On Fri, Apr 22, 2011 at 2:35 PM, Nicholas Leippe <[email protected]> wrote:
> And despite all the effort gone into the theory and things coming out > of it, it is still just a theory, and with demonstrable flaws at > that--yet most physicists refuse to even question it--they *believe* > it, and consider it a rock-solid foundation to base other stuff on top > of... The current state of modern physics is essentially that of a > tightly-controlled religion with a canon of esoteric maths--if you > dare to question the underpinnings you are belittled, mocked, hushed, > and/or shunned as a quack--science has all but been left behind. > > So, my point being, I'd bet that there's only a minority of people > that don't fall into the trap--whether politics, religion, field of > study, or anything else. That's not to excuse anyone, myself included, > from doing so, just saying that it's common enough to argue that it's > a part of human nature. There is no scientific knowledge that isn't "just a theory". All of science is based upon the idea of creating a model that describes how some natural process might behave, and then testing to see if you can find any cases where the model *doesn't* describe what really happens. We call those models "theories". There is math involved because math provides a precise and unambiguous way to express the models that are created. The scientific process basically revolves around the processes of creating new models, extrapolating from models to see what sorts of unexpected things they predict, and trying to find holes in the models that people have created. Note that the third item consists entirely of "questioning underpinnings", and it's not exactly uncommon. Finding a case where an accepted model breaks down provides an opening for a new model, which could open up an entirely new subfield of your discipline. But even if you find instances where a model breaks down, that doesn't invalidate the model. Scientific models are not about "how things work" so much as they are about predicting and describing behavior of things. A model that accurately predicts the behavior of things in 99% of cases, and is off by a minutely small amount in the extremities of its range, is still a very valuable model. Thus we still use Newtonian and Einsteinian physics, even though we know of cases where those models break down. You can still "believe" Newtonian physics and use it as a solid foundation upon which to build your house or calculate a firing trajectory for a potato canon, because for the masses and velocities of everyday experience, it models behavior of things closely enough that any error would be trivial. But if you want to build a GPS system of satellites and ground receivers, you'd better know how to take relativistic effects into account. And for doing that, you can "believe" Einsteinan physics. Of course, there are people involved in science just as there are people involved in religion, so you see the same kinds of social dynamics that you see in any organized human endeavor. But if you look at what physicists actually say, I don't see how you can claim that physics is like some tightly-controlled religion. Particle physicists are always trying to build bigger particle accelerators, and for the most part they'd be just as happy (or maybe happier) to find a flaw in the Standard Model as they would be to confirm the predictions it makes. I don't know what kind of questioning of underpinnings you're referring to, but from what I've seen, most of the people who get dismissed or shunned as quacks are not really offering valid arguments for their views. Attacking the underpinnings of current scientific models is not a task to be taken lightly, as they have withstood attacks by the scientific community for a very long time now, and their strengths and weaknesses are fairly well known. This is not to say that new ones couldn't be found, but they fall under the category of 'extraordinary claims', the likes of which require 'extraordinary evidence' to justify. /* PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug Don't fear the penguin. */
