GUS said:
So someone on another forum is comparing string theory to "intelligent design" in that its nonsense with no evidence . Is this a fair comparison to make ?
Gus this is an interesting question and, I think, an important one. However it is difficult to discuss freely in a science-focus forum. PF works as well as it does because the categories are kept to rather consistently (with some amusing exceptions).
the thing is, the Baconian tradition of Empirical Science is only about 400 years old and like democracy or the rule of law or tolerance of free speech or whatever other tradition it requires good faith and understanding. And it is fragile like any other human tradition.
So we need to every now and then think about what science is, how it works, how differences of opinion are resolved within the tradition, and what makes a theory PREDICTIVE.
Comparisons like the one you mentioned are like knife sharpening stones that you use to keep the distinctions sharp. there are ways that stringy thinking IS like pseudoscience because even after 40 years it does not risk falsification by empirical observation
(although passionately believed in by its community of believers, who have done a considerable amount of proselytizing.)
and there are ways in which stringy thinking is NOT like pseudoscience.
so by having this kind of discussion you rub the blade of science on the stone of the comparison and keep it sharp.
But it seems like a discussion to have in the context of a "philosophy of science" forum.
I'll just say one thing, two things. Smolin's book The Trouble with Physics...and What Comes Next is absolutely great on these issues. Buy it! or get the local public library to get a copy and borrow it. Fascinating book with in-depth discussion of this.
that was the second thing. the first thing was that to be a scientific theory something must bet its life on the outcome of a future experiment---it must risk falsification.
If a theory is so amorphous it can accommodate any outcome of experiment not already ruled out by previous theory then it is not predictive. to be predictive it has to DISpredict something. So for example GR was published in 1915 and immediately made prediction that could have falsified it, and already GR was tested in 1919 at the next available solar eclipse. It survived the test. And has continued to survive every test people have devised.
It is already tendentious to call stringy thinking by the name "string theory". the name itself is pretentious. Gerard 't Hooft has made this point in a book of his, entertainingly. Stringy thinking is a
framework, or a collection of approaches, or work-in-progress. But it is not a theory in the traditional sense. A scientific theory, to the best of my knowledge, must predict some definite result of a doable experiment thereby putting itself at risk of refutation.
That is about all I feel I can say in the context of this particular subforum. If you want to pursue it and start a discussion in the Philosophy forum about present challenges to the scientific method or whatever---string thinking and the anthropic principle?----let us know in case anyone wants to drop in. I don't know if you could get up a discussion there but I think it would be the place to try.
after all. We can't tell what will happen with research, it's wilder than the stock market!
