IEEE Spectrum January, 2007 - 49

RESOURCES
Universe, the best-selling 2003 book
on string theory] urged me to emphasize that these people are a minority
of string theorists. He believes the
majority of string theorists agree
with me that a scientific theory must
make falsifiable predictions and that
if string theory ultimately fails to do
so, it will fail to be a scientific theory.
But I don't think this is a time for
other renowned scientists to be calling for a weakening of the distinction
between science and nonscience.

howdidthisstateofaffairsarise?
American universities expanded very
quickly between World War II and the
mid-1970s. During this time, there
was not much pressure on young people to find positions. A great diversity
of people and research styles came in
to the academic world that could be
comfortably supported. This generation made American science dominant
in the world. Then the expansion
stopped, and the academic world
became very competitive.
But we didn't think about how to
optimize academic science in the
face of scarce resources. We failed to
discuss how to make sure we diversified investment in risky areas and
how to make sure that certain kinds
of people who don't quite fit the
mold of a normal scientist, but who
still turn out to be necessary for science, are included. I mean the kind of
people who just go around and wander
between fields, talk to everybody, and
ask really good, provocative questions.
Instead, problem solving within

ThE TrouBlE WiTh Physics:
ThE risE of sTring ThEory,
ThE fall of a sciEncE,
and WhaT comEs nExT
lee Smolin
Houghton Mifflin, Boston
ISBn 978-0-618-55105-7
US $26

a narrowly defined domain became
codified as what a professional scientist is. Academic science hasn't done
what people have done in, for example,
high-tech business, which is to think
about how to optimize investments
with what are now sparse and scarce
resources, such as university positions and research funding. What
happens now is that a university
department has one appointment to
make at a time, maybe once every five
to 10 years.
If a department has a group of
three or four people doing x, whether
x is string theory or superconductivity research, and a faculty appointment comes up, that group tends to
hire in the area that they know. This
is because they believe in what they
are doing, and secondly, they and
their friends and colleagues have
students who need positions in this
competitive environment.

howcanweencouragemorediversity
inappointments?
The department or university as a
whole, as well as funding agencies like
the U.S. National Science Foundation,
www.spectrum.ieee.org

houghtoNmIfflIN

Isthereadangerthatstringtheory
willbecomedetachedfromreality,
thatitwillbecomeaso-calledpathologicalscience?
I think that "pathological science"
may be too strong, but there are
things that worry me. It's not ideal
science. Identifying a field of science with one untested theory is a
problem. It's a problem when individual researchers define themselves
by saying, "I am a string theorist" or
"My research group is a string-theory
group." A large number of people are
professionally, intellectually, and
emotionally overcommitted to one
conjecture or hypothesis in a way that
I think is unhealthy for science.

http://www.spectrum.ieee.org

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Spectrum January, 2007