Why should proponents of alternative theories learn accepted science first?

[uncool]

 

The problem is that there are people here, namely swansont and Klaynos, who do not entertain this.

Quote, please?

=Uncool0

[elfmotat]

 

The problem is that there are people here, namely swansont and Klaynos, who do not entertain this.

 

Come on now, you're being silly.

[hypervalent_iodine]

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Moderator Note

gravitational-aether,

 

Please be aware that thread hijacking / derailment is against the rules of this forum. As such, I ask that you please stick to the topic as presented in the OP and discontinue your efforts to hijack this thread with your own pet theories / nonsense. You already have your very own thread for that.

 

Do not respond to this mod note within the thread. If you wish to discuss it or if you take issue with it in some way, please use our report feature to notify staff or send a PM.

 

 

[gravitational-aether]

 

I must say I find this to be quite an extraordinary statement. Can I ask what, precisely, you meant by "better off"?

By "better off" it means not thinking for yourself. It means believing in absurd nonsense such as particles exist in an infinite number of universes instead of understanding the obvious. Edited December 15, 2012 by gravitational-aether

[ACG52]

By "better off" it means not thinking for yourself. It means believing in absurd nonsense such as particles exist in an infinite number of universes instead of understanding the obvious.

 

g_a is of the opinion that actual education is damaging. He is obviously totally undamaged.

[gravitational-aether]

 

g_a is of the opinion that actual education is damaging. He is obviously totally undamaged.

 

That's not what I am saying at all. I am saying the fact that mainstream physics accepts the notion that particles exist in an infinite number of universes simultaneously (many-worlds) means mainstream physics is completely screwed up. You are not better off learning something as absurd as many-worlds. The fact that many-worlds is an accepted theory shows how incredibly screwed up mainstream physics is.

 

This is very simple. If mainstream physics is on the right track and we are better off learning accepted theories such as many-worlds then you should be able to explain what occurs physically in nature in a double slit experiment.

 

The fact that you can't explain something as simple as what occurs physically in nature in a double slit experiment yet accept we are better off just accepting the accepted theories is evidence of how screwed up mainstream physics is.

 

In other words, you're making my point.

[ACG52]

Many-worlds is far from being accepted mainstream physics, and the fact that you think it is simply demonstrates your abysmal understanding of physics.

 

So now you have another forum where you can cut and paste the same things you've been posting for years.

[hypervalent_iodine]

!

Moderator Note

gravitational-aether,

 

You've managed to go against my warning within minutes of my posting it. Anything else that you post in this thread about the double slit experiment or anything barely related to this thread will be removed. Keep in mind also that staff will consider suspension if you continue this.

 

 

[hypervalent_iodine]

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Moderator Note

I've removed the last 10 posts from this thread in accordance with my last mod note. Please stop derailing this thread.

 

edit: (swansont) more OT posts have been removed

[swansont]

So then you acknowledge that there is always room for a new model which has the same domain as an existing model, that disagrees with the existing model, but which agrees with observations?

If the existing model works, it agrees with observations. Which means the new model would have to be more precise somehow, or have a different mechanism.

 

The problem is that there are people here, namely swansont and Klaynos, who do not entertain this.

Excuse me?

[Klaynos]

Excuse me?

I second this.

[mooeypoo]

I've been skimming this circular-argument thread and I thought I'd chime in with an attempt at explaining the original question again.
I think the point may have been lost in the multiple "buy why?" questions. I actually think the original question (in the title, and original post) are interesting and important. So, here's my two cents about it.

 

In the sense that one should have some idea of standard accepted physics before looking into more fringe ideas.

Why?

 

For a number of reasons:

1. Accepted theories in science didn't just land on us by magic or some brilliant "eureka!" day-dream in the bath. Accepted scientific theories are, for the most part, a collection of explanations that were each validated and collated to produce a coherent and consistent explanation to physical phenomena.
2. When we suggest that some fringe science is better than these theories, we should be able to say why -- and in order to say why, we should know what the original theory actually says in full. Otherwise we are easily debunked by people who know the other theory's strengths while we can't answer properly.
3. Knowing what the current theories say and how YOUR proposed theory is better shows people you've done your research, you're not wasting their time, and you know what you're talking about. If I come to you and tell you I have a much better way to produce wind turbines than the current technology -- but I am unable to fully understand how current technology works, and hence why my idea is better -- it is more likely I will sound like a belligerent crank than a person that actually thought this and researched this through.
4. Scientific theories build upon one another, almost all the time. Even a theory that seems to "abolish" another has a large basis in current thought. Einstein's relativity (both special and general) seemed to have "destroyed" Newton's laws of motion when it comes to large bodies - but in fact, it built upon it, only "destroying" some. It wouldn't have existed WITHOUT knowing Newton's work and Kepler's work. It just doesn't work like that (and if you spend time going over how the theory has actually emerged, you'd see it wasn't just Einstein who woke up one morning with a Relative headache and an idea. These things take many years, and much much collaborative work)
5. Fringe science is not necessarily false science, but it is something that requires validation most of the time. In order to know how to test and validate (or invalidate) these ideas, it would be very useful to know how other theories were validated. For that, you need to at least be familiar on the history of the theories that were accepted in science -- and those that were rejected.

Every single one of the scientific revolutionaries - Newton, Einstein, Marie Curie, Kepler, and others - knew what the current and accepted scientific theories stated, deeply and thoroughly, before they started working on their own improvement. Beyond the fact that this gave them a better understanding of how science works and what they would need to "battle" in the "mainstream field" to get their ideas validated, this also gave them the opportunity to learn what the "weaker points" about the current theories are, and see how their new ideas corrected them.

 

For instance, one of the major evidence for Einstein's General Relativity (and there's a LOT of evidence for this theory, as it works consistently, so far at least, with our observations) -- was "Planet Vulcan", or rather the fact that if we calculated the movement of the planet Mercury by the then-accepted mathematical models, we would have a problem with Mercury's perihelion.

 

Quoting the problem:

The final steps to the theory of general relativity were taken by Einstein and Hilbert at almost the same time. Both had recognised flaws in Einstein's October 1914 work and a correspondence between the two men took place in November 1915. How much they learnt from each other is hard to measure but the fact that they both discovered the same final form of the gravitational field equations within days of each other must indicate that their exchange of ideas was helpful.

 

 

On the 18th November he made a discovery about which he wrote For a few days I was beside myself with joyous excitement . The problem involved the advance of the perihelion of the planet Mercury. Le Verrier, in 1859, had noted that the perihelion (the point where the planet is closest to the sun) advanced by 38" per century more than could be accounted for from other causes. Many possible solutions were proposed, Venus was 10% heavier than was thought, there was another planet inside Mercury's orbit, the sun was more oblate than observed, Mercury had a moon and, really the only one not ruled out by experiment, that Newton's inverse square law was incorrect. This last possibility would replace the 1/d2 by 1/dp, where p = 2+ε for some very small number ε. By 1882 the advance was more accurately known, 43'' per century. From 1911 Einstein had realised the importance of astronomical observations to his theories and he had worked with Freundlich to make measurements of Mercury's orbit required to confirm the general theory of relativity. Freundlich confirmed 43" per century in a paper of 1913. Einstein applied his theory of gravitation and discovered that the advance of 43" per century was exactly accounted for without any need to postulate invisible moons or any other special hypothesis. Of course Einstein's 18 November paper still does not have the correct field equations but this did not affect the particular calculation regarding Mercury. Freundlich attempted other tests of general relativity based on gravitational redshift, but they were inconclusive.

 

Also in the 18 November paper Einstein discovered that the bending of light was out by a factor of 2 in his 1911 work, giving 1.74". In fact after many failed attempts (due to cloud, war, incompetence etc.) to measure the deflection, two British expeditions in 1919 were to confirm Einstein's prediction by obtaining 1.98" ± 0.30" and 1.61" ± 0.30".

On 25 November Einstein submitted his paper The field equations of gravitation which give the correct field equations for general relativity. The calculation of bending of light and the advance of Mercury's perihelion remained as he had calculated it one week earlier.

(Source: http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/HistTopics/General_relativity.html)

 

Einstein couldn't have tested and validated (and properly defined!) his theory of General Relativity without knowing how the previously done methods worked. If you follow the way Einstein's theories were composed, you'll see he's using some of those methods extensively. Science usually BUILDS on science, and in order to build on something, you need to kow it -- even if you decide to build on only a fraction of something else, or even if you evnetually decide to first destroy that something.

 

To conclude, I'll share another quote from the same website above:

Einstein had reached the final version of general relativity after a slow road with progress but many errors along the way. In December 1915 he said of himself:

 

That fellow Einstein suits his convenience. Every year he retracts what he wrote the year before.

 

 

That's why.

 

~mooey

[ACG52]

 

New scientific ideas never spring from a communal body, however organized, but rather from the head of an individually inspired researcher who struggles with his problems in lonely thought and unites all his thought on one single point which is his whole world for the moment.

— Max Planck

 

And in almost every case, the individually inspired researcher was an EDUCATED individually inspired researcher.

[Bignose]

 

New scientific ideas never spring from a communal body, however organized, but rather from the head of an individually inspired researcher who struggles with his problems in lonely thought and unites all his thought on one single point which is his whole world for the moment.

— Max Planck

 

Yeah. This quote is a nice sound bite and all. But there is some poetic license in it -- 'never' is obviously too strong a word. There are cases when good ideas come from a 'community'.

 

And maybe most importantly, it doesn't really address the point mooey was making -- namely the importance of being educated about the current state of the problem you are performing research on, not what community one should be a part of. They are not synonyms for each other; however, most scientists would probably say that by being a member of the community and by going to conferences and seminars it helps a significant amount in remaining current. But it isn't required. One could remain current by remaining very diligent in their literature reading.

[rah]

here's my two cents about it

 

There's some telling words here. There are a great number of non-trivial assumptions littered through this post and many of them seem to be unconscious. However, I won't go into them because I'm still waiting for an answer from ajb.

[ajb]

You haven't answered that question. If you answer my question first, I'll be glad to answer yours.

If your theory cannot make predictions of things that are observed, or makes predictions of things that are not observed, talking into account the domain of validity and experimental limits, then how is your theory "good"?

 

[rah]

You've asked me another question which in fact doesn't seem to be related to the issue at hand. You haven't answered the question I asked.

you would not want to have a theory that contradicts what is well established.

Why not?

If your theory cannot make predictions of things that are observed ...

I am asking you why you think one would "not want to have a theory that contradicts what is well established". I can't see how you've gone from that statement to asking me about "theories" that cannot make predictions.

 

 

When you originally wrote "you would not want", you saw some badness as a consequence of having "a theory that contradicts what is well established". To you, there was some negative thing that would result from having such a theory and this negative thing is to be avoided.

 

What I want to know is: what is the negative thing? What is the badness?

[ajb]

What I want to know is: what is the negative thing? What is the badness?

If you do not have some idea about what is known, you will have little chance of adding to our collective knowledge.

 

If your theory does not relate well to nature then it is of little use to the physics community. Unless it is a toy model that is used to explore mathematical concepts and ideas within a mathematical framework.

 

As we do have good models of many aspects of nature, any theory one constructs should be just as good. This is very subtle and it is not always obvious what models are better than a given one. One may have closer agreement with experiments, or widen the domain of validity or have models that are easier to calculate things with; all of which could be seen as "better". Either way, these will be build on existing established knowledge.

 

Generally, your time and effort will have been better spent learning what we do know, rather than postulating "theories" that have no physical basis.

 

 

[rah]

If you do not have some idea about what is known ...

You haven't said what the negative thing is. You've made lots of statements about possibilities that are not necessarily implied.

 

You haven't explained why it's bad to have "a theory that contradicts what is well established". Why do you see it as a bad thing to contradict

what you would find in a text book

?

 

 

As an attempted aid to communication, I'll give an example of explaining why something is bad as a demonstration of the kind of response that would help me understand what you're saying:

 

I think that people are better off avoiding crossing the street when there is traffic. There is a negative consequence to crossing the street when there is traffic. The negative consequence is that one may be hit by a car as one crosses the street. Being hit by a car will likely be physically painful and psychologically traumatic, both of which are very bad. That is why it is bad to cross the street when there is traffic. It is better to wait until there is no traffic.

[ajb]

You haven't explained why it's bad to have "a theory that contradicts what is well established". Why do you see it as a bad thing to contradict?

Because the theory will not match nature well and thus will be useless as a physical theory.

[swansont]

You haven't said what the negative thing is. You've made lots of statements about possibilities that are not necessarily implied.

 

You haven't explained why it's bad to have "a theory that contradicts what is well established". Why do you see it as a bad thing to contradict?

 

 

Yes, he did. "you will have little chance of adding to our collective knowledge"

[rah]

Because the theory will not match nature well and thus will be useless as a physical theory.

Why do you believe that contradicting "what you would find in a text book" necessarily implies that a theory does not match nature well?

Edited December 17, 2012 by rah

[ajb]

Why do you believe that contradicting "what you would find in a text book" necessarily implies that a theory does not match nature well?

That will generally be the case, taking the usual precautions of domain of validity and experimental accuracy. Again, typically a text book would discuss thing that are well tested and established. Depending on details and the level of the text, things discussed will represent the "collective view" of physicists. When you get to research papers and research monographs, things may become more debatable.

 

For example, if you have a theory of classical gravity that is inconsistent with Newtonian gravity, being careful about domains of validity and so on, then your theory is unlikely to be viewed as a "good theory". Newtonian gravity matches nature very well in a large class of situations, we accept that Newtonian gravity is a "good theory", taking into account the situations we expect it to apply well. People were sent to the Moon with this theory!

[rah]

That will generally be the case

Why "generally"? Why not "always"? This seems to contradict your previous, absolute statement:

Because the theory will not match nature well

[ajb]

Why "generally"? Why not "always"? This seems to contradict your previous, absolute statement:

It is possible that a text book discusses models that are not believed to be realised in nature anyway or could discuss models not yet tested. For example, a string theory text book could have both elements: a discussion about the bosonic string and a discussion about superstring phenomenology. The physical reality of superstrings is not confirmed, but string theory is a valid area of research with text books on the subject written.