String theory genius Urs Schreiber attacks critics of pseudo-physics

http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=762:

Urs Schreiber Says:
August 5th, 2008 at 5:02 am

I sincerely wish the interest among cosmologists in multiverse story-telling were due to evil influence and money from quasi-religious lobby groups as you keep insinuating. But it isn’t. The Templeton foundation has no influence on the scientific decisions of FQXi.

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Nigel Cook Says:
August 5th, 2008 at 6:07 pm

‘I sincerely wish the interest among cosmologists in multiverse story-telling were due to evil influence and money from quasi-religious lobby groups as you keep insinuating. But it isn’t. The Templeton foundation has no influence on the scientific decisions of FQXi.’ – Urs Schreiber

Yes, I believe that – because it’s not the Templeton Foundation that’s to blame for scientific decisions in handing out the rewards, but the scientists they choose to make the decisions! Any ideas about who makes the decisions, Urs? Not the multiverse and string theory fanatics, I presume.

http://golem.ph.utexas.edu/category/2008/05/fqxi.html

‘I agreed to participate in the review panel of FQXi’s new round of grant competition.’ – Urs Schreiber

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The following comment was then deleted by Dr Woit:

http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=762#comment-42441Says:

Nigel Cook

August 6th, 2008 at 7:19 am

A.J.,

I asked Urs if he had any idea about who is deciding to fund the multiverse. To justify asking him, I then pointed out his capacity as advisor for FQXi decisions …

Whoever is supporting this stuff on the committee at FQXi is doing a disservice to science, because there are really promising ideas which are denied even modest funding. E.g., see http://kea-monad.blogspot.com/2008/07/fqxi-proposal.html

Urs, as an advisor or administrator at Physics Forums, very politely emailed me in 2004 that non-mainstream research was unwelcome there … The quack egotist Urs Schreiber censored my research out, while promoting quack string lies!]

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[At the time of censoring out my response to abusive attacks from ignorant string "theorists", Urs supported string "theory" extradimensional uncheckable pseudo-physics speculations, e.g. braneworlds.]

***

After deleting this comment, Dr Woit added a lying comment attacking me for the earlier comment I had made which simply asked Urs if he would help his case by telling us the names of the crackpots responsible for the support of pseudo-physics on the FQXi panel! That way we might be able to scientifically check if there is any foundation for his claim that Templeton stringy influences were not in any way affecting the people selected to decide what to fund …

Urs Schreiber is (to date) not as rude as Lubos Motl at least in the signed comments I’ve read, but he nevertheless quietly works behind the scenes to censor out quiet backwaters of science from receiving even small amounts of funding, while multiverse religious mainstream pseudoscience are massively funded:

http://kea-monad.blogspot.com/2008/07/fqxi-proposal.html

“Well, Schreiber et al on the FQXi panel of seven judges for large grants have rejected my proposal for a postdoctoral stipend of 22000 dollars per year. Since this was expected, I have already resigned from my waitressing job and I will be moving to Wanaka at the end of the month to be closer to the mountains. When the contaminated, rotting flesh starts falling off academia, I will be far away.”

For a contrast with Urs tactic, see the tactics of string “theorist” Dr Lubos Motl towards alternative research efforts and on objective criticisms of failed string “theory”; for instance this earlier post.  It is obvious that the most damage to science is done quietly by censorship of Urs Schrieber’s variety; the loudness of Lubos Motl is a warning bell that diminishes his harm to science.  What you have to be wary of is the quiet but irrational and pseudo-scientific censorship that keeps on occurring without any opposition, year after year.  Of course if Urs Schreiber sneers at sufficiently many physics proposals from outsiders and instead backs lots of multiple universes “research” (pseudo-physics) in line with the aims of the Templeton Religious Physics cranks (I’m Roman Catholic by the way, so I’m well aware why science and religion must be kept completely separate to preserve completely unbiased, fact-driven scientific objectively), then maybe his judgement will be respected as a scientist to the extent that he’ll find himself and his close colleagues receiving research funding from FQXi (much stranger things than this have happened in the world of mutual-back slapping, peer-review and socializing physics groupthink).

Dr Woit had earlier done the same with a comment I made about censorship, where he allowed the following comment then added his own comment stating that: “if accurate, it is interesting to see that the editor of PRL is resorting to an indefensible argument in dealing with nonsense submitted to him … Please discuss this with the author of this comment on his weblog, not here. I’ll be deleting any further comments about this.” [Emphasis added to error.]

Nigel Says:
July 7th, 2005 at 7:15 pm

Editor of Physical Review Letters:

Sent: 02/01/03 17:47
Subject: Your_manuscript LZ8276 Cook …

Physical Review Letters does not, in general, publish papers on alternatives to currently accepted theories. Yours sincerely, Stanley G. Brown, Editor, Physical Review Letters

Now, why has this nice genuine guy still not published his personally endorsed proof of what is a ‘currently accepted’ prediction for the strength of gravity? Will he ever do so?

‘String theory has the remarkable property of predicting gravity’: false claim by Edward Witten in the April 1996 issue of Physics Today, repudiated by Roger Penrose on page 896 of his book Road to Reality: ‘in addition to the dimensionality issue, the string theory approach is (so far, in almost all respects) restricted to being merely a perturbation theory’. String theory does not predict the strength constant of gravity, G! However, the Physical Review Letters editor still ‘believes in’ Edward Witten and Physics Today.

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An example of Urs Schreiber’s current string theory work on string theory branes:

http://arxiv.org/abs/0805.0564

” Fivebrane Structures

Authors: Hisham Sati, Urs Schreiber, Jim Stasheff

(Submitted on 5 May 2008)

“Abstract: We study the cohomological physics of fivebranes in type II and heterotic string theory. We give an interpretation of the one-loop term in type IIA, which involves the first and second Pontrjagin classes of spacetime, in terms of obstructions to having bundles with certain structure groups. Using a generalization of the Green-Schwarz anomaly cancelation in heterotic string theory which demands the target space to have a String structure, we observe that the “magnetic dual” version of the anomaly cancelation condition can be read as a higher analog of String structure, which we call Fivebrane structure. This involves lifts of orthogonal and unitary structures through higher connected covers which are not just 3- but even 7-connected. We discuss the topological obstructions to the existence of Fivebrane structures. The dual version of the anomaly cancelation points to a relation of String and Fivebrane structures under electric-magnetic duality.”

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http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=2128&cpage=1#comment-48970

nige cook says:
June 22, 2009 at 5:21 pm
Your comment is awaiting moderation.

Tony, regarding the religious Templeton Foundation funding of the Foundational Questions Institute, FQXi official blogger Anthony Aguirre wrote on Mar. 10, 2009 @ 17:45 GMT:

http://www.fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/426

‘In terms of not disclosing the referees or their deliberations … FQXi does not have the capability to field these requests …

‘In terms of anonymity, it is hard enough to find experts willing to devote the enormous time and effort to do this sort of judging. Finding people willing to do this knowing that their identity would be public, and that they would be asked to defend their decisions (through potentially never-ending correspondence) to unhappy contest entrants, would be nearly impossible.

‘In terms of the results, we were pleased to see that some ‘non-professionals’ did do well in the contest. But it is, I would say, neither surprising nor concerning that the top prizes were taken by known professionals, and even FQXi members. There is a *reason* these people are at the top of their field, and FQXI works hard to identify and invite as members just the same sort of people who are likely to win such contests.’

I think this transparent admission (that FQXi prizes are awarded by judges whose names are withheld behind a cloak of top secrecy, and that the majority of prizes went to mainstream professionals, which conflicts with the stated purpose of FQXI) may put people of[f] bothering to submit anything to it!

http://www.fqxi.org/

‘FQXi catalyzes, supports, and disseminates research on questions at the foundations of physics and cosmology, particularly new frontiers and innovative ideas integral to a deep understanding of reality, but unlikely to be supported by conventional funding sources.’

But on a happy note, if Peter keeps up his good work I suppose that all future string theory multiverse work will be funded by FQXi on the basis that it is ‘unlikely to be supported by conventional funding sources.’ (Urs Schreiber, a string theorist who censored my work without explanation, has declared himself on the review panel of FQXi for grant submissions. Peter Woit falsely claimed I was being hostile when I pointed out this fact last year: http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=762 . Actually, pointing out hypocrisy is not hostility, it’s just a fact.)