Slashdot Mirror
Why String Theory Is Not Science (forbes.com)
StartsWithABang writes: Earlier this month, a conference was held devoted to the question of whether untestable scientific ideas like string theory and the multiverse are actually science or not. While many opinions were stated and no one changed their mind, the answer is apparent: unless you're willing to change the definition of science to include "this thing that isn't science," then no, string theory is not science. It's a theory in the sense of a mathematical theory — like set theory, group theory or number theory — but it isn't yet a scientific theory. Of course, it could become science, but that would require that it actually do the things a scientific theory does: make testable predictions that can be validated or falsified.
The condition for science is that it has to be testable in principle, NOT that it has to be testable within the limits of current technology. When Higgs came up with his theory there was no accelerator capable of testing it (although we did not know that at the time). So would that make the Higgs mechanism non-science until the 21st century when we built the LHC? Clearly not. So, unless String theory is completely untestable in principle, regardless of potential future technological advances, it is science albeit science which is currently impossible to test with current technology.
Exactly. It is a model. It might even be a useful model with some explanatory power. But the same can be said of many belief systems. The only difference is that the other belief systems have been shown to be inaccurate by showing their contradictions with reality. With string theory, we are not aware of any specific such contradiction yet.
I don't think we should have any problems with models, as long we understand very clearly that they are only models. Like Newton's laws - they are strictly inaccurate but as approximate models of reality that are valid under some limited set of conditions, they remain useful.
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.
I think cargo cults are pretty science-ish.
The observed a correlation between airports and cargo planes arriving.
The formed a hypothesis that constructing something that looks like an airport and control tower would bring the cargo airplanes.
They tested the hypothesis, by building the airport etc. It didn't work.
They (correctly) knew that something made the cargo planes come; so they tried to improve their emulation of the airport operations etc.
Sure if was fundamentally wrong. But it WAS the scientific method in action. Observation, hypothesis, experiment...repeat.
Its no different than heliocentric astronomy. We kept trying more complicated and elaborate constructions to predict the planetary motions, but it just kept failing because it was wrong.
Aye, there's the rub. First, only one planet. Second, difficulties with the "awhile" parameter. Make it too short and you're just testing long-range *weather* forecasts which is not where the controversy is. Make it too long and the theory changes so that the argument becomes "that's an old model, we know better now". Do they really know better, or are they just moving the goal posts?
I think climatology is in a grey area in this regard. In theory, it's testable and thus science. In practice, it's political, not well tested, and thus not living up to its potential as science.
They start with the premise that string theory is untestable, and come to the conclusion that it is untestable.
Government grants to institutions + the money available to speculators like Goldman Sachs through trading idiotic carbon credit schemes, makes it pretty one-sided. And then of course the energy companies themselves get in on the act, hovering up huge subsidises (again from the tax payer - notice how it's always muggins who pays the bill?) for "clean energy" and we have a winner.
Yes. Astrology makes valid, testable scientific predictions. Therefore it is a scientific theory (or hypothesis, if you like it that way).
It is unfortunate that it has been proven false many, many times, but not every scientific theory has to be true.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Yes. Astrology makes valid, testable scientific predictions. Therefore it is a scientific theory (or hypothesis, if you like it that way).
It is unfortunate that it has been proven false many, many times, but not every scientific theory has to be true.
Astrology is falsifiable yet it is not in any way shape or form a scientific theory. Therefore falsifiability is a necessary yet not sufficient condition to characterize a scientific theory.
You're joking, but that is actually what a "Warm Earth" (i.e., not an ice age) looks like: no year-round ice anywhere. It doesn't get much warmer at the equator, but it gets a lot warmer at the poles.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Straw argument. You can study evolution with no references to geology or paleontology at all by just studying soft tissue in the lab.
You're correct though, that's historic evidence of evolution. Those phenotypes were modified by changes in the gene sequences like those we've seen happen in labs. And some of those gene sequences we've extracted, mapped out and compared to living organisms. So evolution is a proven.