The examples don’t work. For string theory, the math of it is meaningful regardless of whether it holds about our world, and in physics consensus reliably follows once good evidence becomes available, so the issue is not experts misconstruing evidence. For homeopathy, there is a theoretical argument that doesn’t require expertise. For religion, the pragmatic content relevant to non-experts is cultural/ethical, not factual. The more technical theological claims studied by experts are in the realm of philosophy, where some of them are meaningful and true, it’s their relevance that’s dubious, but philosophical interest probably has validity to it vaguely analogous to that of mathematical interest.
I’m not sold yet on why any of the examples are bad?
I know very little of string theory, so maybe that’s the one I think is most likely to be a bad example. I assume string theorists are selected for belief in the field’s premises, whether that be “this math is true about our world” or “this math shows us something meaninfwl”. Physicists who buy into either of those statements are more likely to study string theory than those who don’t buy them. And this means that a survey of string theorists will be biased in favour of belief in those premises.
I’m not talking inside view. It doesn’t matter to the argument in the post whether it is unreasonable to disagree with string theory premises. But it does matter whether a survey of string theorists will be biased or not. If not, then that’s a bad example.
Math studied by enough people is almost always meaningful. When it has technical issues, it can be reformulated to fix them. When it’s not yet rigorous, most of its content will in time find rigorous formulations. Even physics that disargees with experiment can be useful or interesting as physics, not just as math. So for the most part the wider reservations about a well-studied topic in theoretical physics are not going to be about truth, either mathematical or physical, but about whether it’s interesting/feasible to test/draws too much attention/a central enough example of physics or math.
The examples don’t work. For string theory, the math of it is meaningful regardless of whether it holds about our world, and in physics consensus reliably follows once good evidence becomes available, so the issue is not experts misconstruing evidence. For homeopathy, there is a theoretical argument that doesn’t require expertise. For religion, the pragmatic content relevant to non-experts is cultural/ethical, not factual. The more technical theological claims studied by experts are in the realm of philosophy, where some of them are meaningful and true, it’s their relevance that’s dubious, but philosophical interest probably has validity to it vaguely analogous to that of mathematical interest.
I’m not sold yet on why any of the examples are bad?
I know very little of string theory, so maybe that’s the one I think is most likely to be a bad example. I assume string theorists are selected for belief in the field’s premises, whether that be “this math is true about our world” or “this math shows us something meaninfwl”. Physicists who buy into either of those statements are more likely to study string theory than those who don’t buy them. And this means that a survey of string theorists will be biased in favour of belief in those premises.
I’m not talking inside view. It doesn’t matter to the argument in the post whether it is unreasonable to disagree with string theory premises. But it does matter whether a survey of string theorists will be biased or not. If not, then that’s a bad example.
Math studied by enough people is almost always meaningful. When it has technical issues, it can be reformulated to fix them. When it’s not yet rigorous, most of its content will in time find rigorous formulations. Even physics that disargees with experiment can be useful or interesting as physics, not just as math. So for the most part the wider reservations about a well-studied topic in theoretical physics are not going to be about truth, either mathematical or physical, but about whether it’s interesting/feasible to test/draws too much attention/a central enough example of physics or math.