I love our dual and mutually exclusive stereotypes of the Republican party. First, its the dumb hicks out in the boonies (who, btw, generally don't have a whole lot of money, generally quite a bit less than people in the cities, and furthermore are often quite nice people), then its the rich and selfish (who, btw, usually don't get to be rich and selfish by living out in the boonies and being ignorant).
I'm not a Republican (nor am I a Democrat, yay George Washington and the no-parties-at-all-would-be-desirable stance), but I still find/.'s collective opinion of the Republican party amusing.
Do you trust your minister or baker to hold insightful views on string theory?
OTOH, most slashdotters with no background in physics, not even basic mechanics, much less fundamental physics, feel compelled to trust their own seat-of-the-pants views on string theory, dark energy, dark matter, etc...
You have to trust someone. I trust science.
Science is not, never has been, and never will be "someone". I think that you actually mean "I trust scientists.". Not that that is an entirely bad thing, but you ought to say what you mean.
Finally, it is worth noting that you seem to have confused the GP with fundamentalist Christians. AFAICT, GP was defending the fundies from your attacks by pointing out that they "do not have a monopoly" on denying the truth. This is completely orthogonal to saying "I also deny the truth. Attack me!". It is also completely orthogonal to defending the actual views of the fundies. Your vitriol is misplaced, sir.
FWIW, I am a scientist. Specifically a physicist. I remained skeptical of global warming for a long time after most of/. had drunk the koolaid, not because some political think tank told me to be skeptical, but because I had (and still have) a very difficult time believing that our climate models are really very good. We aren't very good at predicting the future of pretty much any other massively chaotic system (this is pretty much one of the fundamental properties of chaotic systems...), so why the climate? I have gradually become convinced that global warming is legitimate, but I still would tell you that skepticism is definitely a proper part of science. I am a scientist who stood on the other side of the room for a significant amount of time, not because I was bought by the oil companies, not because I hated the annoying celebrities, not because I was drinking the fundamentalist koolaid, but for reasons of science!
You seem to be telling us that we should not engage in non-scientific thinking, but also that we should not disbelieve scientists. However, this is quite contradictory, because scientific thinking involves an awful lot of disbelieving other scientists! Often, a lot of scientific disbelief is methodological, but if the concerns raised by methodological doubt are not addressed, then that methodological doubt should become real doubt.
Just install linux or other unix'es and it's solved. Start by convincing your friend to buy MS free computers. After 2 weeks of struggle to lose the old habits they will get used and thank you for it.
Wait. I thought the point of getting them to switch was so that they wouldn't get used.
I think it is a states' rights issue. And states' rights issues certainly get me all riled up.
But anyway, no, it is not just about constitutionality. There are lots of other reasons why/. groupthink vehemently opposes the real ID act. I doubt that I need to enumerate them for you. However, this article specifically deals with a challenge by a state to a federal law. Which means that the most pertinent issues at hand are related to the constitution, specifically the concept of states' rights, the commerce clause, and the elastic clause. Again, why do you think this is not a matter of states' rights?
My experience with TI graphing calculators is that they are built like tanks. I don't even know how many times I have dropped mine, with no ill effects at all, and they've both (83+ silver and 89) lasted all the way through late high school and all the way through college (3.5 years now). I have used both quite extensively, too. Perhaps it just got pissed because you weren't using it enough.:)
You can argue, though, that mathematical consistency is still at least indirectly connected to experiment since you're trying to be consistent with other theories which have been experimentally verified.
Indeed, Maxwell's equations were derived wholly from experiment (except the displacement current), and Newton's universal law of gravitation was derived from experiment. Einstein formulated the "correspondence principle", which meant that he required his theory to equal Newton's in some limit, which is more or less equivalent to (although stronger than) requiring his theory to explain the observed astronomical data on the planets.
But yes, as far as relationship to experiment is a sliding scale, Einstein and the string theorists have been perhaps farther from experiment than anyone else. At any rate, anyone else with any success...
However, if you did not look under the car's hood, that is, you had no other experimental data than the fact that the car moves, how would you decide between gas engines and IPEs? You might formulate competing theories, one describing a gas engine, and how it works, and one describing an IPE, and how it works. Both theories predict that the car moves. Which is simpler? Is a description of the workings of a gas engine and how it moves a car simpler than a description of an IPE and how it moves a car? It all depends one precisely what you mean by simple.
One might think "well, I've seen lots of animals, and they run around and push stuff just like I do. Seems very simple. This gas engine thing on the other hand, it is extremely complex. It seems not simple at all to me.", or one might think "well, gas engines are well understood. The internal combustion engine has been completely understood for many decades. OTOH, biology is really only just beginning to be truly well understood in terms of how it actually works, and what makes the muscles contract and all that. Not to mention that the elephant has a brain, and we don't really understand brains well at all."
So, unless you nail down a precise definition of "simple" (and "the opposite of complex" is not precise at all unless you have nailed down a precise definition of "complex" and "opposite" ("opposite" may be obvious once "complex" has been defined, but it also might not.)), Occam's Razor merely becomes a whore to support whichever conclusion you like best.
Of course there are plenty of ways to measure complexity, as noted in your linked page. Which one of them will you choose? Might it be (horror of horrors!) that in many situations there is at least one complexity measure which would wind up supporting each competing theory? Probably not in all situations. But in many situations I suspect this will be the case. Furthermore, in the situation I have described, IPE vs gas engine, do any of the complexity measures even apply? The complexity measures described in your linked page are very formally described things, which supports my claim that a meaningful use of Occam's Razor really requires a formalism.
It is quite easy to say "even though IPEs may move cars, IPEs are not required to move any car known to science", but then again, neither are gas engines. Take any gas powered car. It can be moved without using the gas engine. It can be towed, or pushed, or allowed to roll down a hill. So, "even though gas engines may move cars, gas engines are not required to move any car known to science" is really just as good of an argument. This is simply logic. So, then, according to your reasoning, Occam's Razor should require that we dump the gas engine as well! This is ridiculous, and demonstrates that you have not made a particularly sound argument here.
Of course, if our two competing theories were "cars are caused to move by gas engines" and "cars are caused to move by gas engines and IPEs", and the first theory were sufficient to explain the motion of cars, then it is clear that nearly any reasonable definition of "simple" would lead to discarding the IPE. However, those were not the two theories I described at all. And, even in this case, I strongly suspect that there are definitions of "simple" which would choose the second theory over the first.
Not actually. There were quite a large number of particles around before Gell-mann came up with the Eightfold Way or Path or whatever. They didn't even have much of any way of classifying them (which is why the nomenclature for hadrons is so screwy today). There were certainly not any models predicting the nucleus before Rutherford hit on it, at least not any that carried much weight. Quantum mechanics kind of grew weirdly from various models like the Bohr model of the atom which were entirely based on experiment.
Even string theory has experiment backing it up. No, really, it does. Everyone talks all the time about how string theory has no experimental evidence. Well, no, it has just does not have any predictions which are currently testable which differ from leading other non-string theories. But, think about it. Other, leading, non-string theories don't have any predictions which are currently testable which differ from string theory! That puts it in the same boat as the standard model and friends.
Furthermore, string theory in its original incarnation was motivated by experiment. It was first developed as a rival to QCD. I don't think that any theory ever (with any kind of success) has been just dreamed up in an experimental vaccuum. Certainly not quantum mechanics. Certainly not string theory. Certainly not thermodynamics, nor Newtonian mechanics. Certainly not relativity, either general or special. All have been motivated by some kind of observations. Later, many of them were found to have predictions that were more far-reaching than what had been observed so far.
An ad hoc heuristic for evaluating rival theories is in even worse shape than a formalism in which "simple" is subjective. The benefit of a formalism is that it forces you to recognize which pieces of your argument are subjective and which are not. Using Occam's Razor as a vague heuristic is extremely subjective, and introduces a lot of uncertainty about not only the results, but about what conditions would cause the results to be invalidated. In an informal argument, unless everyone involved agrees precisely about what everything said means, not much information is really conveyed. So, using Occam's Razor as a vague heuristic leaves the definition of "simple" very much more open to interpretation than a formalization of the Razor.
For instance, one use of Occam's Razor which was claimed to me years ago: I could look at a car, and develop two theories, one in which an invisible pink elephant pushed the car, and one in which the car ran on gasoline. The one in which the car runs on gasoline is much simpler, therefore I should choose that one.
In this case, simpler seems to mean "better understood" or "more widely observed". I might counter by saying that a gas engine is a very complex thing, therefore the pink elephant is simpler. This might be countered by citing the complexity of biology, which might be countered by citing the complexity of the physics underlying the gas engine. Before long, we've gotten down to fundamental physics, which describes both systems equally well and equally simply for most values of simple, and thus Occam's Razor cannot distinguish between the two. If we use a formalism, then we can decide precisely what we mean by simple in advance, and then attempt to apply that criterion to the two systems.
If a useful formalism is devised which nails down the meaning of simple, then I'll revise my opinion. Until then, I shall persist in claiming that using Occam's Razor without a clear definition of simple is irrational and not admissible in an argument.
I often do eat a big meal right before I go to bed. If I drink nothing but soda, I get horribly dehydrated. I've actually gotten a hangover from caffeine dehydration before. In high school I regularly slept about 6 hours a night, and I find myself unable to sleep more than about 10 hours at once unless drugged. I don't currently exercise much at all, other than walking to class. I don't have enough money for fast food on a regular basis, but I do cook with high fat nasty stuff, like frying in butter and not trimming steaks.
For each of your suggestions, I've either already tried it and it didn't work, or I cannot try it.
Not so. Man likely evolved in an environment where getting enough food on a regular basis to reach the body's set point was unheard of. In more primitive conditions, with my low set point (if the whole set point idea actually has merit), I probably would have died of starvation (a somewhat humbling thought). Now, perhaps you would contend that this merely means that enough food to reach one's set point is actually too much food in most cases. That's as may be. But I disagree that evolution would dictate that everyone's set point would be healthy.
In my case at least, as much food as I can eat (which is not a massively huge amount, but more than most people like to eat) doesn't cause me to gain weight. That would tend to support this idea of a set point. Now, take someone who is already obese. See if they gain weight by eating a lot. Is there any limit to their weight gain based on how much food they can manage to cram in their stomach on a regular basis? If there is not, perhaps they merely have an extremely high set point. But no limit there could probably be taken as supporting no set point.
I'm 21. I am around 5'11" tall, and weigh about 130 pounds. I'm skinny enough (and always have been, except as a toddler and infant) that people seriously worry that I'm anorexic. I used to be slightly skinnier. When I got my growth, at about the age of 14 or 15 I guess (haven't gotten any taller since), I tended to weigh in just slightly under 120 pounds. So in 6 or 7 years, I've gradually managed to gain about 10 pounds. I'm not really in the dangerously underweight area anymore (although I was for a couple of years in elementary school), but as I said, I would like to gain a little more weight. Preferrably muscle of course, but I'd happily take the fat, too. I'm moving to Ohio from Texas this summer, and I could use the insulation.
I doubt that I will suddenly start gaining weight any time soon. My mother didn't start gaining any kind of weight until her mid-40s, and even then she didn't gain much. She recently went on a low-fat diet to reduce her cholesterol, and accidentally lost 10 pounds. Before her mid-40s, she didn't have 10 pounds to lose without her doctors really freaking out. After losing those ten, she probably doesn't have another 10 to lose now. My maternal grandfather was the same way, and my aunt was actually hospitalized at least once due to being underweight.
True. But 14000 GeV is a much more reasonable number to declare as the mass of any potential micro-black-holes than 1000 GeV. 14000 GeV is an upper bound on the mass. 1000 GeV is just a number inside the potential mass range.
Oh, btw, the particular assumptions being tested are quite fundamental to all successful modern theories, including the standard model and most extensions to the standard model. So, if string theorists have to adjust their theories, well, so will everyone else, too. You might say that string theory is in worse shape because the standard model has at least been demonstrated to correctly predict experiment, but that would not be a good claim. String theory has been demonstrated to agree with current models of fundamental physics in the regions that we have been able to test so far. So, inasmuch as experiment has held up the standard model, it has also held up string theory.
So, if you want to whine about string theorists correcting their models when experiment disagrees with them and then waiting for a further experiment, you might as well whine about ALL SCIENTISTS EVERYWHERE, EVER doing the same thing. That is what science does. Period, the end.
I don't much care for string theory either, but this is a particularly poor criticism of it.
FWIW, if the LHC were going to destroy the universe by any of the numerous means that have been proposed, then cosmic rays would have already done it long since. Cosmic rays collide with every astronomical body all the time, with energies which range both lower and much much higher than anything at the LHC will. Furthermore, if you start counting up astronomical bodies, and assume that the rate of cosmic ray collisions with those is comparable to the rate on Earth (per unit area), then you wind up with an astronomically higher collision rate than the LHC will have. So, if the LHC really had a chance of destroying the universe, it would have almost certainly already been destroyed.
String theory has not been "adjusted" to meet experiment. I'm not really quite sure where this notion comes from. For that matter, I'm not sure where the notion that this is entirely a bad thing comes from.
The standard model is "adjusted" all the time by experimental data. That is, our knowledge of the values of the free parameters in the standard model is changed every time someone gets a new analysis finished. Generally, we just get slightly better precision, but an adjustment is made nonetheless. If we claimed particular values for these parameters that turned out to be wrong, then the standard model would not describe our universe. So, the particulars of the theory are constantly adjusted, but the foundation of the theory is not.
String theory is quite similar, except that you replace free parameters with the topology of space. Now, using topology of space as your degrees of freedom presents a particularly nasty problem because topologies are not continuous like real numbers, so we can't just measure and get a good approximation. We're either quite right or quite wrong if we claim that "x is the topology of space". With the standard model, we can be almost right, and the closer we get to the correct parameter values, the closer our theory gets to right. With string theory, as I understand it, it is all or nothing. However, choosing different topologies, although it does count as an "adjustment" based on data, is not at all an adjustment to the fundamentals of the theory.
In other words, your comparison between theories of fundamental physics and theories describing the solar system is way off base. If anything, the standard model is more like the circles and epicycles than string theory is. The standard model is very ad hoc, and was never intended to be a comprehensive theory, merely a stopgap which described all our experimental data until we could get a better theory. Furthermore, the standard model has been disproven already! Neutrinos have been experimentally demonstrated to have mass, a direct contradiction of one of the first assumptions of the standard model.
Now, I am not in favor of string theory. I hope it does turn out to be wrong. But, at the same time, I am very much more opposed to extremely poor and misinformed "criticism" of string theory. If you don't know what you're talking about, shut up.
Disclaimer: I AM a physicist. I am not a theorist, however, but an experimental high energy physicist. There is a quite good chance that I will be working at the LHC in the next few years.
Superparticles are from Supersymmetry, or SUSY. String theory (or, as it is sometimes called, superstring theory) is a supersymmetric theory, so it would predict superparticles. However, SUSY and superparticles are in no way unique to string theory.
Well, RHIC certainly destroyed us by means of strange nuggets, so I'm betting on monopoles this time. I mean, God wouldn't pick the same outcome twice would He?
More like 14000 protons. 1 proton has a mass of ~ 1 GeV. The center of mass energy (often notated sqrt(s)) at the LHC will be 14 TeV. 1 TeV = 1000 GeV. 14 TeV = 14000 GeV = 14000 protons.
Also, as has been stated, cosmic rays strike our atmosphere (and pretty much every other astronomical object, as far as we know) all the time with much higher energies. Either no black holes are created, or they are not dangerous in the slightest, else the probability that the universe would not be entirely made up of black holes would be quite small.
It is worth noting that GR doesn't really give us much of any predictions either. It makes some predictions for very very simple situations, and it makes some extremely approximate predictions for some not so simple situations (like the entire universe). Beyond that, the math is intractable, and only computer simulation is any good. And even computer simulation of GR is quite difficult.
More likely some dumb reporter thought that the LHC would be a good story, and went and asked somebody at Fermilab, but didn't understand hardly a thing they heard.
That's true, but it turned out that string theory isn't a theory of the strong interaction and is a theory of quantum gravity.
No. String theory is a theory of quantum gravity. It is also a theory of quantum electromagnetism. It is also a theory of the quantum weak nuclear force. It is also a theory of the quantum strong nuclear force. Now, whether it is a good unified theory of all 4 forces or not is another question entirely, and not one I'd care to discuss with you in this thread. Whether or not the LHC will test string theory is also another question entirely, once again not one I'd care to discuss with you at this time. But, it nonetheless remains that string theory is a unified theory of all four fundamental interactions. It is also true that it was motivated by work on an competitor to quantum chromodynamics, the current reigning theory describing the strong interaction.
Finally, the LHC was not built to "confirm the standard model". That would be a rather silly reason to build it, since minos has already published results which directly contradict one of the fundamental assumptions of the standard model, namely, the assumption that neutrinos are massless. One of the primary hopes in building the LHC is that it will give us some clue about how to replace the standard model.
Occam's Razor does not simply say that you shouldn't have more assumptions than you need. That is one claim that is often given the name "Occam's Razor". However, there are many such assertions which are sometimes called "Occam's Razor". They are all vaguely similar, but can be interpreted to mean different things. For instance, "the simplest solution is usually the best" is vaguely similar to your "you shouldn't add more assumptions than you need", but not really the same thing at all.
However, Occam's Razor can be formalized. Bayesian Statistics allows us to do this, and furthermore the formalization tells us that one's definition of "simple" is not fixed, and the results of the use of the formal razor depend greatly on one's choice of "simple". From the article:
The statistical view leads to a more rigorous formulation of the razor than previous philosophical discussions. In particular, it shows that 'simplicity' must first be defined in some way before the razor may be used, and that this definition will always be subjective.
So, Occam's Razor should be used only where you first state your definition of "simple", or else its use is irrational.
Slashdot Mirror
I love our dual and mutually exclusive stereotypes of the Republican party. First, its the dumb hicks out in the boonies (who, btw, generally don't have a whole lot of money, generally quite a bit less than people in the cities, and furthermore are often quite nice people), then its the rich and selfish (who, btw, usually don't get to be rich and selfish by living out in the boonies and being ignorant).
/.'s collective opinion of the Republican party amusing.
I'm not a Republican (nor am I a Democrat, yay George Washington and the no-parties-at-all-would-be-desirable stance), but I still find
Science is not, never has been, and never will be "someone". I think that you actually mean "I trust scientists.". Not that that is an entirely bad thing, but you ought to say what you mean.
Finally, it is worth noting that you seem to have confused the GP with fundamentalist Christians. AFAICT, GP was defending the fundies from your attacks by pointing out that they "do not have a monopoly" on denying the truth. This is completely orthogonal to saying "I also deny the truth. Attack me!". It is also completely orthogonal to defending the actual views of the fundies. Your vitriol is misplaced, sir.
FWIW, I am a scientist. Specifically a physicist. I remained skeptical of global warming for a long time after most of
You seem to be telling us that we should not engage in non-scientific thinking, but also that we should not disbelieve scientists. However, this is quite contradictory, because scientific thinking involves an awful lot of disbelieving other scientists! Often, a lot of scientific disbelief is methodological, but if the concerns raised by methodological doubt are not addressed, then that methodological doubt should become real doubt.
I think it is a states' rights issue. And states' rights issues certainly get me all riled up.
/. groupthink vehemently opposes the real ID act. I doubt that I need to enumerate them for you. However, this article specifically deals with a challenge by a state to a federal law. Which means that the most pertinent issues at hand are related to the constitution, specifically the concept of states' rights, the commerce clause, and the elastic clause. Again, why do you think this is not a matter of states' rights?
But anyway, no, it is not just about constitutionality. There are lots of other reasons why
My experience with TI graphing calculators is that they are built like tanks. I don't even know how many times I have dropped mine, with no ill effects at all, and they've both (83+ silver and 89) lasted all the way through late high school and all the way through college (3.5 years now). I have used both quite extensively, too. Perhaps it just got pissed because you weren't using it enough. :)
But yes, as far as relationship to experiment is a sliding scale, Einstein and the string theorists have been perhaps farther from experiment than anyone else. At any rate, anyone else with any success...
However, if you did not look under the car's hood, that is, you had no other experimental data than the fact that the car moves, how would you decide between gas engines and IPEs? You might formulate competing theories, one describing a gas engine, and how it works, and one describing an IPE, and how it works. Both theories predict that the car moves. Which is simpler? Is a description of the workings of a gas engine and how it moves a car simpler than a description of an IPE and how it moves a car? It all depends one precisely what you mean by simple.
One might think "well, I've seen lots of animals, and they run around and push stuff just like I do. Seems very simple. This gas engine thing on the other hand, it is extremely complex. It seems not simple at all to me.", or one might think "well, gas engines are well understood. The internal combustion engine has been completely understood for many decades. OTOH, biology is really only just beginning to be truly well understood in terms of how it actually works, and what makes the muscles contract and all that. Not to mention that the elephant has a brain, and we don't really understand brains well at all."
So, unless you nail down a precise definition of "simple" (and "the opposite of complex" is not precise at all unless you have nailed down a precise definition of "complex" and "opposite" ("opposite" may be obvious once "complex" has been defined, but it also might not.)), Occam's Razor merely becomes a whore to support whichever conclusion you like best.
Of course there are plenty of ways to measure complexity, as noted in your linked page. Which one of them will you choose? Might it be (horror of horrors!) that in many situations there is at least one complexity measure which would wind up supporting each competing theory? Probably not in all situations. But in many situations I suspect this will be the case. Furthermore, in the situation I have described, IPE vs gas engine, do any of the complexity measures even apply? The complexity measures described in your linked page are very formally described things, which supports my claim that a meaningful use of Occam's Razor really requires a formalism.
It is quite easy to say "even though IPEs may move cars, IPEs are not required to move any car known to science", but then again, neither are gas engines. Take any gas powered car. It can be moved without using the gas engine. It can be towed, or pushed, or allowed to roll down a hill. So, "even though gas engines may move cars, gas engines are not required to move any car known to science" is really just as good of an argument. This is simply logic. So, then, according to your reasoning, Occam's Razor should require that we dump the gas engine as well! This is ridiculous, and demonstrates that you have not made a particularly sound argument here.
Of course, if our two competing theories were "cars are caused to move by gas engines" and "cars are caused to move by gas engines and IPEs", and the first theory were sufficient to explain the motion of cars, then it is clear that nearly any reasonable definition of "simple" would lead to discarding the IPE. However, those were not the two theories I described at all. And, even in this case, I strongly suspect that there are definitions of "simple" which would choose the second theory over the first.
Not actually. There were quite a large number of particles around before Gell-mann came up with the Eightfold Way or Path or whatever. They didn't even have much of any way of classifying them (which is why the nomenclature for hadrons is so screwy today). There were certainly not any models predicting the nucleus before Rutherford hit on it, at least not any that carried much weight. Quantum mechanics kind of grew weirdly from various models like the Bohr model of the atom which were entirely based on experiment.
Even string theory has experiment backing it up. No, really, it does. Everyone talks all the time about how string theory has no experimental evidence. Well, no, it has just does not have any predictions which are currently testable which differ from leading other non-string theories. But, think about it. Other, leading, non-string theories don't have any predictions which are currently testable which differ from string theory! That puts it in the same boat as the standard model and friends.
Furthermore, string theory in its original incarnation was motivated by experiment. It was first developed as a rival to QCD. I don't think that any theory ever (with any kind of success) has been just dreamed up in an experimental vaccuum. Certainly not quantum mechanics. Certainly not string theory. Certainly not thermodynamics, nor Newtonian mechanics. Certainly not relativity, either general or special. All have been motivated by some kind of observations. Later, many of them were found to have predictions that were more far-reaching than what had been observed so far.
An ad hoc heuristic for evaluating rival theories is in even worse shape than a formalism in which "simple" is subjective. The benefit of a formalism is that it forces you to recognize which pieces of your argument are subjective and which are not. Using Occam's Razor as a vague heuristic is extremely subjective, and introduces a lot of uncertainty about not only the results, but about what conditions would cause the results to be invalidated. In an informal argument, unless everyone involved agrees precisely about what everything said means, not much information is really conveyed. So, using Occam's Razor as a vague heuristic leaves the definition of "simple" very much more open to interpretation than a formalization of the Razor.
For instance, one use of Occam's Razor which was claimed to me years ago: I could look at a car, and develop two theories, one in which an invisible pink elephant pushed the car, and one in which the car ran on gasoline. The one in which the car runs on gasoline is much simpler, therefore I should choose that one.
In this case, simpler seems to mean "better understood" or "more widely observed". I might counter by saying that a gas engine is a very complex thing, therefore the pink elephant is simpler. This might be countered by citing the complexity of biology, which might be countered by citing the complexity of the physics underlying the gas engine. Before long, we've gotten down to fundamental physics, which describes both systems equally well and equally simply for most values of simple, and thus Occam's Razor cannot distinguish between the two. If we use a formalism, then we can decide precisely what we mean by simple in advance, and then attempt to apply that criterion to the two systems.
If a useful formalism is devised which nails down the meaning of simple, then I'll revise my opinion. Until then, I shall persist in claiming that using Occam's Razor without a clear definition of simple is irrational and not admissible in an argument.
I often do eat a big meal right before I go to bed. If I drink nothing but soda, I get horribly dehydrated. I've actually gotten a hangover from caffeine dehydration before. In high school I regularly slept about 6 hours a night, and I find myself unable to sleep more than about 10 hours at once unless drugged. I don't currently exercise much at all, other than walking to class. I don't have enough money for fast food on a regular basis, but I do cook with high fat nasty stuff, like frying in butter and not trimming steaks.
For each of your suggestions, I've either already tried it and it didn't work, or I cannot try it.
Not so. Man likely evolved in an environment where getting enough food on a regular basis to reach the body's set point was unheard of. In more primitive conditions, with my low set point (if the whole set point idea actually has merit), I probably would have died of starvation (a somewhat humbling thought). Now, perhaps you would contend that this merely means that enough food to reach one's set point is actually too much food in most cases. That's as may be. But I disagree that evolution would dictate that everyone's set point would be healthy.
In my case at least, as much food as I can eat (which is not a massively huge amount, but more than most people like to eat) doesn't cause me to gain weight. That would tend to support this idea of a set point. Now, take someone who is already obese. See if they gain weight by eating a lot. Is there any limit to their weight gain based on how much food they can manage to cram in their stomach on a regular basis? If there is not, perhaps they merely have an extremely high set point. But no limit there could probably be taken as supporting no set point.
I'm 21. I am around 5'11" tall, and weigh about 130 pounds. I'm skinny enough (and always have been, except as a toddler and infant) that people seriously worry that I'm anorexic. I used to be slightly skinnier. When I got my growth, at about the age of 14 or 15 I guess (haven't gotten any taller since), I tended to weigh in just slightly under 120 pounds. So in 6 or 7 years, I've gradually managed to gain about 10 pounds. I'm not really in the dangerously underweight area anymore (although I was for a couple of years in elementary school), but as I said, I would like to gain a little more weight. Preferrably muscle of course, but I'd happily take the fat, too. I'm moving to Ohio from Texas this summer, and I could use the insulation.
I doubt that I will suddenly start gaining weight any time soon. My mother didn't start gaining any kind of weight until her mid-40s, and even then she didn't gain much. She recently went on a low-fat diet to reduce her cholesterol, and accidentally lost 10 pounds. Before her mid-40s, she didn't have 10 pounds to lose without her doctors really freaking out. After losing those ten, she probably doesn't have another 10 to lose now. My maternal grandfather was the same way, and my aunt was actually hospitalized at least once due to being underweight.
True. But 14000 GeV is a much more reasonable number to declare as the mass of any potential micro-black-holes than 1000 GeV. 14000 GeV is an upper bound on the mass. 1000 GeV is just a number inside the potential mass range.
Oh, btw, the particular assumptions being tested are quite fundamental to all successful modern theories, including the standard model and most extensions to the standard model. So, if string theorists have to adjust their theories, well, so will everyone else, too. You might say that string theory is in worse shape because the standard model has at least been demonstrated to correctly predict experiment, but that would not be a good claim. String theory has been demonstrated to agree with current models of fundamental physics in the regions that we have been able to test so far. So, inasmuch as experiment has held up the standard model, it has also held up string theory.
So, if you want to whine about string theorists correcting their models when experiment disagrees with them and then waiting for a further experiment, you might as well whine about ALL SCIENTISTS EVERYWHERE, EVER doing the same thing. That is what science does. Period, the end.
I don't much care for string theory either, but this is a particularly poor criticism of it.
FWIW, if the LHC were going to destroy the universe by any of the numerous means that have been proposed, then cosmic rays would have already done it long since. Cosmic rays collide with every astronomical body all the time, with energies which range both lower and much much higher than anything at the LHC will. Furthermore, if you start counting up astronomical bodies, and assume that the rate of cosmic ray collisions with those is comparable to the rate on Earth (per unit area), then you wind up with an astronomically higher collision rate than the LHC will have. So, if the LHC really had a chance of destroying the universe, it would have almost certainly already been destroyed.
String theory has not been "adjusted" to meet experiment. I'm not really quite sure where this notion comes from. For that matter, I'm not sure where the notion that this is entirely a bad thing comes from.
The standard model is "adjusted" all the time by experimental data. That is, our knowledge of the values of the free parameters in the standard model is changed every time someone gets a new analysis finished. Generally, we just get slightly better precision, but an adjustment is made nonetheless. If we claimed particular values for these parameters that turned out to be wrong, then the standard model would not describe our universe. So, the particulars of the theory are constantly adjusted, but the foundation of the theory is not.
String theory is quite similar, except that you replace free parameters with the topology of space. Now, using topology of space as your degrees of freedom presents a particularly nasty problem because topologies are not continuous like real numbers, so we can't just measure and get a good approximation. We're either quite right or quite wrong if we claim that "x is the topology of space". With the standard model, we can be almost right, and the closer we get to the correct parameter values, the closer our theory gets to right. With string theory, as I understand it, it is all or nothing. However, choosing different topologies, although it does count as an "adjustment" based on data, is not at all an adjustment to the fundamentals of the theory.
In other words, your comparison between theories of fundamental physics and theories describing the solar system is way off base. If anything, the standard model is more like the circles and epicycles than string theory is. The standard model is very ad hoc, and was never intended to be a comprehensive theory, merely a stopgap which described all our experimental data until we could get a better theory. Furthermore, the standard model has been disproven already! Neutrinos have been experimentally demonstrated to have mass, a direct contradiction of one of the first assumptions of the standard model.
Now, I am not in favor of string theory. I hope it does turn out to be wrong. But, at the same time, I am very much more opposed to extremely poor and misinformed "criticism" of string theory. If you don't know what you're talking about, shut up.
Disclaimer: I AM a physicist. I am not a theorist, however, but an experimental high energy physicist. There is a quite good chance that I will be working at the LHC in the next few years.
Superparticles are from Supersymmetry, or SUSY. String theory (or, as it is sometimes called, superstring theory) is a supersymmetric theory, so it would predict superparticles. However, SUSY and superparticles are in no way unique to string theory.
Well, RHIC certainly destroyed us by means of strange nuggets, so I'm betting on monopoles this time. I mean, God wouldn't pick the same outcome twice would He?
More like 14000 protons. 1 proton has a mass of ~ 1 GeV. The center of mass energy (often notated sqrt(s)) at the LHC will be 14 TeV. 1 TeV = 1000 GeV. 14 TeV = 14000 GeV = 14000 protons.
Also, as has been stated, cosmic rays strike our atmosphere (and pretty much every other astronomical object, as far as we know) all the time with much higher energies. Either no black holes are created, or they are not dangerous in the slightest, else the probability that the universe would not be entirely made up of black holes would be quite small.
It is worth noting that GR doesn't really give us much of any predictions either. It makes some predictions for very very simple situations, and it makes some extremely approximate predictions for some not so simple situations (like the entire universe). Beyond that, the math is intractable, and only computer simulation is any good. And even computer simulation of GR is quite difficult.
More likely some dumb reporter thought that the LHC would be a good story, and went and asked somebody at Fermilab, but didn't understand hardly a thing they heard.
Finally, the LHC was not built to "confirm the standard model". That would be a rather silly reason to build it, since minos has already published results which directly contradict one of the fundamental assumptions of the standard model, namely, the assumption that neutrinos are massless. One of the primary hopes in building the LHC is that it will give us some clue about how to replace the standard model.
Not so much. Well. Maybe. But only if you mean armchair physicists.
Of course, nobody would have bet highly on observing a muon, either. "Who ordered that?" --Isidor I. Rabi
However, Occam's Razor can be formalized. Bayesian Statistics allows us to do this, and furthermore the formalization tells us that one's definition of "simple" is not fixed, and the results of the use of the formal razor depend greatly on one's choice of "simple". From the article:
So, Occam's Razor should be used only where you first state your definition of "simple", or else its use is irrational.