On Oct 5, 2008, at 9:58 PM, ravi wrote:
On Oct 5, 2008, at 6:06 PM, Jim Devine wrote:
In science, no general framework of understanding can or should be
rejected -- no matter how numerous the anomalies are -- if there's
not
an alternative framework to replace it. Better to have a first
approximation than no approximation at all. It's clear that Ptolemaic
astronomic models, for example, had a lot of anomalies, but they
served the purposes that people used them for well enough. As I
understand it, there was no point in rejecting them until there was a
clearly superior alternative -- and the Copernican system didn't
quite
fill the bill until Kepler amended it.
The word 'approximation' has Platonic connotations that make me ill
at ease, but I want to avoid this iteration of our Phil of Science
discussions ;-), so instead let me offer a recent new thesis that I
reaed about in astrophysics: a couple of physicists have proposed a
theory that does away with "dark energy" (a requirement in the
"standard" model) but what that entails is the notion that the earth
lies at the centre of a depression (I am quoting from memory, here)
in the universe that leads to various unique characteristics... so,
the earth may be the centre of the universe after all ;-)
This is hilarious. Not only does currently fashionable cosmology find
itself compelled to resurrect creationism (in the form of the "big
bang") but even has to fall back on geocentrism!
Jim's thought about Ptolemaic vs. Aristarchian models of the solar
system
misses the point entirely. There never was a dispute about the real
organization of the solar system--the observational evidence
(retrograde motion of the outer planets, vastly greater brilliance of
Mars at opposition compared to its dimness near conjunction) was
always conclusive in favor of heliocentrism. What made geocentrism
the dominant Hellenistic notion was a combination of three factors--
(1) circular motion was much easier to handle mathematically than
elliptical; (2) geocentrism supports anthropocentric ideology much
better than heliocentric (particularly desirable once the Churchhad
won the ideological battle of Christ vs. Mithras)and, in fact
crucially important, (3) The geocentric model is precisely that of
*astrology*. It is, as they say, "no accident at all" that Claudius
Ptolemy, the eponym of geocentric astronomy, is the author of the
Almagest, for millenia the basic texbook of astrology. Thus Jim is
indeed correct that"Ptolemaic astronomic models...served the purposes
that people used them for well enough." Those purposes were
*astrological*, not scientific. Astrologers needed reliable
ephemerides describing with mathematical precision the observed
positions of the "stars." Astronomy, the handmaid of astrology,
provided under the clear night skies of Mesopotamia the centuries of
meticulous observation and record keeping that Ptolemy needed to
construct his ephemerides. Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler arrived on
the historical scene precisely when the "Age of Discovery" made the
need for an astronomically accurate navigational technology
imperative, and so astronomy emerged as an independent science,
separate from and ultimately hostile to astrology.
The statement that "In science, no general framework of understanding
can or should be rejected -- no matter how numerous the anomalies are
-- if there's not an alternative framework to replace it" fails for
two reasons. Any general framework of understanding is inherently
ideological (like the 'free market" economic model) and should be
rejected whenever the accumulating anomalies and the recondite
mathematical conjectures needed to accomodate them make them
aesthetically repugnant and unable in practise to generate empirically
confirmable and confirmed (or, for Popperians, refutable and
unrefuted) predictions. Secondly, there are always unexplored
alternative frameworks available. Specifically, in regard to
astrophysics, there is plasma cosmology pioneered by Hannes Alfven
and advanced in various ways by Fred Hoyle, Chandra Wickrasinghe,
Halton Arp, Anthony Perrat, and others. The universe, it seems, can
be viewed as an electrical phenomenon on the grandest scale, all of
whose features correspond to phenomena observable in the laboratory on
the smallest scale (plasma phenomena being perfectly scalable over all
observed ranges).
Shane Mage
"This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it
always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire,
kindling in measures and going out in measures."
Herakleitos of Ephesos, fr. 30
"As above, so below" (Hermes Trismegistus)
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