Draft:Sabine Hossenfelder

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Sabine Hossenfelder (1976–) is a German theoretical physicist and science writer turned vlogger. While she criticizes many doubtful ideas as a scientist, as a contrarian she says things that cranks really like to hear.[1] How did a scientific researcher end up publishing videos saying things like "…most of academic research that your taxes pay for is almost certainly bullshit"[2] and "academia is communism"?[3] To guess why she said what she said in 2024, it's best to go back and review her past statements. The following is a brief look at a 20-year history of posting.

Scientific career[edit]

Hossenfelder received her PhD in theoretical physics at Goethe University Frankfurt in 2003.[4][5] From 2003 to 2024 she held academic positions in the USA, Canada, Sweden, and Germany. She never received a stable position. Scientific research is an extremely competitive field, and Hossenfelder had three strikes against her: she was a woman in a male-dominated field, she shared strong opinions regardless of who they might offend, and she did not believe in the paradigms of String Theory and big particle accelerators but could not propose an alternative. She wanted to reform the structure of science towards more deep thinking and interdisciplinarity and less expensive experiments and mathematical speculations. This is orthodox sociology of science, but she was competing for grants to publish physics.

Vulgarization[edit]

Throughout her career Hossenfelder has been active in communicating the results of research to the public (which Germans call vulgarization).

In 2006, Hossenfelder launched a blog on blogspot https://backreaction.blogspot.com/ This was very active until the last months of 2020, when it switched focus to guest posts and transcripts of her YouTube videos, then just posted the videos themselves. By 2025 these transcripts were being posted on Substack and Patreon for paid subscribers.

In 2007, Hossenfelder launched a vlog on YouTube.[6] As of August 2025, it has 1.7 million subscribers (all such numbers from social media giants should be taken with a pinch of salt).

In 2008, she helped found something called the Lightcone Institute.[7] This should not be confused with the LessWrong projects with similar names.

She frequently criticizes bold claims and excited press releases about science and engineering. She has also criticized Nick Bostrom, Elon Musk, and Longtermist Effective Altruism.[8]

She is active on social media and in magazines such as New Scientist and Quanta. She published two popular books on physics, titled Lost in Math (2018) and Existential Physics (2022).

In April 2024, Hossenfelder announced that she was no longer pursuing academic jobs or contracts.[9] Vlogging became her main source of income. She began to post very fast (five videos per week, whereas the blog had averaged one or two posts per week from 2006 to 2023). She has accepted sponsors for her YouTube channel, such as SquareSpace.

Criticisms of theoretical physics[edit]

Today, the task of scientists is no longer to understand nature. Instead, their task is to uphold an illusion of progress by wrapping incremental advances in false promise. Merchants they still are, all right. But now their job is not to bring enlightenment; it is to bring excitement. ... Sooner or later, those research-bubbles become unsustainable and burst. But with the current organization of research, more people brings more money brings more people. And so, the moment one bubble bursts, the next one is on the rise already.
—Sabine Hossenfelder, 2019[10]

Hossenfelder believes that fundamental physics has made no significant progress since the Standard Model was finished in the 1970s and that fields such as medicine are facing similar problems.[11] Many researchers criticize the state of physics and drug discovery, which is governed by Eroom's law, where the cost of developing a drug rises exponentially over time. She argues that spending money on more particle accelerators like the Large Hadron Collider will not help, and that the solution might be to put a small number of physicists on an island and forbid them to teach, publish, or attend conferences for five years.[12] This has a certain resemblance to crank ideas such as Eliezer Yudkowsky's belief that small conspiracies, not open scientific communication, cause knowledge to advance. Putting Einstein at the Institute of Advanced Study with no other responsibilities did not cause him to repeat his annus mirabilis, although perhaps they should have invited his first wife.

Groupthink is powerful, but creating a new paradigm for theoretical physics is hard.

Contrarianism[edit]

Hossenfelder has a strong contrarian side and criticizes whatever is fashionable with polite university-educated Germans. In October 2008 she published one blog post accusing an article in Der Spiegel of being too smug about problems in the USA[13] and another complaining that the news and the internet were too full of Barack Obama, Sarah Palin, and the Global Financial Crisis and the USA lacked a multi-party system like Germany or Canada.[14] Consuming German news made her yell that it was too anti-American, and consuming American news made her snark that it overlooked the rest of the world.

Hossenfelder is critical of calls to "trust science" as a way to cross the is-ought gap.[15]

Kulturkampf[edit]

Hossenfelder has never been afraid to share controversial opinions about topics that get the Internet excited, many of which are tied to the American culture war. For example, in 2022 and 2023, she published two videos on transgender issues.[16][17] Skeptics and members of the ScienceBlogs diaspora, such as skepchick Rebecca Watson[18] and PZ Myers,[19] responded with criticism. Truculent biologist Jerry Coyne found the videos fascinating.[20] All four bloggers are known for sharing strong opinions, and Watson and Myers often declare who should be shamed or expelled from their community. None is an expert on trans issues, although Myers and Coyne are biologists. Social media is full of kayfabe where people accuse each other of being Wrong On the Internet, send followers to each other's accounts, and finish with higher blood pressure but more revenue and followers.

She has published an essay and a video in praise of capitalism.[21][22]

Like many people who are neither Stoics nor Christians, she does not believe in free will.[23]

In October 2020, Hossenfelder posted that it was not clear how fast COVID-19 was spreading or what percentage of the population would have to be infected to achieve herd immunity. Then she cautiously spoke in favor of the Great Barrington Declaration, a proposal to let the disease spread freely while practicing infection control around the most vulnerable:

The central element of the criticism is that the Barrington Declaration is vague on how the “Focused Protection” is supposed to work. This is a valid criticism. The declaration left it unclear just to how identify those at risk and how to keep them efficiently apart from the rest of the population, which is certainly difficult to achieve. But of course if no one is thinking about how to do it, there will be no plan for how to do it. ... we need to discuss not only how many people die from COVID and what the long-term health problems may be, but also how lockdowns, social distancing, and economic distress affect health and health care. We need proper risk estimates with uncertainties. We do not need scientists who proclaim that science tells us what’s the right thing to do.[24]

She endorsed a book published in 2025 called The War on Science, edited by Lawrence Krauss and written by a cabal of "grievance-mongers."[25] As she saw it:

Higher education isn’t what it used to be. Cancel culture and DEI have caused many to keep their mouths shut. Not so the authors of this book. This collection of essays tells of threats to open inquiry, free speech, and the scientific process itself. A much-needed book.[26]

Forming an independent opinion on many different topics is admirable, but sharing all of those opinions with a large and admiring audience is not.

Self-importance[edit]

In 2019, Hossenfelder asked her readers, "Why can you not find any expert, besides me, willing to publicly voice criticism on particle physics?"[27] Physicist Lee Smolin and mathematician Peter Woit published bestselling books critical of string theory in 2006, and anyone who has a drink with physics students will hear some doubts about the program. Hossenfelder mentions researchers like Smolin, Woit, and John Ioannidis when she chooses to.[28]

By 2025, she called herself "Particle Physicists' Enemy #1."[29] That seems grandiose, because many people criticize the structure of grant-funded science, and she does not have the power to shut down physics departments and make the faculty work as farmhands.

Social network[edit]

Hossenfelder met Eric Weinstein in 2008[30] and has engaged with his attempts to provide an alternative to string theory and his blaming seeming conflict on kayfabe.[31] Weinstein works for Peter Thiel. Hossenfelder describes him as "the unofficial leader of the last American intellectuals," which presumably means the Intellectual Dark Web.

She defended Weinstein's theories from criticism after a debate hosted by Piers Morgan in 2025 (the debate featured Sean Carroll, another early science blogger whom Hossenfelder had known for more than twenty years,[32] and yet another case where a seemingly random Internet controversy is actually between people who move in the same social circles).[33][34]

Some of her videos after she left academia have been criticized by vlogger Professor Dave. Normally someone with a bachelor's degree telling someone with a PhD how research works would be like a gnat biting an elephant, but her later videos are not as careful as her earlier work.

She met and engaged with economist and transhumanist Robin Hanson several times circa 2007 and 2018.[35]

In 2013, Hossenfelder praised The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker.[36]

The arguments Pinker leads are arguments I’ve led myself many times, if less elegantly and not backed up with references as thoroughly. You’ll find there my ambivalent attitude to feminism, my disliking of postmodernism, my hesitation to take on pretty much any parenting advice, my conflicted relation to capitalism, and my refusal to accept morals or social norms as rules. I’ve had a hard time finding something to disagree with.

In 2022, she appeared on Michael Shermer's podcast, modestly titled The Michael Shermer Show.[37]

Is science failing?[edit]

Why the fuck is it my fault that cranks think I'm their best friend?
—Sabine Hossenfelder, 2024[38]

In November 2024, Hossenfelder published a video entitled "Science is failing" where she said things like "most of academic research, stuff that your taxes paid for, is almost certainly bullshit." A number of people responded that this harsh anti-science rhetoric is just what many reactionaries want to hear.[39] If scientists could be wrong that burning fossil fuels is causing rapid climate change, then we don't have to feel cognitive dissonance between our desire for a tropical vacation and our desire for our grandchildren to be able to go for a walk without a sillsuit and a respirator.

This new language is not a break from her earlier views, but is bolder and harder to defend (maybe the field of social psychology is bullshit, but is the same true of entomologists cataloguing new species of insects or computer scientists creating more and more efficient sort algorithms? Drug discovery may be slowing, but would anyone with AIDS choose to be treated with 1980s technology rather than today's technology?) Early Hossenfelder, with a small audience, warned when she was making arguments which might be misused, but late Hossenfelder, with a large audience, says this is someone else's problem. Why did a minor but respected physicist become a merchant of doubt?

Hossenfelder is certainly sad about her failure to establish herself as a physicist and failure to direct the field away from approaches that she sees as useless. Grief makes most people say harsh things. However, it seems clear that YouTube is rewarding her better for inflammatory claims about the corruption of science than for modest videos about physics. Media theorists have the term 'audience capture' for audiences who demand 'more of the same', but YouTube decides which videos will be shown to which viewers. YouTube did not make her say anything she did not want to say, but it probably has something to do with her radicalization. Her contacts in the Intellectual Dark Web probably encouraged this shift. Turning back would require strong will and choosing to sacrifice money for principle, but she has shown both traits in the past.

References[edit]

  1. Sabine Hossenfelder, "The crisis in physics is real: Science is failing," @sabinehossenfelder YouTube channel, November 4, 2024 timestamp 1:40
  2. My dream died, and now I'm here by Sabine Hossenfelder (Apr 5, 2024) YouTube. timestamp 10:45.
  3. "Should we defund academia?" by Sabine Hossenfelder (February 27, 2025) YouTube. Title text.
  4. "New staff members at Nordita," NORDITA Newsletter, Issue 3 (2009)
  5. "Biography: Sabine Hossenfelder," HandWiki
  6. https://www.youtube.com/@SabineHossenfelder/about
  7. https://web.archive.org/web/20081013031202/http://lightconeinstitute.de/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=16&Itemid=42
  8. "Elon Musk & The Longtermists: What Is Their Plan?" @SabineHossenfelder YouTube Channel, October 29, 2022
  9. Sabine Hossenfelder, "My dream died, and now I'm here," @sabinehossenfelder YouTube channel
  10. Sabine Hossenfelder, "Merchants of Hype," BackReaction, March 5, 2019
  11. Sabine Hossenfelder, "The crisis in physics is not only about physics," BackReaction, October 30, 2019
  12. Sabine Hossenfelder, "We are Einstein" BackReaction, December 28, 2008
  13. http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2008/10/end-of-arrogance.html
  14. http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2008/10/canada-votes.html
  15. https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2020/09/follow-science-nonsense-i-say.html
  16. https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2022/06/trans-women-in-sports-is-this-fair.html
  17. https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2023/04/is-being-trans-social-fad-among.html
  18. "Physicist Sabine Hossenfelder Screws up on Trans Kids' Care," @RebeccaWatson YouTube Channel, May 4, 2023
  19. PZ Myers, "Blatant both-siderism from a physicist," Pharyngula, May 5, 2023
  20. Jerry Coyne, "Sabine Hossenfelder on the transgender phenomenon," Why Evolution is True, April 30, 2023
  21. Sabine Hossenfelder, "Capitalism is good for you," BackReaction, May 28, 2019
  22. Sabine Hossenfelder, "Capitalism is good. Let me explain," BackReaction, September 2, 2023
  23. Sabine Hossenfelder, "Free will is dead, let’s bury it." BackReaction, January 10, 2016
  24. Sabine Hossenfelder, "Herd Immunity, Facts and Numbers," BackReaction, October 28, 2020
  25. Jonathan Jarry, "Sabine Hossenfelder Asks If Science Is Dying. It’s Not." McGill Office of Science and Society, April 18, 2025
  26. Jonathan Howard, "The Book 'The War on Science' Reveals How 39 Renowned Scientists and Scholars Enabled the War on Science," Science Based Medicine, August 1, 2025
  27. Sabine Hossenfelder, "Merchants of Hype," BackReaction, March 5, 2019
  28. Sabine Hossenfelder, "Don’t ask what science can do for you," BackReaction, December 14, 2018
  29. Sabine Hossenfelder, "How I Became Particle Physicists’ Enemy #1," Sabine Hossenfelder YouTube Channel, April 13, 2025
  30. Sabine Hossenfelder, "This and That," BackReaction, April 4, 2009
  31. https://www.edge.org/response-detail/11783 cited in https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2011/01/how-to-improve-world-quick-in-140.html
  32. Hossenfelder describes her relationship with Carrol in "Science, Writers, and the Public - A bizarre love triangle," BackReaction, October 16, 2009 and "Book Review 'The Biggest Ideas in the Universe: Space, Time, and Motion' by Sean Carroll," BackReaction, September 26, 2022
  33. Sabine Hossenfelder, "Physicists are afraid of Eric Weinstein -- and they should be," Sabine Hossenfelder YouTube Channel, July 16, 2025
  34. David Farina, "Sabine Hossenfelder Joins the Eric Weinstein Damage Control Parade," Professor Dave Explains YouTube channel, July 20, 2025
  35. Sabine Hossenfelder, "Don’t ask what science can do for you," BackReaction, December 14, 2018
  36. Sabine Hossenfelder, "Book review: 'The Blank Slate' by Steven Pinker," BackReaction, July 31, 2013
  37. "Free Will and Determinism from a Physicist’s Perspective (Sabine Hossenfelder)," Skeptic Magazine YouTube Channel, August 23, 2022 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWEUdGkBznA
  38. Sabine Hossenfelder, "The crisis in physics is real: Science is failing," @sabinehossenfelder YouTube channel, 4 November 2024 timestamp 1:40
  39. eg. Jonathan Jarry, "Sabine Hossenfelder Asks If Science Is Dying. It’s Not." McGill Office of Science and Society, April 18, 2025 or Dave Farina, "Sabine Hossenfelder Can’t Stop Acting Like a Complete Fraud," Professor Dave Explains YouTube channel, February 28, 2025 or even some of the comments on her YouTube channel