3 ms·

The history of science shows your conception is a bit too stringent. It sounds a bit like Popper's extreme views on falsification in philosophy of science, wher

The history of science shows your conception is a bit too stringent. It sounds a bit like Popper's extreme views on falsification in philosophy of science, whereby a theory must either pass every empirical test that is thrown at it, or be flatly rejected. The history of science (Kuhn, etc) shows that this is just not how it works. In general, when a theory fails a test it is tweaked and revised to accord better with the data, and sometimes (usually after the theory gets much more complex) a new, usually simpler, revolutionary theory replaces it. Now, since we can't go toss stuff into black holes, theoretical physics at this level is more like pure math, where the "observations" are the calculations of the theorists. When the calculations don't add up and a contradiction is found it doesn't mean that they've lost touch with reality. On the contrary, they are bringing their theories into closer congruence with reality.

javert 14y ago
A theory must either pass every empirical test that is thrown at it, or be flatly rejected. Well, that's how reality actually works. Statements about reality are either true or false. How many physicists would even agree with that? Therein lies my distrust of modern physics, or at least part of it. I'm no fan of Popper, though. The history of science (Kuhn, etc) shows that this is just not how it works. I'm no fan of Kuhn either, though. He also probably wouldn't agree with my litmus test of "Statements about reality are either true or false."
- shmageggy 14y ago
  This seems to be at odds with your reply to the sibling comment. If Newtonian physics is incomplete, then the statements it makes about reality are, strictly speaking, wrong. Yet to flatly reject Newtonian physics would be silly, since it clearly has some aspect of truth to it, having been useful not only in practical tasks, but as a platform for building more complete accounts of physics. Analogously, modern physics may have contradictions and is clearly "wrong" at some level, yet it is remarkably good at explaining lots of empirical phenomenon, and we would probably be much worse off if we scrapped the whole enterprise and started over from first principles rather than building on what we have until the next breakthrough. Your litmus test may be right, but that's no way to do science. Lastly, since you aren't a fan of Kuhn, do you prefer any one else's account of philosophy of science?

javert 14y ago

A theory must either pass every empirical test that is thrown at it, or be flatly rejected. Well, that's how reality actually works. Statements about reality are either true or false. How many physicists would even agree with that? Therein lies my distrust of modern physics, or at least part of it. I'm no fan of Popper, though. The history of science (Kuhn, etc) shows that this is just not how it works. I'm no fan of Kuhn either, though. He also probably wouldn't agree with my litmus test of "Statements about reality are either true or false."

shmageggy 14y ago
This seems to be at odds with your reply to the sibling comment. If Newtonian physics is incomplete, then the statements it makes about reality are, strictly speaking, wrong. Yet to flatly reject Newtonian physics would be silly, since it clearly has some aspect of truth to it, having been useful not only in practical tasks, but as a platform for building more complete accounts of physics. Analogously, modern physics may have contradictions and is clearly "wrong" at some level, yet it is remarkably good at explaining lots of empirical phenomenon, and we would probably be much worse off if we scrapped the whole enterprise and started over from first principles rather than building on what we have until the next breakthrough. Your litmus test may be right, but that's no way to do science. Lastly, since you aren't a fan of Kuhn, do you prefer any one else's account of philosophy of science?