Roy writes precisely the right thing when he writes:

> In message <[log in to unmask]>, John
>  Lee <[log in to unmask]> writes
>
>  >Why can't half the people believe one theory and the other half believe
the
>  >other and both sides respect each other?  Do we all have to believe the
>  >same theories?  That would stifle alot or creativity and exploration,
>  >wouldn't it?
>  >
>  >John Lee
>
>  'Half and half' might be OK for politics or religion, where these things
>  are a matter of conviction or of faith, but it won't do for science.
>
>  A scientific theory, if it is to merit the name, has to meet certain
>  criteria; it has to fit with and explain the outcome of all existing
>  observations, and it has to predict the outcome of certain
>  yet-to-be-made observations.
>
>  Ideally, alternate theories have to predict different outcomes from a
>  certain observation, and a test of this (the experimentum crucis) will
>  determine which theory survives, and which does not.
>
>  (Note that you can never ever quite prove a theory in science, though
>  you can disprove one, by finding a counter-example to what it
>  describes/predicts).
>
>  Surviving theories carry on until disproved, if that ever happens.
>
>  Label:
>
>  But for me to believe a certain scientific theory, and you to believe a
>  different one, is an unstable situation. If the theories are properly
>  different, we ought to be able to get together and agree on a case where
>  your theory suggests a certain thing will happen under certain
>  circumstances, and mine suggests it will not.
>
>  Then we create those circumstances, and see who is right. After that, we
>  should both hold the surviving theory - or at least, human nature being
>  what it is, the one of us with the wrong theory will have to refine it
>  to fit, or come up with a new one.
>
>  If not both-hold-same-theory then go to Label.
>
>  (If you got here, you perhaps see my point).
>
>  Of course, some crucial experiments are very hard to carry out, or are
>  beyond the reach of current technology - e.g. those requiring access to
>  one or more parallel universes - so scientists can wrangle for years,
>  and be half and half perhaps. But they know how to resolve matters, and
>  ultimately, they will have to do that.
>
>  Who now, for instance, believes in the Steady State theory of the
>  universe? And yet for a long time, many respected cosmologists did. 'Big
>  Bang' was intended to be a term of derision for the opposing theory when
>  it was coined by that champion of  the steady-state theory, Fred Hoyle.
>
>  Of course, not all theories actually get disproved. Einstein didn't
>  invalidate Newton's laws, exactly; he just suggested that they were a
>  good, but insufficient approximation.
>
>  But Newton did think space was a given; although this made him faintly
>  uneasy, he never thought it might bend or stretch. But Einstein did; and
>  when a star popped out from behind the sun a fraction of a second too
>  early [1], when observed in a 1919 eclipse, he was vindicated. That was
>  when the world heard of him, and he started becoming really famous.
>
>  [1] because the light from that star, which was still really behind the
>  sun, was bent round it by a gravitational lens formed when the sun's
>  mass distorted the fabric of space-time round it, like a bowling ball on
>  a trampoline.  And it wasn't just any old fraction of a second early; it
>  was the exact fraction of a second that Einstein had predicted, within
>  the limits of experimental error.
>
>  Finally, as regards creativity and exploration; it takes creativity to
>  think up the crucial experiments, and exploration to carry them out, and
>  to think up new theories. It's superstition, where belief is imposed, or
>  accepted unquestioningly, that stifles creativity and exploration.
>
>  There's plenty enough variety in the world to consider and explore
>  without having to include discredited theories. Anyone for phlogiston?

I wanted to endorse what Roy has written here. I gather from Roy's writings
that his education must have been in Philosophy, and perhaps in the Philosophy
of Science. I say that because no scientist ever speaks of the "experimentum
crucis," although every one of them knows in his gut that's what he's after: a
crucial test to tell which of two contending hypotheses is correct.

A good part of the problem underlying the public understanding of science
lies with the courts and the media. There is a sense that "fairness" should
somehow dominate, that all sides of an argument should be heard, and that anyone
with an opinion is as equally relevant as anyone else.

But there is nothing "fair" nor "democratic" about science. The entire
purpose of the scientific enterprise is to ferret out the way the world truly works,
not to advocate the way you would like it to be. It doesn't matter if
everyone votes for the introduction of perpetual motion machines tomorrow or not, it
isn't going to happen -- and we deeply understand why it won't. Moreover, the
number of believers doesn't matter either. It makes no difference how many
people believe in perpetual motion, UFO's, special creation, intelligent design
or the presence of gods on Olympus, their numbers don't change the truth of our
existence one whit.

But that brings up the second point of Roy's posting: we can never know the
truth with any certainty. We can only demonstrate to ourselves with absolute
certainty what is not true, and that's traditionally been accomplished with
surprisingly simple demonstrations.

When Richard Feynman was in college, his classmates claimed that you don't
have enough bladder pressure to pee while standing on your head. To demonstrate
that that claim was false, Feynman took off his pants, stood on his head,
using his dorm room wall as a prop, and peed with ease while upside down.

That's all science is. But once that "experimentum crucis" was done, no one
should ever again claim that you can't pee while standing on your head, and
they certainly should never demand to get such a claim into textbooks by packing
local school boards with such believers, no matter how many people advocate
that position, nor how much they demand equal time and fairness.

Wirt Atmar

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