Allen & Diane Roy wrote:
>
> From: George Murphy <gmurphy@raex.com>
> > When Uranus was found not to follow its predicted orbit, some astronomers
> > decided that something was "missing" and used Newton's laws to discover
> Neptune.
> > When there were gaps in Mendeleev's periodic table some chemists searched
> and found the
> > "missing" elements. When there seemed to be energy "missing" in beta
> decay physicists
> > theorized the neutrino & found it after a 25 year search.
>
> There is a difference in asking "Is something missing?" or "Are we missing
> something?" as opposed to asking "What is missing?" The first two questions
> are exploratory in nature and are a natural part of science. The last
> question makes the assumption that we already know whats what.
There may be a difference but in fact it was the 2d type of question that
Leverrier & Adams &c in my examples asked. L&A had enough confidence in Newton's law of
gravitation to say that something _was_missing rather than accept some ad hoc revision
of that law. Similarly with conservation of energy & the neutrino. That doesn't mean
that such laws can never be changed - as Newton's eventually was when Einstein
introduced general relativity. But there again Einstein thought that something was
"missing" - not something in immediate observations but relativistic invariance was
missing from Newton's law, as well as any reason (other than just accepting as brute
fact) for the equality of intertail & gravitational mass.
> The reason for the exercise we to make us aware of the reasons why we ask
> the quesitons we ask.
& one reason a scientist who is a Christian should ask "What's missing?" is
belief that God created a world which is understandable "though God were not given."
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
gmurphy@raex.com
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
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