The Man Behind the Curtain

I have trouble taking that indictment seriously.Obviously I don't agree with Rothman. As I see it, Rothman misunderstands how science works.Nancy Cartwright has a 1983 book "How the laws of physics lie," where she brings up some of the same points about the laws of science not being accurate descriptions of reality. But Cartwright reaches a very different conclusion from Rothman. She concludes that the laws of physics are presented as they are, because physics works better that way. So Cartwright sees as a positive, what Rothman sees as a negative.The conventional wisdom sees scientific laws as descriptions, found by observation and induction. Cartwright sees the laws as idealization rather than as descriptions. I see the laws as statements of methodology, rather than as descriptions.Rothman is apparently going by the conventional wisdom. And when he sees evidence that does not fit the conventional wisdom, he concludes that there is something wrong with science; he should instead have concluded that there is something wrong with the conventional wisdom.Here's an example: Rothman sees the edifice of science crumbling, because it has to resort to the use of a fudge. By contrast, I see that as a success of science. What Rothman sees as a fudge, I see as a data value that one can measure with some degree of precision.The conventional wisdom and, it appears, Rothman's view, is that science works well because scientists have been able to somehow tune into magical laws that govern the universe. By contrast, I see science as working well because it has vastly increased the amount of data about the world, and with more and better data we can make better predictions. So Rothman sees that "fudge" as a failure of the magical governing rules and as a failure for science as he envisions it. And I see that fudge as a data point, a measurement that we can extract from the situation, a measurement that improves the accuracy of our predictions.I'll also comment on a point where I think Rothman is just wrong. It's been a while since I studied gravity. But I am pretty sure that infinite force only occurs if the two "objects" are point masses. That is, they must have diameter zero, so must have infinite density. So there is no pathology in Newton's law of gravity. The pathology is in Rothman's assumption of point masses and infinite density.A bit more detail. If I dig a deep shaft into the earth, and climb down that shaft, the gravitational force that I experience is only that due to the part of the earth that is nearer to the center than I am. The gravitational attraction of the parts farther from the center than my position turn out to cancel out. I am guessing that Rothman is not aware of that, and mistakenly assumes that the gravitational attractions is the same as if all of the mass were concentrated at the center of gravity.

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Fundamentalism - the anti-American, anti-Christian branch of American Christianity

Sure. But they are idealizations. Nobody supposes that point particles actually exist. And therefore the problem of infinite gravitational force doesn't actually exist, so is a non-problem.

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Fundamentalism - the anti-American, anti-Christian branch of American Christianity

Well, perhaps that's what he means. But in that case, he chose a rather poor way of saying it.When I hear of a physicist talking of ToE (theory of everything), I sense the gleam in his eye that shows that he knows that he is talking of an imagined ideal rather than of anything actually known or knowable. I do think that there is a problem with science journalists who often seem tone deaf and just don't get it. They take obviously speculative statements of scientists as if they are reports of known science. And I suspect there is some feedback, in the sense that this reaction of the journalists encourages scientists to go further out on a limb in their speculative statements.I doubt that many of the scientists are confused.My own theory of everything predicts that there never will be a theory of everything.

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Fundamentalism - the anti-American, anti-Christian branch of American Christianity

Interesting.My interest in physics started in elementary school, thanks to a teacher who introduced me to science. I spent many hours in the local public library reading books on science (mainly physics, but at a level that didn't require advanced math). In high school, we started physics in the first year, and continued through high school.Perhaps my different outlook reflects the way I learned of physics. I never did think physics was about "laws that govern the behavior of the universe."I remember when hearing of Boyle's law (probably in the first year of high school), my own conclusion was that no actual gas behaves that way. It could at most be an approximation. Nature doesn't match that kind of perfect ideal. And when I later heard of Hooke's law, I similarly concluded that there is probably nothing in the world that is perfectly elastic.When I learned of Newton's laws, it was clear to me that those laws were definitions, and therefore they could be mathematically exact in a disorderly world, because they were definitional rather than observational.I often find myself puzzled that most people see it differently, and have what seems to me to be a seriously flawed view of science and of how science works.

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Fundamentalism - the anti-American, anti-Christian branch of American Christianity

That's far too abstract. It isn't clear that it has anything to do with science.Always remember that a stopped clock is correct twice per day, so makes two correct predictions per day. A running clock, that is just a tad off, is wrong all of the time. In the case of those clocks, most people would agree that the running clock is superior to the stopped clock.You pose that question as if "superior" had an absolute meaning. Science is a purposeful activity, and we judge superiority based on how well our purposes are met.If our purpose is terrestrial navigation, then geocentrism is superior to heliocentrism. If our purpose is understand the motion of the planets, then heliocentrism is superior.The myth of the day is that the universe is completely mechanical, and that the vocabulary of "purpose" should be expunged from the language.

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Fundamentalism - the anti-American, anti-Christian branch of American Christianity

I do consider BB to be better than the steady state theory that preceded it.As for the "more accurate model" bit - perhaps Pope Straggler has a direct pipeline to God where he can find out these things. From my perspective, there is no available standard of truth that would allow us to evaluate the accuracy of a scientific theory. We normally evaluate theories on their usefulness. As best I can tell, there is no such thing as absolute motion. There is only relative motion. We can say that A moves relative to B. We cannot say that A moves.We find it useful to adopt conventions, so that we can set a base, and describe motion relative to that base.Science is all about conventions and standards, such as make it possible to have data and to use that data for making predictions. Science is not about "truth". Science typically uses "truth" in terms of compliance with the standards and conventions of science.If you want a notion of "truth" that is completely independent of standards and conventions, you will need to go to religion. But maybe that won't work either, because religion is full of its own standards and conventions.

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Fundamentalism - the anti-American, anti-Christian branch of American Christianity

That's a matter of personal judgment. If you want an accurate description of reality, try journalism. They are in that business. Science is not merely a branch of journalism. It is a system of conventions. Biologists often distinguish between "the theory of evolution" and "the fact of evolution". The descriptions fit with the "fact" part of that dichotomy. It is usually data that are derived from empirical practice that is based on theories. Most data are theory laden. Different theories have different data. From "the planets and sun are orbiting earth" to "the planets and earth are orbiting the sun" is a simple mathematical transformation. There is no factual difference between them. The distinction between them is conventional, not factual.I'm pretty sure that many physicists today would say that the earth, sun and planets are all in free fall in a gravitational field.

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Fundamentalism - the anti-American, anti-Christian branch of American Christianity

The meaning of the word "orbit" comes from usage conventions. And those usage conventions are partly from scientific usage.Just for the heck of it, I looked up "orbit" at "http://onelook.com/?w=orbit&ls=a".Here are the first few definitions:

• Compact Oxford Dictionary: the regularly repeated elliptical course of a celestial object or spacecraft about a star or planet.
• American Heritage Dictionary (redirected to a Yahoo site): The path of a celestial body or an artificial satellite as it revolves around another body.
• Vocabulary.com: To orbit is to follow a circular or elliptical path around a central body.
• MacMillan: astronomy the path that is taken by an object moving around a larger object in space.
• MacMillan (second link): to move around a large object in space such as a planet.
• Merriam Webster: the bony socket of the eye

Mathematicians use the term "orbit" for any path in a dynamical system.

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Fundamentalism - the anti-American, anti-Christian branch of American Christianity

Those two statements are in direct contradiction.

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Fundamentalism - the anti-American, anti-Christian branch of American Christianity