Any comments about Gryzinski free-fall atomic model?

[swansont]

 

swansont, do you mean the Science article? http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/328/5986/1658

So is quantum mechanical description of dynamics of photoemission satisfactory?

Does being a theory mainstream means that it's satisfactory?

What is untested about Coulomb, Lorentz law and Lagrangian mechanics?

 

 

I can't read the article at the moment. Am I to understand that the paper proposes a non-QM investigation into the issue?

 

Finding a theory "satisfactory" is more of a philosophy question. The main issue with regard to science is whether or not it works.

 

!

Moderator Note

The other questions are non-sequiturs as far as the issue of whether this should be in Speculations or not. If you want to discuss your dissatisfaction with QM, fine. This is where you do that, along with everyone else who have axes to grind regarding mainstream science.

[Bignose]

This way: reproducing ALL experiments seems as quite a lot of work and computer power, especially for small number of persons ... and honestly: would anybody really looked at it (if now nobody do it) ...

 

It is of no consequence to me how it happens, but you are the one seeking "equivalence" between two models -- that can only happen if they both give the same accuracy of predictions. Science does not care if it is one person working on it, or tens of millions of people working on it. it just has to happen.

 

Until it has been demonstrated that the Gryzinski model can equal the accuracy of all of QMs predictions, it will be inferior.

 

And, I am actually an engineer by training, so, fitted parameters really don't bother me. There is an awful lot of engineering that has occurred in the world using equations of an "it works" variety, and still a lot going on today. That does not mean that better, more rigorous, more complete equations cannot come along some day. But, until those new equations can demonstrate that they work as well or better than the old ones, then they are considered inferior. It is the only objective way to be fair about the situation. Science, and scientists, prefer the models that predict the most amount of phenomena the most accurately. Demonstrate that Gryzinski's model does that, and it will be declared "equivalent". If you don't or can't or won't, then Gryzinski's model is inferior to QM, despite whatever misgivings about QM you have or how much you like Gryzinski's model.

 

Accuracy of predictions is everything.

[Duda Jarek]

Great ... this thread shows well social situation:

Glorious inconceivable quantum mechanics is rightful fundamental theory if for each experiment we can find finite number of fitted modifications to get agreement.

While Coulomb law + Lorentz law + Lagrangian mechanics is right if it straightforward agree with ALL experiments ... but still nobody would even read it ...

 

So how such paper could say something bad about almighty QM, hurting feelings of its worshipers ... I can believe they will finally find a finite number of corrections and new exciting expansions to fit it to experiment ...

I give up.

Please wake me up if you finally have a tiny concrete argument that they cannot be just equivalent - different views on the same ... ?

cheers

[swansont]

If you want to show that they are equivalent, by all means do so. Stop having a hissy because people ask for evidence, and because quantum physics doesn't give you a warm cuddly feeling.

[Duda Jarek]

1) I've given you concrete way of thinking that both models have the same basis - doesn't it mean that their consequences are also the same? - please finally give me any concrete counterargument? or

2) Please give me any concrete comment to his papers/lecture in which he shows many situation in which classical picture gives straightforward good correspondence, while quantum calculations require introducing new heuristic fitted coefficients - doesn't it mean that this theory itself doesn't agree with experiment? or

3) Do you believe that particles have also corpuscular nature? Pleeeeeeese give me finally any concrete (counter)argument that these two worlds cannot be just equivalent? That this poor little electron just have to constantly worry to which kingdom he has to magically jump now?

 

Please stop praising glorious QM, defending with blind faith presenting "We are the Quantum, you will be assimilated", but if you call yourself a scientist, start responding to concrete arguments I gave ... finally give me anything concrete I could finally discuss with (and better than with this angular momentum) ...

 

You want agreement with all experiments - which precisely experiments you are referring to? - that can be understood not in both, but in quantum picture only?

Please comment this sample: http://www.ipj.gov.pl/~gryzinski/hydrogen_atom%20html.htm

 

We have interference on water, Mallus law ('squares') in classical electromagnetism ... maybe you are referring to the most 'quantum': computers?

Such algorithms are working on fixed finite number of qbits, untrue?

Quantum field theories are needed to work with potentially infinite number of quantum objects - to work with fixed finite number it's enough to work with classical field theories, like tensor product of Klein-Gordon equations - it's exactly the picture I would like to understand why you think it's not enough?

Field theories governed by Lagrangian mechanics are about optimizing four-dimensional action - that each point of space-time is in equilibrium with its four-dimensional neighborhood ... this CPT conserving picture is different from our intuitive causality one and for example allow for 'quantum' computations: http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/49246-four-dimensional-understanding-of-quantum-computers/

About potentially infinite number - QFT is abstract completely general way to represent them ... but look at nice animation here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topological_defect - in field theories with solitons, we automatically also get potentially infinite number of them in much simpler way not leading to infinities ... and they can have simultaneously corpuscular and wave nature ...

 

Which experiments you are referring to - that cannot be understood using (nonlinear: soliton) classical field theory (like Klein-Gordon or skyrmion models of baryons), but needs something more?

What will be always still missing here?

Edited August 29, 2010 by Duda Jarek

[Bignose]

Please stop praising glorious QM, defending with blind faith presenting "We are the Quantum, you will be assimilated", but if you call yourself a scientist, start responding to concrete arguments I gave ... finally give me anything concrete I could finally discuss with (and better than with this angular momentum) ...

 

The "faith" is NOT blind. D. Greenberger, K. Hentschel, F. Weinert, eds., 2009. Compendium of quantum physics, Concepts, experiments, history and philosophy gives numerous predictions and and shows how well the experimental results agree. That is NOT blind -- and it certainly isn't faith. This is the basic definition of theory agreeing with experiment. This book has the numerous concrete examples of which you seek. Please go and find this book or one of the many like it.

 

And, if you call yourself a scientist, please understand that the predictive capabilities of the model is of paramount importance. In the end, it doesn't matter if there are zero or 3 million fitted parameters. If the model makes accurate predictions, that is all it needs. YOU need to show that your model makes the same accurate predictions as QM. (And, you should probably know that Coulomb's law and Lorentz's Law have fitted parameters, too. Every theory or law does: Even F=ma has a parameter of 1, because there is not inherent reason force has to be exactly equal to mass times acceleration. So, I'd drop this objection to fitted coefficients. Your model has them too, it doesn't make any model better or worse to have them.)

 

This isn't "faith". This isn't blind. It is the very opposite of blind because the agreement between QM predictions and experiment are out there for all to see. All that is being asked for is that your model do the same. Show the agreement between your model and experiment. If anything, you are asking us to take YOUR model on faith. Blind faith, because I haven't seen predictions your model makes that agrees with experiment.

 

Lastly, and once again, that doesn't mean it won't ever. It is just that the work needs to be done. Right now QM will reign supreme because it has the predictions that agree well with experiments. If you want to change that, I suggest you start making predictions with your model. Because until those predictions are made, this is just story telling. It certainly isn't science. The more accurate predictions your model can be demonstrated to make, the more attention it will get. That is how science works.

 

So, rather than wailing and gnashing your teeth and rending your clothes about "blind faith", why don't you actually do something that will further your cause? Like generating predictions and publishing how well they agree with experiment. If you do that, your model will start getting attention. Without it, there is very little point trying to have a scientific discussion about it, because there isn't being any science done.

 

So, how about you try to stay away from bullet points in the crackpot index ( http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/crackpot.html -- you're skirting awfully close to #34), and start making testable predictions with your model? How about you actually do some science?

[Duda Jarek]

By 'blind faith' I meant the belief that common classical picture cannot get near glorious quantum picture - it's not about saying that one of them is wrong, but just oppositely - that both are correct - just different pictures:

- classical sees from corpuscular nature of particles, through concrete spatial situation and

- quantum from wave nature - from eigenstates of evolution operator, which for linear theories are just plane waves (on water, EM, gravitational), while for nonlinear they are more complicated (like atomic orbitals, or solitons) - what is important is its 'internal periodic motion' with time passing - simultaneous rotation of phases for all coordinates - so called unitary evolution.

 

And generally no - using just Coulomb+Lorentz force doesn't left place for any new fitted heuristic terms - and it looks that they are not needed.

And if some original theory needs such fitted heuristic modifications, it should rather suggest that it's not so perfect ...

 

But I will defend QM in this moment - for example in this hydrogen molecule calculations for only simple Coulomb force full calculations would already need computer simulations ... but they still ignore e.g. magnetic momentums, Lorentz law, nucleus distance oscillations, relativistic corrections etc. ... these fitted guessed corrections are just needed because QM picture requires nightmarish calculations - it's correct picture, but extremely inconvenient for such considerations ...

When we accept that particles have also corpuscular nature (are solitons), we will see probability clouds of orbitals as mainly time average - that orbitals are idealized mathematical tool to represent complicated, energetically stable dynamical situation in simple way - in some situations classical (corpuscular) picture is just more convenient for calculations.

 

And generally this free-fall model isn't mine - this thread is to discuss well documented somebody's work - so I wouldn't even try to disturb it with mine amateur simulations and all the time I ask to relate to peer-reviewed papers about it (not only single enigmatic words) - especially that there is plenty of them...

I can concretely discuss what I've worked on - mathematical arguments showing that quantum picture and picture of classical theories with solitons has the same bases - there is equivalence between them - and so they lead to the same consequences.

 

Please - I really don't and didn't want to hear defending QM!

All the time I'm asking for concrete (counter)arguments against equivalence of these two pictures?

That there is no duality and particles are waves only?

Edited August 29, 2010 by Duda Jarek

[DJBruce]

DJBruce,

His classical scattering theory was widely used (like 450 citings) and I haven't seen nonpositive comments about it (?)

His atomic models are natural consequence - just succeeding scatterings from nearby .. and the only nonpositive comment I've found is this enigmatic 'unsatisfactory'.

One of goal for this thread was to understand this situation - why these understandable, noncontroversial finally working modern successors of well known Bohr model are just unknown and not developed further?

Doesn't this 'discussion' itself suggest that it's rather a sociological problem? - please give me one concrete argument why they cannot be just equivalent?

 

 

The Gryzinkski free-fall model can be considered equivalent to quantum mechanics, and Thagard's criteria allow for a psuedoscientific field to drop that title. However, in its present state it cannot be considered equivalent, and cannot drop that title. I am not sure why you deny the argument that quantum mechanics has been more thoroughly research and has provided many more verified predictions as why they are not equivalent. However, in my opinion that is a perfect argument for why they aren't equal right now.

[Duda Jarek]

I am not sure why you deny the argument that quantum mechanics has been more thoroughly research and has provided many more verified predictions as why they are not equivalent.

Please show me where I was trying to deny it????

No! It was never my point! What I'm fighting with are its magical inconceivable interpretations! - that from the fact that it doesn't see dynamics behind wavefunction collapse, you conclude that there isn't any - it's the problem which lead to indeterminism, inconceivability, splitting universes etc. ... religion instead of understanding!

And all the time I'm asking for these 'verified predictions as why they are not equivalent' - please give one?

 

Ok, once more: do you accept wave-particle duality? - that they are both waves and corpuscles?

Looking at Mach-Zehnder interferometer - photons goes through concrete trajectories (are spatially localized - corpuscular nature) and simultaneously they have some phase rotation for interference (wave nature) - in field theories it means that they are just 'spinning' solitons.

What's your problem with this simple, natural, understandable picture????

 

And doesn't it say that there is hidden concrete trajectory behind idealized representation of this situation: probability cloud of orbital?

And so these 20 attoseconds electrons 'waits' before photoemission observed in the Science article doesn't have to be interpreted by 'blind faith': that it's out of physics (supernatural creature is making decision?) or it's time needed to split universes ... but just electron makes some concrete dynamics!

 

Do you accept wave-particle duality? If yes - what this 'particle' half means for you?

And generally - what do you think about wavefunction collapses?

 

Ps. I've just realized what this situation reminds me: trying to convince creationist that God created us ... through evolution

And to accept it, simple natural arguments are not enough, but they expect proof as fossils of all intermediate forms ... on which they wouldn't even look at.

The problem is the 'misterium' phenomenon religion creates - the overwhelming feeling that it's so amazing that even trying to understand it would be a sin ...

Edited August 30, 2010 by Duda Jarek

[swansont]

What I'm fighting with are its magical inconceivable interpretations! - that from the fact that it doesn't see dynamics behind wavefunction collapse, you conclude that there isn't any - it's the problem which lead to indeterminism, inconceivability, splitting universes etc. ... religion instead of understanding!

 

 

 

Making interpretations and having implications are philosophical issues, not scientific ones. These are not the criteria one uses to determine the validity of the theory.

[Duda Jarek]

I know - like believers can choose creationist philosophy: God created us literally as in the Bible - everything is explained ... or try to search for a deeper understanding by accepting the possibility that God created us through evolution

 

Dear quantunist, please finally explain why you take Schroedinger's picture literally even when we know that there are more precise (Dirac, QFT,...)... and don't accept the particle half in duality, which could allow to see PROBABILITY cloud as a result, not reason?

Edited August 30, 2010 by Duda Jarek

[swansont]

Who said that Schrödinger's picture is taken literally? On the other hand, why insist that the classical trajectory picture should be taken literally when there is experimental evidence that it isn't true?

[Duda Jarek]

So are Schroedinger's orbitals fundamental (reason) or not (result)?

Which experiments shows that they cannot be the result of accepting corpuscle part of duality - that there is some trajectory behind, for example free-falling?

These large number of papers from the best journals, having hundreds of citations strongly suggest that classical scattering works well, do you disagree?

Free-fall model are succeeding scatterings from stationary point nearby - natural consequence for which in succeeding peer-revived papers there is shown often better agreement than for quantum calculations ...

 

Which experiments are you referring to?

Edited August 30, 2010 by Duda Jarek

[swansont]

 

Which experiments are you referring to?

 

Any number of interference experiments, e.g. "which path" experiments, and ones in which the particle interferes with itself. Those do not have classical trajectories.

[Duda Jarek]

Where interference experiments neglect particle nature of particles?

In Mach-Zehnder we have two paths, in double-slit we have more of usually straight classical trajectories ... fulfilling Coulomb and Lorentz law (like in Stern-Gerlach), untrue?

 

Ok, let's start with intermediate picture ... 'intelligent design' analogue - Can we imagine quantum orbital as superposition of many classical trajectories like in these experiments?

In other words - do you accept soliton models (like fluxons, optical vertices, skyrmions) as the basis: on which we introduce quantum mechanics by allowing quantum superposition of multiple scenarios?

 

If yes - if we take such single trajectory ... how would it look like?

Edited August 30, 2010 by Duda Jarek

[swansont]

Where interference experiments neglect particle nature of particles?

In Mach-Zehnder we have two paths, in double-slit we have more of usually straight classical trajectories ... fulfilling Coulomb and Lorentz law (like in Stern-Gerlach), untrue?

 

 

Why ask me for examples if you are going to ignore them in your discussion? I specifically mentioned which-path and self-interference experiments .

[Duda Jarek]

Ignored?????

I thought I've agreed with the essence of these experiments - quantum superposition, haven't I ?

They present superposition of trajectories, untrue?

Does these experiments neglect that orbital is quantum superposition of classical trajectories? - it's what you've promised ...

 

If not, please give some experiment which do it ... or let's go deeper into this intermediate picture

(ps. this post is the analogue of making creationist to admit that children are similar to parents to wake up a possibility of understanding against misterium - to reduce the shock, we have to allow the designer to help sometimes )

Edited August 30, 2010 by Duda Jarek

[Duda Jarek]

Ok - you probably agree that all experiments(???) can be seen as superposition of standard classical trajectories - governed by Coulomb and Lorentz law, that we have solitons in physics, that duality principle has two halves (that children are similar to parents) ... but accepting its logical consequence (natural selection) bites your 'misterium of quantum inconceivability' (creation) - you know that wavefunctions are not fundamental, but really trying to understand: see a deeper picture there, would be against the way of thinking you've built (sin).

 

If you will accept some day that physics(creation) could be understandable, would the next step be removing superposition?

No! Don't worry - we have it also in classical field theories with solitons!

Evolution in classical field theories is governed by hyperbolic/'wavelike' differential operators - in linear theories eigenfunctions of this operator are plane waves and their coordinates 'rotates its phase' with time - evolution can be represented as superposition of independently 'rotating' waves - like on water surface, EM, gravitational waves - interference naturally appears there ...

 

What happens while adding nonlinear potential to this field theory?

You probably say - plane waves will start interact with each other - succeeding powers in its expansion add more complicated vertices to Feynman diagrams ...

But now look at solitons like on this animation - perturbabtive picture would try to build it from plane waves through infinite set of graphs which need renormalization ...

Maybe I'm strange, but personally I prefer to imagine them in standard - localized - classical way ...

Now if we consider single soliton - its evolution is just moving with constant speed, often 'rotating own phase'/spinning (wave nature) - it correspond to eigenfunction of this nonlinear evolution operator.

Now if we have two solitons in the space - until they collide, they practically not interact - evolve independently - we have superposition of move+rotations.

 

How to see now that single soltion/electron can interfere with itself?

The success of quantum mechanics is simplicity of the way it represents extremely complex systems like half-silvered mirrors ...

We think that classical field theories are intuitive, but they aren't - our intuition is governed by past->future causality relations, while Lagrangian mechanics fulfills CPT conservation - it just optimize 4D action: solution in each point of spacetime is in equilibrium with its 4D neighborhood - minimizing stress in all 4D direction, also past and future - spacetime is kind of '4D jello' ...

I don't want to discuss that in this 4D field theory picture, single soliton could synchronize atoms of both mirrors ... so I will use convenient: quantum picture - especially they are equivalent

Let's use perturbative picture to decompose soliton into plane waves ... and voila - plane waves interfere and so against intuition in classical field theories single soliton can interfere with itself

Cheers

 

ps. Here are some papers about making quantum computers on quants of magnetics fields (fluxons) in superconductor - macroscopic solitons: http://www.rle.mit.edu/media/pr150/44.pdf ... look at EM field around electron - aren't they also singularities/solitons ?

Edited August 31, 2010 by Duda Jarek

[Duda Jarek]

Cold fusion is generally classified as fringe science and so I wasn't treating it seriously, but there was recently PhysOrg article about public demonstration of generating 12kW for half an hour from nickel+hydrogen by device in which such amount of chemical energy just wouldn't fit ... it's difficult not to be skeptical about such absolutely revolutionary claims, but it motivated me look closer at this field and so I became aware that there are thousands of papers about cold fusion, hundreds of groups reported excessive heat:

http://www.lenr-canr.org/index.html

If it's not just a massive scum of hallucinations, there is needed some theoretical explanation of such eventual low energy nuclear reactions - one of reasons of rejecting such possibilities was lack of theoretical understanding: used directly quantum mechanics says that probability of tunneling through such repelling barrier between nucleuses is completely negligible.

But what if we can sharpen a bit quantum mechanical probability cloud of electron - try to imagine some movement of localized electron behind this picture ...

Imagine such free-fall electron's trajectories which nearly pass nucleus - its electric field could pull proton behind ... straight to hit the nucleus - localizing electrons make cold fusion much more likely...

And so Gryzinski write in his book that a few days after the Pons&Fleishmann announcement, he explained such phenomena as naturally appearing in his model and it was published in Nature a month later (April 1989). He was enthusiast of cold fusion, had a few papers about it and two patents.

 

The main reason of reluctance to imagine particles as quite localized entities as seen while scatterings, seems to be the interference phenomenon.

But QM doesn't have monopoly for interference - it's completely natural also in classical physics like on water surface ... or I've just found PRL paper reporting interference of macroscopic droplet:

http://prl.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v97/i15/e154101

If we accept particles as shape/structure maintaining localized construct of the field (solitons), there is still interference expected for them - just decompose them into plane waves using Fourier transform and (in linear approximation) plane waves interfere.

It's just that soltions are far from the concept of (various number of) classical particles - there is also extremely complicated communication between them going through the field causing e.g. interference effects. Generalizing this picture into more trajectories leads to Feynman's path integral formulation of quantum mechanics.

 

Classical trajectories can be seen as some useful approximation, for example the base of semiclassical approximation or ... stochastic perturbation - alternative view on such practically randomly perturbed trajectory is that in such case the safe is to assume Boltzmann distribution among possible paths, what as in euclidean paths integrals, leads to transformation of classical trajectories into 'near' (overlapping) quantum eigenstates (presentation)

 

What do you think about the possibility of cold fusion and of localized particles?

[Bignose]

It's been 6 months. How has progress in using the Gryzinski model to make all the same predictions to similar accuracy QM does coming along?

[Duda Jarek]

Classical trajectories cannot give perfect agreement, because they e.g. ignore/simplify extremely complicated communication between particles through the field, which for example allow for interference even for macroscopic localized entities like in linked Couder's paper (here is nice commenting article and more recent from MIT webpage) - analogous interference mechanism applies to particles being shape/structure maintaining constructions of field (soltions), which are much more complicated entities than classical particles - this is the view I'm advocating.

While using so called WKB semiclassical approximation, in lowest Planck constant power order, we use classical mechanical solution - such trajectories are just approximation, which could be useful in context of some phenomenas ... like popular recently cold fusion, what motivated me to write the previous comment.

I don't work on such classical approximations, but on their connection to quantum mechanics (this field is called quantum chaos), but if we are talking about accuracy, it's you who should comment e.g. having many hundreds of citings Gryzinski's paper in which he repairs weak agreement with experiment of quantum mechanical scatterings calculations, by using classical trajectories - what can be seen as the base of semiclassical approximation of QM: in situations when direct QM calculations became too complicated ...

 

Once again - I'm not saying that QM is wrong and classical is right, but that there is deep equivalence between these picture - they are just different views, showing phenomenas from different perspectives ...

I gave dozens of arguments for it - if you are sure that they cannot be just equivalent pictures, that e.g. electron near proton ultimately looses particle half of duality, please finally give a single concrete argument for such brave claims?

Edited January 30, 2011 by Duda Jarek

[Bignose]

Once again - I'm not saying that QM is wrong and classical is right, but that there is deep equivalence between these picture - they are just different views, showing phenomenas from different perspectives ...

I gave dozens of arguments for it - if you are sure that they cannot be just equivalent pictures, that e.g. electron near proton ultimately looses particle half of duality, please finally give a single concrete argument for such brave claims?

 

DJ,

 

I'm going to write it one more time, despite the fact that it has been written many times over in this thread.

 

I am not the ones making claims. You are. In order to back up those claims, you need to provide evidence that the model you support makes predictions that are equivalent to the model in use today. That is all. If predictions from two models are the same, then the models can be considered equivalent.

 

If one model predicts results more accurately, or predicts more results, then it is considered better. That is all.

 

So, again, my question at hand is: How has progress in using the Gryzinski model to make all the same predictions to similar accuracy QM does coming along? If your goal is for both models to be considered as equivalent, then you need to show that both models make the same predictions. A great number of predictions have been made using QM, with experimental backing to show how accurate those predictions are. Can your model do the same?

[lemur]

QM is the theory that agrees with the evidence. It did not come about by ritual and burning of incense, it came about because it was the best fit to experimental results. That you appear to find it mystifying or distasteful is insufficient reason to abandon it. There is only one metric for measuring whether a theory works, and that is its agreement with how nature behaves.

It is common for people to assume that if dogma/faith is based on valid science, this means it is not really dogma/faith. That's a false assumption. It is like saying that worshipping Einstein and refusing to question anything he said is not authoritarian devotion because Einstein was a scientist with proven validity. Dogma and faith are attitudes and practices of followers, not a fundamental quality of the knowledge/ideology itself. If people take a stance of resisting questioning and critical thinking, this results in dogmatic behavior even if the thing they're not questioning is valid science. The best test for validity is when valid knowledge is questioned or replaced by an alternative theory and then evidence leads you back to the original knowledge/theory without having to defend that theory/knowledge against alternatives in the first place, as is common in dogmatism.

 

edit: sorry, just realized that I replied to a many-months-old post. Oh well, I guess I'll leave it rather than erase it.

Edited January 30, 2011 by lemur

[Duda Jarek]

Again and again ... no, it's not my model ... no, it doesn't claim to be the ultimate theory, but only approximation and so please comment these concrete papers claiming that it approximates really well in many concrete situations, often better than quantum mechanical approximations ...

What I feel qualified is to advocate that particle's duality has also corpuscular half and so it should approximately travel using classical trajectory - for example as the base of semiclassical approximation, hydrodynamical formulation.

There is some kind of taboo of remembering about this half of duality while considering electrons near proton - and I cannot get from you a single argument supporting it ...

So do you belief in corpuscular-wave duality: that particles are simultaneously both of them?

How do you see this fundamental principle of QM? How do you apply it to electrons around proton?

[swansont]

It is common for people to assume that if dogma/faith is based on valid science, this means it is not really dogma/faith. That's a false assumption. It is like saying that worshipping Einstein and refusing to question anything he said is not authoritarian devotion because Einstein was a scientist with proven validity. Dogma and faith are attitudes and practices of followers, not a fundamental quality of the knowledge/ideology itself. If people take a stance of resisting questioning and critical thinking, this results in dogmatic behavior even if the thing they're not questioning is valid science. The best test for validity is when valid knowledge is questioned or replaced by an alternative theory and then evidence leads you back to the original knowledge/theory without having to defend that theory/knowledge against alternatives in the first place, as is common in dogmatism.

 

edit: sorry, just realized that I replied to a many-months-old post. Oh well, I guess I'll leave it rather than erase it.

 

But valid science is also based on valid science. How are you differentiating the two? Where's the dogma? How is this just not a whopping huge straw-man, based on ignorance of science?

 

Einstein's work is questioned and tested continually, so that seems to be either another straw-man, or an example that shows an incredible ignorance of the scientific landscape. It's very easy to accuse science of being dogmatic, but for those who are scientists, and have actually spent considerable time learning the basics and arguing pros and cons of an hypothesis, it would be comical if it weren't so pathetic. When you jump in the deep end of a discussion and find out that you're in over your head, it's your own fault for not having learned how to swim. But it's a lot easier to just label the swimmers as witches, and claim that's why they can float.