Re: [asa] YEC--What can we offer them?

"At the beginning of the 20th century there was no compelling
experimental/observational reason to change Newton's gravitational
theory...."

Of course you're right. Einstein's feat was an achievement of pure
intellect and scientific intuition rarely if ever equaled.

I showed my experimenter's bias. What I should have said was, "Scientific
theories go where experiments and theorists lead." Or would you put
theorists first?

Don

  ----- Original Message -----
  From: George Murphy<mailto:gmurphy@raex.com>
  To: Don Winterstein<mailto:dfwinterstein@msn.com> ;
asa<mailto:asa@calvin.edu> ; Dawsonzhu@aol.com<mailto:Dawsonzhu@aol.com>
  Cc: Randy Isaac<mailto:randyisaac@comcast.net>
  Sent: Thursday, July 05, 2007 3:47 AM
  Subject: Re: [asa] YEC--What can we offer them?

  Don -

  The statement "Scientific theories go where experiments lead" doesn't
quite apply to your initial example of general relativity. At the beginning
of the 20th century there was no compelling experimental/observational
reason to change Newton's gravitational theory, & even the 1 small
discrepancy in the orbit of Mercury could be taken care of with a minor
change in the force law. Theoretical reasons drove Einstein to develop GRT.
Of course if it hadn't resolved the problem with Mercury & predicted the
correct value of light deflection most physicists wouldn't have seen much
need to accept the new theory.

  Shalom
  George
  http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/<http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/>
    ----- Original Message -----
    From: Don Winterstein<mailto:dfwinterstein@msn.com>
    To: asa<mailto:asa@calvin.edu> ;
Dawsonzhu@aol.com<mailto:Dawsonzhu@aol.com>
    Cc: Randy Isaac<mailto:randyisaac@comcast.net>
    Sent: Thursday, July 05, 2007 2:08 AM
    Subject: Re: [asa] YEC--What can we offer them?

    Wayne wrote:
    "I don't really see things like relativity theory being
    as much a paradigm shift as an extension of the limiting
    case of Newton's law of gravitation."

    Newton's gravity is rather the low-velocity limit of general relativity.
And the jump to general relativity constitutes a paradigm shift if there
ever was one: With Newton, there's an attractive force between objects at a
distance that determines relative trajectories; with Einstein, four-space
geometry determines trajectories, where the shape of the four-space depends
on the masses within it. There's no attractive force; objects simply follow
their geodesics in space-time.

    General relativity differs radically from Newton in its way of looking
at space, time and motion. The practical consequences are minuscule
compared with the magnitude of the paradigm shift behind them! Newton was
not wrong, but his theory lacked generality.

    Quantum mechanics revealed that entities at micro-scale behave nothing
like entities at macro-scale. So QM also introduced a paradigm shift,
because the general assumption had been that objects should behave similarly
at all scales.

    In this case physicists were wrong (their "theories were invalidated")
because they assumed objects should behave similarly at all scales.

    Earth scientists early last century were wrong about plate tectonics
because they (often vociferously) derided the idea of continental drift.

    In both these cases--QM and plate tectonics--experimental data shoved
scientists by the seat of the pants kicking and screaming into new
paradigms.

    Therefore I'd revise Randy's claim as follows: Scientific theories go
where experiments lead. In no case have scientists gone back to an old
theory once data and theorists made it clear there was a better theory.
(Exception: Sometimes an old theory still has pedagogical or computational
uses.)

    I'd never say a theory had been validated. Consistent with all data and
able to make good predictions--that's as good as it gets.

    Don

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Received on Fri Jul 6 03:48:23 2007