November 25, 2005
WELCOME TO THE BALONEYHOOD:
Theory of Anything?: Physicist Lawrence Krauss turns on his own (Paul Boutin, Nov. 23, 2005, Slate)
Lawrence Krauss, a professor of physics and astronomy at Case Western Reserve University, has a reputation for shooting down pseudoscience. He opposed the teaching of intelligent design on The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer. He penned an essay for the New York Times that dissed President Bush's proposal for a manned Mars mission. Yet in his latest book, Hiding in the Mirror, Krauss turns on his own—by taking on string theory, the leading edge of theoretical physics. Krauss is probably right that string theory is a threat to science, but his book proves he's too late to stop it. [...]Krauss' book is subtitled The Mysterious Allure of Extra Dimensions as a polite way of saying String Theory Is for Suckers. String theory, he explains, has a catch: Unlike relativity and quantum mechanics, it can't be tested. That is, no one has been able to devise a feasible experiment for which string theory predicts measurable results any different from what the current wisdom already says would happen. Scientific Method 101 says that if you can't run a test that might disprove your theory, you can't claim it as fact. When I asked physicists like Nobel Prize-winner Frank Wilczek and string theory superstar Edward Witten for ideas about how to prove string theory, they typically began with scenarios like, "Let's say we had a particle accelerator the size of the Milky Way …" Wilczek said strings aren't a theory, but rather a search for a theory. Witten bluntly added, "We don't yet understand the core idea."
If stringers admit that they're only theorizing about a theory, why is Krauss going after them? He dances around the topic until the final page of his book, when he finally admits, "Perhaps I am oversensitive on this subject … " Then he slips into passive-voice scientist-speak. But here's what he's trying to say: No matter how elegant a theory is, it's a baloney sandwich until it survives real-world testing.
Can't defend Darwinism out of one side of your mouth and rip string theory for having no real world validity out the other. People believe in each for aesthetic reasons, not scientific. Posted by Orrin Judd at November 25, 2005 4:11 PM
"Scientific Method 101 says that if you can't run a test that might disprove your theory, you can't claim it as fact."
Not only can you not claim it as fact, you can't even claim it is science.
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at November 25, 2005 4:53 PM
Doesn't this all come full circle? We can't "prove" there is a God, yet we know there is based upon "faith"? (I do, anyway)
They have faith in "science" like Darwinism & String theory, though both are "unprovable" as well.
Eventually they all come to the same conclusion the Pharaoh came to in "The 10 Commandments"
"Their God IS God"
Posted by: Bruno at November 25, 2005 7:43 PMIf it is elegant, it's elegant. For example, how many times have I heard that Apple software is elegant. Nothing else measures up to its elegance. What else matters?
Posted by: Genecis at November 25, 2005 8:12 PMWhy should Political Scientists have all the fun?
jd - Why not? It's science. So is Christian theology. What makes a theory scientific is that it claims to be about reality and acknowledges itself to be subject to empirical test. It's OK that tests for the theory don't exist yet - that leaves something for future scientists to do.
What's unscientific is the unwillingness of the Darwinists to consider alternative theories or to acknowledge the evidence against their theory.
Posted by: pj at November 26, 2005 10:21 AMpj,
"What makes a theory scientific is that it claims to be about reality and acknowledges itself to be subject to empirical test."
That's not quite what a scientific theory is. As such, there are no alternative theories in the scientific sense. ID might turn into a scientific theory at some point, but as it stands it has not even, as far as I know, amounted to a workable hypothesis.
"What's unscientific is the unwillingness of the Darwinists to consider alternative theories or to acknowledge the evidence against their theory."
What scientific evidence against the theory of evolution would you say has not been acknowledged?
Posted by: creeper at November 26, 2005 1:34 PMDarwinists? Is that someone who thinks evolution has, is, and will continue to happen? If so just keep you head in the sand or try "la la la la la I can't hear you". Oh and the earth is flat.
Evolution is testable, and people in the know call it evolutionary theory, not Darwinism. String Theory is intriguing because the math works out, but you need extra dimesions, and the strings are ridiculously small. So the difference between String Theory and ID is that there is a reason String Theory is untestable, reality may make it that way. Its completely reasonable to be critical of String Theory, though that doesn't make String Theorists charalatans like IDers. String Theory arose as a mathematical solution for connecting the quantum world with the rest. ID is pure fiction and completely ascientific. There is no relation between criticism of String Theory and evolution, to claim so is to suggest a lack of basic scientific understanding.
Posted by: Pinko Punko at November 27, 2005 4:42 AMCreationism is likewise an evolutionary theory and just as scientific.
Posted by: oj at November 27, 2005 7:56 AM"Creationism is likewise an evolutionary theory and just as scientific."
Creationism is not a scientific theory, and if you happen to be referring to literal creationism, it has nothing to do with evolution either.
Posted by: creeper at November 27, 2005 11:55 AM"Exactly, just like Darwinism or ID."
Not really:
ID the way it is treated by some as scientific (as far as irreducible complexity and specified complexity go), but does not (yet) amount to a hypothesis or a theory, and for the most part does concern itself with evolution.
Creationism (by which I here mean literal creationism, as I gather you did too) is not a scientific theory, nor a hypothesis, nor does it claim to be scientific, nor does it have anything to do with evolution, but rather creation. It claims that man did not evolve but was created more or less in his present form.
The theory of evolution (which you appropriately left out of this comparison) is a scientific theory and does of course have plenty to do with evolution.
'Darwinism' is a rather flexible strawman you like to bat around at your convenience, and this strawman as you use it is not a scientific theory, but of course it has plenty to do with evolution, otherwise you wouldn't be so obsessed with it.
Posted by: creeper at November 27, 2005 2:43 PMA claim to be scientific doesn't actually make Darwinism scientific. It's just less honest with itself than Creationism for obvious reason.
Posted by: oj at November 27, 2005 2:51 PM"A claim to be scientific doesn't actually make Darwinism scientific. It's just less honest with itself than Creationism for obvious reason."
I didn't say Darwinism claimed to be scientific.
Posted by: creeper at November 27, 2005 3:41 PMThen we're in agreement again.
Posted by: oj at November 27, 2005 3:47 PM