You actually support my argument in the way that he's established himself as the teaching authority to the community. But imagine him being wrong and all of the people's work who cited his is wrong. All that knowledge and insights - wrong. Isn't it also an ideal of a scientist to remain critical of everything and just make assumptions that "if that is true then..." or "if this is wrong, then..."?
So many people based their work on his ONE paper. Jeez, imagine how much it would cost to find out that this paper is worth nothing.
Here's a follow-up on why Mandacena could be wrong, and his work is not the only one:
"The problem here is that of what is an “interesting region of theory space”. At this point the failures of string theory unification strongly indicate that it’s not such an interesting region. It seems likely that we’d be better off if most theorists focusing on phenomenology of this failed program were to pick something else to work on."
Citations are not a "like"-like function; they are an admission by an author of a work that another work shaped its development.
One must also cite a work if one is writing a paper which disagrees with that work's conclusions, criticizes its methods, or points out a fault in its theoretical content. This has a particular benefit for readers.
Woit himself carefully cites works he strongly objects to in his book[1] that shares its name with the blog you linked to.
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[1] Woit P. Not even wrong: The failure of string theory and the search for unity in physical law. Basic Books (AZ); 2006 Sep 4., pp 268-274. (cf. http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/NEWerrata.html )
Every scientist I know bursts with enthusiasm and excitement when there is even a hint that a well known and important result is wrong. It would literally be a bonanza for them, 99.9% of the time the excitement is misplaced, but scientists live for the 0.1% I would say that finding out that this paper is worth nothing becomes more expensive and more valuable with every citation - every time people cite work they are looking at it.
> every time people cite work they are looking at it.
Not in physics. Most physicists cite without reading original sources. This is a real problem. The citations standards in physics is really low. There was a research about this but I cannot find it now. It was about the corruption in the title of one of Einstein's most cited papers. Like generations of photocopying corrupts the original, physicists copied the citation from other citations without bothering to check the original and the title became something else. It was funny.
