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1. Robert McNees (mcnees@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 17-Jun-2023 15:40:20 UTC Robert McNees

   The folks complaining about the suppression of heterodox ideas in physics are, frequently, also complaining that epidemiologists can’t tell you the truth “because of Fauci.” I mean, come on.

   • Robert McNees (mcnees@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 17-Jun-2023 16:39:56 UTC Robert McNees

     in reply to

     • Rog

     @Rog lolll

   • Rog (rog@mastodon.radio)'s status on Saturday, 17-Jun-2023 16:39:57 UTC Rog

     in reply to

     @mcnees

     We all know that electrons and photons are pushed about by little imps, but physicists maintain the lie to get billions in grant money every year for their "experiments".

     Also: Buy my homeopathic vitamin supplements.

   • Nick (internic@qoto.org)'s status on Saturday, 17-Jun-2023 20:46:25 UTC Nick

     in reply to

     • John Carlos Baez

     @mcnees I assume you're speaking here of the people one often sees online who would rank highly on @johncarlosbaez's crackpot index and not the likes of Hossenfelder, Woit, and Smolin, unless I've missed some key anti-vax developments there.

   • Robert McNees (mcnees@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 17-Jun-2023 20:46:25 UTC Robert McNees

     in reply to

     • Nick

     @internic There are some exceptions (like the folks you mention) but I’m surprised at some of the popular accounts saying these things. Folks who had real training and now say wild things and coast on contrarianism.

   • радарский (radarskiy@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 18-Jun-2023 02:30:15 UTC радарский

     in reply to

     @mcnees 90% of heterodoxy is crap
     (because 90% of everything is crap)

   • John Carlos Baez (johncarlosbaez@mathstodon.xyz)'s status on Sunday, 18-Jun-2023 17:04:26 UTC John Carlos Baez

     in reply to

     • Nick

     @internic @mcnees - yes, Woit, Smolin and Hossenfelder aren't antivaxxers; they actually know quite a lot of physics and they like to complain about string theorists and fans of supersymmetry hogging all the funding and making exaggerated claims. There are also lots of people who don't know much physics (at least not general relativity and quantum field theory) and believe there's a grand conspiracy to suppress or ignore new ideas - almost always *their own* new ideas. I can easily imagine many of the latter are antivaxxers, but I haven't been keeping track.

   • Nick (internic@qoto.org)'s status on Sunday, 18-Jun-2023 17:04:27 UTC Nick

     in reply to

     @mcnees Do you think this is a new phenomenon or just a new consequence of an existing one?

     And to be fair, it sounds like you're talking about people claiming some concerted top-down attempt at silencing dissent (a pretty absurd idea if one is familiar with science/scientists), whereas I think most of the critics I mentioned talk more about things as a matter of group think among researchers (that then impacts the distribution of funding) rather than some grand conspiracy.