[Tazerenix]

As an expert in at least some of the things Sabine makes videos about (string theory), Sabine is a contrarian who, if you are not otherwise an expert on what she is talking about, it would be best to avoid.

Sabine, like many contrarians, takes advantage of the fact that there are smart and convincing criticisms of many mainstream ideas, and she does her best to rely on those criticisms. However like all contrarians she presents a biased and exaggerated view of things in order to stoke engagement, and unless you are an expert it can be difficult/impossible to determine whether the view she is giving is balanced.

This is a classic issue with string theory critics, because string theory has many legitimate problems with it, but many of the critics are intellectually dishonest and you probably shouldn't listen to their criticisms on principle (but even I must admit it's quite hard to find good quality intellectually honest criticism of string theory which is digestible, so these contrarians tend to be the only loud voice).

In Sabine's case it is not so bad, because it is clear from some of her other positions that she is basically a crank. MOND and superdeterminism are basically crank physics at this point but she supports them purely because she is a contrarian. On this evidence alone you should not trust anything she says on any other subject, otherwise you're falling for a kind of Gell-Mann amnesia.

[prof-dr-ir]

As another 'mainsteam' academic with relevant expertise I think this comment is spot on.

I would like to add that Sabine's video on her academic experience was quite a tragic thing to watch. If her allegations are true then the behavior of her PhD supervisor was completely outrageous.

She also did seem a bit too dreamy-eyed about academia. Sure you can criticize everything you want, but she never seemed to have understood that tone of voice still matters. Academics are busy people with emotions, and not likely to engage with someone whose claims appear to have more loudness than substance.

[Tazerenix]

I certainly am not making any comments about her experiences for sure! Academia is difficult and full of terrible stories, and its not surprising that it causes many people to become exceedingly bitter and contrarian (Peter Woit is famously of the same ilk as another string theorist critic who fell out of academia like Sabine).

Unfortunately a chip (even a legitimately earned one) on ones shoulder about the bad parts of academia doesn't save you from being criticized for being crank-y.

[n4r9]

Likewise. I did my PhD in quantum foundations/information, albeit some years ago now. I'm not aware of any serious researchers in the field that look kindly on superdeterministic interpretations.

It's bizarrely parochial to suppose that every single photon is magically correlated with the experimenter's future measurement choices in a way that will exactly violate Bell's Theorem.

Another way to put it:

> If such a theory did exist, it would require a grand conspiracy of causal relationships leading to results in precise agreement with quantum mechanics, even though the theory itself would bear no resemblance to quantum mechanics. Moreover, it is hard to imagine why it should only be in Bell experiments that free choices would be significantly influenced by causes relevant also to the observed outcomes; rather, every conclusion based upon observed correlations, scientific or casual, would be meaningless because the observers’s method would always be suspect. It seems to us that any such theory would be about as plausible, and appealing, as, belief in ubiquitous alien mind-control.

Causarum Investigatio and the Two Bell's Theorems of John Bell, Wiseman & Cavalcanti, https://arxiv.org/pdf/1503.06413

[eru]

For superdeterminism, see eg https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=6215

[beezle]

Sabine has repeatedly touched the third rail of current day physics - the string theory industry and HEP. The comment above reflects that.

On the latter, her beef is not that HEP has not made signficant discoveries in the past, rather that the costs going forward can no longer be justified and starve many, many other areas of physics of needed funding. Compounding her disdain for future projects are the increaingly lofty claims of what will be discovered since inception of LHC. Do you really think she is alone on this?

On the former, who is the crank here? The person with the advanced degree calling out the failure of a 50 year old theory to make one scientifically provable and confirmed prediction? (I could say 80 years if going back to the beginnings with S-matrix theory)

I'll grant that some maths have been developed that may be tangentally useful but other than enriching the publishing industry, what has string theory brought? Zilch. It seems that the more public this becomes, the louder the cries of those with deeply vested interests. I can think of no other large theory that has gone for so long with no experimental confirmations at all and is not likely to in mankinds future either.

As to MOND like theory, Sabine has had varying degrees of support over the past twenty years as data has come in and theory has changed. Very frankly, the reason to give a degree of trust to her on other subjects too is because she is willing to be objective and call people out on their BS.