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From: Robert L. Oldershaw on 9 Jul 2010 00:27

From "13.7 - Cosmos and Culture" essay on threats to science
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

But what of physicists who go on the Colbert Report and talk about
time-travel and research in "string theory" as "reading the mind of
God"?

What of physicists selling us a 10^500 universe "landscape".

What of physicists pushing lunatic concepts like "Boltzmann Brains"?

What of physicists multiplying unobservable "extra dimmensions" like
rabbits?

If you ask me, a large part of the problem is right at the heart of
the
Church of Theoretical Physics.

For decades we have selected for physics students with extraordinary
mathematical skills and assumed that they would also be
conceptually sophisticated. Very bad assumption!
More likely: The two are inversely proportional.

For decades we have selected against those with strong conceptual
skills.

We end up with 30 years of untestable Platonic Theories of Nothing.
But worst of all is that the Church resists any real conceptual
advances
in order to protect itself and keep the glass-bead game going.

What an irony! Four hundred years after Galileo's travails, it is
physicists
themselves who have joined with new-age supernaturalists to threaten
the advancement of science.

RLO
www.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw

And by the way: Discrete Scale Relativity 1; QED 0.
From: eric gisse on 9 Jul 2010 01:51
Robert L. Oldershaw wrote:

[...]

> If you ask me [...]

Why would anyone ask you?
From: Robert L. Oldershaw on 9 Jul 2010 13:27
On Jul 9, 1:51 am, eric gisse <jowr.pi.nos...(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> Robert L. Oldershaw wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> > If you ask me [...]
>
> Why would anyone ask you?
---------------------------------------------------

They might want to learn something new, Woofster. Ever heard of the
concept?
From: PD on 9 Jul 2010 18:07
On Jul 8, 11:27 pm, "Robert L. Oldershaw" <rlolders...(a)amherst.edu>
wrote:
> From "13.7 - Cosmos and Culture" essay on threats to science
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> But what of physicists who go on the Colbert Report and talk about
> time-travel and research in "string theory" as "reading the mind of
> God"?
>
> What of physicists selling us a 10^500 universe "landscape".
>
> What of physicists pushing lunatic concepts like "Boltzmann Brains"?
>
> What of physicists multiplying unobservable "extra dimmensions" like
> rabbits?
>
> If you ask me, a large part of the problem is right at the heart of
> the
> Church of Theoretical Physics.
>
> For decades we have selected for physics students with extraordinary
> mathematical skills and assumed that they would also be
> conceptually sophisticated. Very bad assumption!
> More likely: The two are inversely proportional.
>
> For decades we have selected against those with strong conceptual
> skills.
>
> We end up with 30 years of untestable Platonic Theories of Nothing.
> But worst of all is that the Church resists any real conceptual
> advances
> in order to protect itself and keep the glass-bead game going.
>
> What an irony! Four hundred years after Galileo's travails, it is
> physicists
> themselves who have joined with new-age supernaturalists to threaten
> the advancement of science.

Several comments here:
- Some of the things that you hold to be counterintuitive to the point
of ridiculousness have been mirrored in the past. For example, the
idea that two discrete particles could behave as a SINGLE quantum
state and coordinate their behaviors without time for interparticle
communication was considered a violation of a cherished principle of
locality. Likewise, the frame-dependence of simultaneity was once
considered an abomination in the gaze of Newtonian absolute time. How
one gets past that is to isolate predictions that can be measured in
experiment to see if the counterintuitive notions are in fact
supported by data in a way that other models cannot claim.
- I agree that string theory is not really a theory until it generates
predictions that can be tested. However, there have lately been some
suggested tests of the implications of curled-up spatial dimensions
that we may have missed so far. If it turns out those tests do agree
with predictions, then it'd be foolish to reject curled-up spatial
dimensions out of hand.
- I agree that promoting ideas that cannot possibly be tested is not
particulary of value to science and is more of the category of gee-
whiz speculation about physical topics. Gee whiz speculation about
physical topics that cannot be tested aren't really science.
- Much of what you see on TV is not aimed so much at TEACHING about
physics (and so should not be used to learn about physics), but rather
to raise interest about physics. This gives license to talk about the
splashier and gee-whizzier things that aren't really good science.

>
> RLOwww.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw
>
> And by the way: Discrete Scale Relativity 1; QED 0.

And on this, the score is wrong, because you've only taken score on
one test, one that YOU'VE chosen.

QED has done quite well on literally hundreds of experimental tests,
about which DSR says nothing. So in that case, the score would look
quite a bit different, no?

From: eric gisse on 9 Jul 2010 19:05
PD wrote:
[...]

>> And by the way: Discrete Scale Relativity 1; QED 0.
>
> And on this, the score is wrong, because you've only taken score on
> one test, one that YOU'VE chosen.
>
> QED has done quite well on literally hundreds of experimental tests,
> about which DSR says nothing. So in that case, the score would look
> quite a bit different, no?

That aside, his 'prediction' is wrong by 40 standard deviations. When
pressed, he refers to a percentage difference and remarks about how 'close'
the numbers are.

He still has not produced the spectrum of Hydrogen, despite claiming he can
model much more complicated physical systems.
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