But Eric, this is not how experimental studies work. Generally people
see what they look for. For example, Swartz has a model he uses to
explain what he see and he explains the behavior only in this way.
Fleischmann had a model based on Preparata that provided his guidance,
which lead to an approach for doing experiments that was based only on
the model. I suffer from the same reliance on my model. As a result,
no one changes their mind because Nature always supports the model
being used. Therefore, it is important to start a study using a model
close to the correct one. People who say they will simply do the
study and see what happens are not telling the truth. This is not a
simple physics problem that has a clear answer. The answer will not
be clear. The result will be complex and will make no sense without a
model being applied. For example, a person will see a little heat. He
will run the experiment again using what appears to be the same
material and see nothing. Was the first result error or was the
material used the second time not exactly the same as the first time?
How do you decide? At this point a model is applied. Which model you
use determines what you do next.
Ed
On Feb 15, 2013, at 10:46 PM, Eric Walker wrote:
On Fri, Feb 15, 2013 at 12:21 PM, David Roberson
<dlrober...@aol.com> wrote:
I am not sure anyone has a good answer to your question Ed. I do
not care what theory they are operating upon at the moment as long
as they keep plugging away.
That's right -- it should be like Newton's method for finding the
roots of a real-valued function. You pick some starting point --
anywhere, really, as long as it is not too far afield -- and then
you plug away, Edisonian-like, gradually narrowing down the
possibilities without being dogmatic about what has been set aside,
since new information may come to light that causes one to
reevaluate previous evidence. In this context I don't see much use
for hewing to a specific theory when approaching a very challenging
problem. Anything is beloved that delivers, even heavy electrons. ;)
Eric
