You raise an interesting issue. If we can accept that substantive scientists vary in their involvement in self-marketing, does the degree one engages in popular self-marketing affect the kind of attention one receives? And the validity of criticism within that attention set?
Related to your point, if Wolfram hadn’t had the history he did, would Hacker News general suspicious reaction still be present? And would his status affect our perceptions of validity of the criticism.
Granted, what drew me to this thought was the recent treatment of Eric Weinstein, an occasional podcast collaborator (if hostile) of Stephen Wolfram. I won’t rehash it all here, but a critic of Weinstein who is trained in physics countered him in writing. Then when Weinstein moved onto another area, the critic submitted another arxiv piece attacking his second product (an econ talk given in Chicago).
Now, I don’t think much of Weinstein, but the critic’s second attack created doubt about the motives of his first. Was this a defense of science, or a serial attacker obsessed with Eric Weinstein?
Circling back, I think these issue will inevitably arise when a person is actively self marketing their contribution to science, whatever its quality.
Related to your point, if Wolfram hadn’t had the history he did, would Hacker News general suspicious reaction still be present? And would his status affect our perceptions of validity of the criticism.
Granted, what drew me to this thought was the recent treatment of Eric Weinstein, an occasional podcast collaborator (if hostile) of Stephen Wolfram. I won’t rehash it all here, but a critic of Weinstein who is trained in physics countered him in writing. Then when Weinstein moved onto another area, the critic submitted another arxiv piece attacking his second product (an econ talk given in Chicago).
Now, I don’t think much of Weinstein, but the critic’s second attack created doubt about the motives of his first. Was this a defense of science, or a serial attacker obsessed with Eric Weinstein?
Circling back, I think these issue will inevitably arise when a person is actively self marketing their contribution to science, whatever its quality.