few points.
Still, there is a smell about his blog that says “stay away”
I would say the other common denominator is Weinstein, his wealth, and willingness to sue.