I Got Your Other Side Right Here

I’ll have something more serious to say on this subject tomorrow (I want to sleep on it, and take another look at the post in the morning), but I have one quick comment on the New York Times review of Leonard Susskind’s The Cosmic Landscape:

Susskind’s insider perspective also lends an air of smugness to the whole affair. He falls prey to the common error of Whig history: interpreting past events as if they were inevitable stepping stones to the present. He allows remarkably little doubt about string theory considering that it has, as yet, not a whit of observational support. “As much as I would very much like to balance things by explaining the opposing side, I simply can’t find that other side,” he writes in his concluding chapter.

Now, granted, I haven’t read the book, and this is just one quote pulled out of context for the purposes of a slightly snarky book review. But then, I’m having a hard time imagining a context you could put Susskind’s quote into and not have it sound breathtakingly asinine.

Suggestions are welcome in the comments.