Quote:
Originally Posted by freespace
If "accept we are barking up the wrong tree" means "accept our current theories are inadequate", then any 3rd year physics student can tell you this is already the current state of affairs.
As for not having good enough technology, are you saying we should give up because we can't build the machines to test our theories? One must remember that the universe itself is a vast laboratory where events of unimaginable scale and energies play out daily. We need only to point our telescopes in the right places to verify the predictions of our theories. Stellar (pun!) examples would be gravitational lensing and Einstein's Cross.
You are right there is inertia behind existing theories, which isn't surprising given they works so well so often. But this inertia isn't preventing scientists from working on alternatives - you simply do not hear of alternatives because none of them have worked out yet. They are buried in pre-print archives, or in the "Didn't Work Out" tray on some theorist's desk. This gives the impression we aren't trying, when nothing could be further from the truth. However good theories don't grow on trees. It takes extraordinary genius or insight to come up with another general relativity or quantum field theory. As our theories get better, it becomes harder to come up with even better theories.
Proving existing theories being wrong isn't enough. You need a better model to take its place. Further, even if there is a better model, we don't necessarily have to use or teach it except to a few. An example of this is Newton's theory of gravity: we know it is wrong, but it works well enough. So we teach it and use it because frankly general relativity is far too much work for something as mundane as calculating where the cannonball is going to hit.
Cosmology isn't a monolithic theory. Cosmology is a field of study containing many many theories. Experiments such as one in the article helps to weed out the unsuccessful ones or dethrone the reigning model. As long as these experiments continue to be carried out and bad theories thrown away, in my view cosmology remains a science.
Every time an popular theory falters, a hundred theorists' eyes glint.
Cheers,
Steve
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I agree with all your points Steve except Newton's theory of gravity is
not wrong....
Steven