Academia's Dirty Secret Is Going to Court

A federal judge in the US has allowed a whistleblower lawsuit to go forward, in which a former official of the National Institutes of Health accuses a Harvard professor of repurposing research grants and falsely claiming he had met his objectives. The allegations are unproven. But the reason this case matters is that everyone in academia knows this kind of thing happens all the time, and until now no one seemed to care. Let's take a look.

I'm in the Epstein files. Kind of. And it's about.... quantum gravity

I got some questions about the appearance of my name in Jeffrey Epstein's inbox. Turns out to be about... quantum gravity, unbelievable as that sounds. Here is the story and why I am still pissed off about this.

Academia's Scam Problem is Getting Worse

Academic research is deteriorating at an increasing pace. We’ve talked several times previously about how organized fraud is spreading in science, and today I have some recent stories that document this is becoming a global problem which has now reached Europe. America, brace yourself, soon this will hit you, too.

I can't believe this really happened.

I'm left somewhat speechless here.

This Is How People Game Science Publishing

Things are not looking good for the future of science publishing. Researchers are leveraging AI, paper mills are churning out more fake papers than ever, and people are constantly coming up with new strategies to abuse the peer review system. Let’s take a look at how the world of science publishing is struggling with the growing issue of science fraud.

Scientific research has big problems, and it's getting worse

Today I have a few words about some well-known and maybe not-so well known problems with scientific research and what others have said about this.

Is Dark Matter Evidence Of A Mirror Universe?

Recently, a physicist published a paper claiming that dark matter is the consequence of a mirror universe. What is a mirror universe? Is this idea as far-fetched as it sounds? Or does it actually make sense? Let’s take a look.

Is physics worth the pain?

A lot of young people have asked for my advice regarding pursuing a career in physics recently. Here are my general feelings about working in the field.

AI Slop Is Coming For Science

AI slop has already become prevalent across the internet (and in the classroom). But according to multiple reports, artificial intelligence is posing an increasingly serious threat to scientific literature, too. Researchers have uncovered a concerning number of AI-generated papers published in reputable journals, even experts can no longer identify AI-generated “science” images, and the amount of AI slop submitted to publishers will only increase as the technology continues to improve. Let’s take a look at what this means for the future of science.

How I Became Particle Physicists’ Enemy #1

When I started my career in physics, I didn’t plan on becoming particle physicists’ enemy number one, but somehow I have. Here’s how it all happened.

Why US Professors are talking about facism

The political situation at US-American campuses has been developing quickly, with some claiming that Trump’s actions are signs of facism, dictatorship, or authoritarianism. Today I have a quick summary of what has happened in the past weeks.

Should we defund academia?

In this video I explain why I think that academia will be mostly defunded in the coming decades. In a nutshell it’s because it’s for all practical purposes a planned economy and extremely inefficient. I go through the most common arguments for academia and explain why they all fail.

Trump and Musk Attack Academia

Donald Trump and Elon Musk are in full control of the U.S. government, and they’re using that power to attack “woke” DEI programs and slash federal funding for academic research. Let’s take a look at how those cuts have played out and how they could affect scientific research going forward.

I was asked to keep this confidential

I want to read you an email that I was asked to keep confidential because I think it explains some of my worries about academia.

String Theory Isn’t Dead

Heard anything of string theory lately? Well, there have been a few developments. Apparently it’s not dead, going by a recent review article. The article also lists all the things that string theorists have learned recently. And they indeed learned something. Let’s take a look.

The Thesis that Killed Academia?

This is a brief comment on the recent social media episode in which a young woman attracted a lot of attention by graduating with a thesis on olfactory suppression in English prose. In this video, I try to put these events into context. I find it difficult to wrap my head around the sudden outrage. Let me know what you think about this.

Science is in trouble and it worries me.

Innovation is slowing, research productivity is declining, scientific work is becoming more disruptive. In this video I summarize what we know about the problem and what possible causes have been proposed. I also explain why this matters so much to me.

The crisis in physics is real: Science is failing

In which I apologize that my videos sometimes lack nuance and explain why I think we are witnessing the failure of science.

These recent scientific fraud cases worry me a lot

I’ve talked a lot about scientific fraud in the past. Now, investigations have found even more widespread examples of falsified research. Not just in psychology and medicine, but also in material science. Let’s take a look.

This is why physics is dying

In which I get very depressed because I've heard the same nonsense for 20 years and nothing has changed.