Something to keep cosmology fans out of mischief for a while. Blame Albert and his thought-experiments
No, not quite. I think that most of what the author says about the failings of modern culture, the arts and the rise of relativism is very true, and the article is well worth reading for that alone.
But I think that it is a little narrow and limited a view, to pin it all on Albert and cosmology. From the same period, what about Freud for example. Long the poster boy of pseudo science, and accepted as such even by mainstream thinking. Since he really did give the best demonstration of, faking it by plagiarizing, inventing empty jargon to create self revering text to cover the absence of any real content, and ignoring conflicting evidence, (Especially from other fields, such as real Biology.)
The Freudian pseudoscience movement, especially in all the "soft" social sciences and humanities, really did spread its dismal shadow deeply across all the worlds educational institutions. And since those pseudo-sciences are much more immediately connected to mainstream culture, than cosmology, I think that their effects are greater.
Freud and Einstein may have shared some traits.
Was Freud a rebel? Walter Isaacson said Einstein was.
An early critic said Freud wanted to do something no one else had done. Einstein did what no one else had done.
Freud had nothing against which he could test his hypotheses. Einstein, a mathematician, did not test results of his thought-experiments as scientists test their hypotheses.
A later commenter said Freud’s followers would criticize more harshly than Freud. I’ve heard harsh criticism from some Einstein followers.
More?
@yvilletom Yes that is true. It also occured to me, that one reason why the writer does not mention Freud is probably just a mater of age. She is very young, (relative to me,) and perhaps does not remember Freud's huge direct effect on Western culture quite so well. Since while Einstein is still very current in cosmology, so that his name is up there to be attached to his legacy. Freud seems now like a distant memory, perhaps because his work was even more fake, and is therefore no longer at the heart of any science even medicine, to keep it current. Yet of course his indirect legacy is still strong even though it is nameless. Only an old man like me perhaps, remembers when Freudian was used as an actually byword for phoney intellectualism and pseudo-science.