> Sabine's argument has been frequently bad faith after the fact and currently. Just skimming some of her written work:

I want to make sure to clarify your point before continuing. Are you saying that Sabine makes arguments in bad faith? Or are you saying that Sabine is saying that many physicists are making arguments in bad faith? I believe that you are stating the former - but I want to make sure of that before continuing - if not, then apologies as I misunderstood you. I believe that she is stating the latter (stating that physicists are making bad faith claims), and that is the central point of her concern.

So again, I'll preface this with saying I'm a layman here and don't have the expertise to speak with depth of knowledge.

Let's take the first link you provided (simply because it's first and the only one I dug into). Her claim is that physicists are making bad faith claims.

She said that prior to building the previous version of the LHC, physicists were pushing for it to be built in part because it could either confirm or disprove supersymmetry. More specifically that Supersymmetry was "falsifiable" and that building the LHC would allow the physics community to either confirm or dismiss it as a theory. She (in the video) gave references to multiple papers that made that claim. I didn't go read the specific papers, but I give her the benefit of the doubt that the papers make those claims. Specifically the implicit/explicit claims were that the LHC is needed/justified because afterwards we would be able to confirm or refute supersymetry.

The LHC is built, none of the expected evidence shows up. So as a result is Supersymetry now refuted? No, now the same supporters say "well that just eliminates one part of it, there are still all of these other ways it could show up".

If that's the case, then building the LHC could never have refuted supersymetry. And if that is true, then it was a false claim and a false justification for building the LHC. And from my reading of it she seems to be correct.

Again it is her side of the story but: if someone says doing X will mean that our theory is shown to either be true or false, we do X and they then state "we still don't know if our theory is true or false", then it seems like that claim was wrong. And her point is, people in the community need to step up and say yes the claim was wrong when we made it. Particularly so, because they are using the same exact justification for building an even larger LHC. If your reasoning was wrong before, how can you use the same reasoning now to justify it.

(Side point I'm not saying whether the LHC should have been built or not, or about any of the other physics theories related to the LHC that could be supported/refuted, I'm specifically just talking about those supersymetry claims confirm/falsify claims).

So that all is my read of half of her argument, and it seems pretty strong. But her general complaints about the current state of particle physics seem to go further. It's not just that scientists made a faulty claim and made a mistake, it's that they knew it at the time and still made the claim anyway. And that others in the know didn't speak up because it was to their benefit.

And that's I think the core of the second half of her general point. There are now a number of areas of particle physics where the area (string theory, supersymetry, ...) have an enormously broad label that can be applied to anything and no way to refute them. Every time one of them is "refuted" they then grow a new head and say "but aha you haven't refuted this part". In addition an anomalous behavior is seen in physics they after the fact find a way to tweak parameters to make their theory "explain" what was seen. They are theories without constraints - they can be used to explain anything. And each time it's wrong a new flavor can be created to give a new avenue.

And somehow there is no reconciliation for this. Either put forward something that shows your theory is falsifiable once and for all. Or clearly and upfront state that your theory can never be falsified (or can't be falsified for 1000 years). And if that's the case be honest about it.

The problem is if it really is that the theory can't be falsified for 1000 years or can't be falsified at all, then in the end it's just philosophy and has no reason to be funded the way that it is and to take up all of the resources (monetary and cognitive) that it's consuming, instead of those resources being used on things that might actually give us results in the next 10-100 years.

To me it's a very strong argument.

So why do people keep making these claims? Because it's what gets them funding. As long as you say you're doing string theory you can get funding. And if string theory has an infinite number of possibilities you can get infinite funding. And if string theory can never be falsified then it can provide funding forever. But if you admit it can never be falsified and can never be truly predictive, the funding dries up. The only thing that can be falsified is one of the 10^10^40th variants of string theory and as soon as it is, you just move on to a new variant. That's not science.

And a similar argument holds on a smaller scale for supersymetry: "You keep asking for money for the LHC to once-and-for-all confirm or refute supersymetry, but somehow no test in the near future will really ever refute it."

Belaboring the point. It's like saying the Flying Spaghetti Monster is what makes plants grow. He's omnipotent. When nobody is looking he rubs the plant with his appendages and they grow. So a physicist says "I need x amount of money to pay people to watch a plant 24/7 to show that's what happens." If he shows up he's real, if the plant dies it's proof he's real. They get the funds, he never shows up and the plant still grows. So now they say "oh it's because he's omnipotent, so he can turn invisible. I need funds to do a similar experiment but enclose the plant in a glass box so he can't get in". They do it, and the plant still grows, so next time it's "ah yes he can walk through walls so instead I now need to do Y experiment...".

Sabine is stating: "In the very beginning you said he's omnipotent. There is no test we can do that can falsify your theory of him being why plants grow. Every test you say could show proof of him, but when it doesn't there is always some new power he could have to explain the behavior and reason for a new test." Either admit that due to his omnipotence there is no test possible to refute the FSM existence, or give a test that once and for all will show it's not possible. Otherwise the default assumption should be your FSM theory is flat our wrong and we're chasing it down a forever path.

So I realize this was extremely long, and way more than I intended to write, but I think it's a really interesting topic on the philosophy of science and how it relates to what's going on in the field.

All that said, it's very possible I'm missing your point above, and would love to hear the other side of the argument if you disagree.