Contested Boundaries: The String Theory Debates and Ideologies of Science

Ritson, Sophie; Camilleri, Kristian

doi:10.1162/posc_a_00168

Cited by 14 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…The popularity of enterprises such as string theory offers another potent counterexample to the complexity argument. This immensely complex mathematical edifice has been effectively popularized, even in the face of considerable opposition to it from other physicists, many of whom consider it recklessly speculative and fear that its total divorce from experiment renders it unscientific (Cartwright and Frigg 2007; Ritson and Camilleri 2015). Missner even cites complexity and esotericism as a boon to the popularization of relativity, calling the myth that only twelve people worldwide understood it, “probably the most important factor in the growing fame of the theory” (Missner 1985, 276).…”

Section: Existing Discussion Of Prestige Asymmetry In Physics and Thmentioning

confidence: 99%

Prestige Asymmetry in American Physics: Aspirations, Applications, and the Purloined Letter Effect

Martin

2017

Sci Context

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Argument Why do similar scientific enterprises garner unequal public approbation? High energy physics attracted considerable attention in the late-twentieth-century United States, whereas condensed matter physics - which occupied the greater proportion of US physicists - remained little known to the public, despite its relevance to ubiquitous consumer technologies. This paper supplements existing accounts of this much remarked-upon prestige asymmetry by showing that popular emphasis on the mundane technological offshoots of condensed matter physics and its focus on human-scale phenomena have rendered it more recondite than its better-known sibling field. News reports about high energy physics emphasize intellectual achievement; reporting on condensed matter physics focuses on technology. And whereas frontier-oriented rhetoric of high energy physics communicates ideals of human potential, discoveries that smack of the mundane highlight human limitations and fail to resonate with the widespread aspirational vision of science - a consequence I call "the purloined letter effect."

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Section: Existing Discussion Of Prestige Asymmetry In Physics and Thmentioning

confidence: 99%

Prestige Asymmetry in American Physics: Aspirations, Applications, and the Purloined Letter Effect

Martin

2017

Sci Context

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“…This case study is situated within the wider context of the multi-faceted string wars, where the very status of the string theory research programme as a science is contested, defended and asserted (Ritson and Camilleri, 2015). The controversy differs from most examples of boundary work, insofar as the majority group (as opposed to the minority group) is in the defensive position.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Ritson and Camilleri (2015) attempt to draw attention to the plurality of the controversies over string theory, framing the debates over sting theory as boundary work. Protagonists appeal to, and rhetorically construct, different views about the scientific method and the scientific etho, in an effort to legitimize or delegitimize string theory.…”

Section: String Theory and Controversymentioning

confidence: 99%

‘Crackpots’ and ‘active researchers’: The controversy over links between arXiv and the scientific blogosphere

Ritson

2016

Soc Stud Sci

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Controversies over string theory (collectively termed the 'string wars') intensified in 2005. Also in that year, the open-access preprint publisher arXiv instituted a new feature called a 'trackback'. This new feature enabled authors of blog posts discussing a paper on arXiv to leave a trackback (a link) to the post on the paper's abstract page on arXiv. The determination of which specific bloggers would have access to the feature generated a public controversy that was played out in the blogosphere. Although the community was in almost unanimous agreement that so-called 'crackpots' should not have access to the trackback feature, it was unable to reach a consensus as to how to define a 'crackpot' or an 'active researcher'. Blogs may provide a window into science in the making, yet this study shows that blogs confound categorization as permanent or ephemeral scholarly communication. The trackback feature was originally conceived to develop certain blog discourse as an alternative or complementary form of peer review. However, the high-energy physics community as a whole questions the ongoing function of the blog.

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“…This standard usage does not commit us to a Popperian falsificationist methodology (on which more to follow). 3 Philosophical papers which address the landscape problem are Smolin (2013a), Camilleri and Ritson (2015), Ritson and Camilleri (2015), Matsubara (2018) and Alonso-Serrano and Jannes (2019); works discussing multiverse hypotheses more generally include Ellis (2007Ellis ( , 2011Ellis ( , 2012, Silk (2014), andCarroll (2019). Although we will have some critical comments to make on Smolin below, in our view he, more than any other author, has advanced philosophical discussion of the landscape problem.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The landscape and the multiverse: What’s the problem?

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Bihan

2021

Synthese

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As a candidate theory of quantum gravity, the popularity of string theory has waxed and waned over the past four decades. One current source of scepticism is that the theory can be used to derive, depending upon the input geometrical assumptions that one makes, a vast range of different quantum field theories, giving rise to the so-called landscape problem. One apparent way to address the landscape problem is to posit the existence of a multiverse; this, however, has in turn drawn heightened attention to questions regarding the empirical testability and predictivity of string theory. We argue first that the landscape problem relies on dubious assumptions and does not motivate a multiverse hypothesis. Nevertheless, we then show that the multiverse hypothesis is scientifically legitimate and could be coupled to string theory for other empirical reasons. Looking at various cosmological approaches, we offer an empirical criterion to assess the scientific status of multiverse hypotheses.

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Contested Boundaries: The String Theory Debates and Ideologies of Science

Cited by 14 publications

References 29 publications

Prestige Asymmetry in American Physics: Aspirations, Applications, and the Purloined Letter Effect

Prestige Asymmetry in American Physics: Aspirations, Applications, and the Purloined Letter Effect

‘Crackpots’ and ‘active researchers’: The controversy over links between arXiv and the scientific blogosphere

The landscape and the multiverse: What’s the problem?

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