I assume that Lee Smolin, who has been active in research on Quantum Gravity for many years, is not an acceptable spokesman for your taste Orac?
Bill Gill
You would be correct Bill G he is a first class crackpot and don't get me started about his last book. That may be too harsh, maybe he just found the good drugs in his studies as his early work was semi ok. He hasn't quite reached the Sean Carroll levels but running fast and hard to get there.
Hey but he can put a good article together for the the glossy science magazines so it must be science worthy .. right
Oh BTW in the amazon reviews of his last book it most gets 1 star which is 1 more than I give it.
http://www.amazon.com/Time-Reborn-Crisis...howViewpoints=0The most accurate customer review of his last book was this one
Reading this tedious tome, which is distinguished only by its utter worthlessness, one cannot help but be struck by the fact that Lee Smolin actually has the credentials of a legitimate physicist.
This lamentable affront cannot even claim the dignity of masquerading as an understandably failed attempt at explaining modern physics to laymen. Instead, all we have is a disconnected, rambling discourse combining equal measures of dreary doubletalk and philosophical twaddle. The only coherent notion, that the laws of physics might actually change with time, is not only one that has been expressed far better by many previous authors but one that is almost completely obscured by the morass of metaphysical gibberish.
This book should have been published on a perforated roll.
What exceeded my expectation is the number in the reviewers who realize the guy is a crackpot and the book complete dribble which I guess means education is improving on these things.
Interesting Sabine interviewed him on his 2001 book not his latest
The question that springs to my mind is how many drugs were taken in the period between the books.
So I guess I should ask is Lee Smolin a good scientist on the science of Quantum Gravity to you Bill G? You seem to intimate that people including me should respect this guy
