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Huh, the scientists that I know and studied with don't generally insist on putting ideas into one of two buckets. There are a bunch of buckets. Go ask an astron
by greglindahl 10y ago
Huh, the scientists that I know and studied with don't generally insist on putting ideas into one of two buckets. There are a bunch of buckets. Go ask an astronomer what a "two tooth fairy" theory is: a one tooth fairy theory is almost certainly false, but a two tooth fairy theory is that squared. And yes, this is how people theorize about what cold dark matter is.
- jcoffland 10y agoDoesn't the two tooth fairy theory fall neatly into the almost-certainly-false bucket?
- easuter 10y agoWhat he is saying is that there aren't two buckets, more of a gradient of what's likely and unlikely.
- dmichulke 10y agoI think he just wants to say that people still see the difference between a one-tooth-fairy and a two-tooth-fairy where the latter lies closer to false on the spectrum of "falsity" So, yes both fairies still fit in the bucket but now it's you who put them there and not them :P
- greglindahl 10y agoThe buckets are labeled "one tooth fairy" and "two tooth fairies". Two tooth fairies are much less likely than one. The way this works is that you've got some experimental result which appears to violate the laws of physics. After working hard to make sure that it's not experimental error and the measurement means what you think it means, then you consider a change in the laws of physics. This is a tooth fairy. Is your proposed change ruled out by other experiments? Is there a new experiment you can do which will have an unusual result thanks to the tooth fairy? And so on. If, during this process, you find yourself needing a SECOND change in the laws of physics in order to explain something, then that's a second tooth fairy. You don't want that, because that's even less likely to be real then the first one.