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Until the theory can account for ALL the evidence, then there are either errors in the experiment or the theory is incomplete . You are dismissing the latter p
by DevX101 11y ago
Until the theory can account for ALL the evidence, then there are either errors in the experiment or the theory is incomplete . You are dismissing the latter possibility prematurely.
The history of science is full of unexplained experimental errors that were later confirmed by an improved theory (see Einstein's General Theory of Relativity vs Newton's 'Law' of gravitation).
IF scientists universally adopted your position, then there wouldn't have been any point in further investigating experimental contradictions (time dilation, gravitation lensing) to Newton's Laws since they were clearly impossible based on the REALLY REALLY well tested laws of physics.
- Retra 11y agoI very strongly disagree that dismissing the possibility of an incomplete theory is premature. The amount of evidence supporting our current theories is absolutely staggering. Some small acceleration on a technology nobody understands isn't going to overturn that evidence. It needs to be almost absolutely undeniable that this drive works, not a mere suspicion or curiosity. "IF scientists universally adopted your position [...]" Scientists don't universally adopt positions, so that's not something we have to worry about. We have to worry about non-scientists adopting dreams over facts. But really, there's no point in declaring victory or defeat while the battle is still going.
- AnimalMuppet 11y ago> It needs to be almost absolutely undeniable that this drive works, not a mere suspicion or curiosity. But, see, if we follow the approach of the doubters here, we'll never get to almost absolutely undeniable evidence, because we won't bother to investigate it because of how improbable it is. Look, people here are saying that an incomplete theory is possible - not certain, not even probable, just possible. It's happened twice in just over a century, so, yeah, not probable. But saying that it can't happen because the science is settled is, ironically, not a very scientific approach. > But really, there's no point in declaring victory or defeat while the battle is still going. Absolutely.
- Retra 11y agoAnything is possible. You have to make decisions based on what is likely, not what is possible.
- AnimalMuppet 11y agoA startup succeeding is not likely. People invest in them anyway. Why? Because if it does succeed, the payoff is high enough to make it worth the gamble. Same thing here. This is not likely to be new physics. But if it is, the payoff is high enough to make it worth looking at seriously. Note well: This does not mean "start doubting all of physics until we disprove this". It means, yes, it's worth it to have a team at NASA spend some time trying to figure out what's going on. And even if they don't find new physics, they're going to learn something about an error factor to control for, which, among other things, might shed some light on the Pioneer anomaly.
- Retra 11y agoHow much are you willing to bet that this investigation leads to new physics or experimental methods? And are you willing to assert that this is the best way to achieve those same results? I would not bet enough to cover a team of NASA engineers spending their time on it.
- snowwrestler 11y agoIt's never scientific to dismiss the possibility of an incomplete theory. In fact we know our theories of physics are incomplete somehow because of yet-unexplained observations (dark matter, dark energy), and because of problems reconciling quantum mechanics with general relativity. The question is really one of priority: how much effort should we put into chasing down each potential new result? For some questions we spend staggering amounts of effort--think of the Hubble Deep Field images, proposed gravity wave observatories, neutrino observatories, and the Large Hadron Collider. We predicted the Higgs, but we still spent billions of dollars to go confirm that! In contrast, we're spending a very small amount--just a couple people with a small budget--to investigate things like the Elcubierre "warp drive" and the "Emdrive." And we spend basically nothing to investigate things that are obviously fake. It seems proportionate to me.