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

<p>&gt; &gt; &gt; &quot;The fundamental model is the math.&quot;  &gt;   &gt; I disagree.  For one thing, much of science is not &gt; mathematical.  If the math is fundamental to physics, then one must use &gt; fundamentally different criteria for judging the validity of, say, geology &gt; theories than physics theories.  So I claim that the math is an expression &gt; of the ideas behind the math, and that the ideas are what are truly &gt; fundamental.  </p><p>I deliberately limited my remarks here to gravitational theory &amp; was not trying to address geology.  We'll still probably have to agree to disagree on this.  The sciences that aren't as mathematical as physics aren't as close to the basic level of physical reality as physics.  <u>Please note the qualification &quot;physical&quot;!</u>  I am not saying that physicas is &quot;better&quot; than other sciences or that all truth can be reduced to it.  </p><p>&gt;   &gt; &quot;Einstein needs Newton.&quot; &gt;   &gt; OK,
 but this is just because we weren't smart enough to &gt; look at Einstein by himself and figure out how to interpret him.  Newton &gt; was an invaluable crutch, but now that we've learned how to interpret Einstein, &gt; we can assume ever after that GMm/r^2 as we now apply it comes from &gt; Einstein.  (Can't we?)  (I know how GMm/r^2 is applied &gt; as force but confess ignorance on how it's applied as geometry!)  I'm &gt; not saying Newton wasn't a most important and creative guy, just that he &gt; was wrong in the current big picture of scientific theory.  &gt; &gt;   &gt; </p><p>I'm not saying that Newton was &quot;right,&quot; just that &quot;wrong&quot; is too crude a way to describe the situation.  If you do that it sounds as if Newton was as mistaken about gravitation as Henry Morris was about the age of the earth - which is wrong!</p><p>&quot;Classical general relativity is only an approximation to &gt; a better theory.&quot; &gt;   &gt; I covered this below: &quot;
 Globally &gt; all theories are wrong because none is absolutely true.  What we mean when &gt; we say a theory is correct is that it is the best theory currently &gt; available.&quot;  </p><p>&amp; - how do we know for sure that none is absolutely sure?</p><p>But more to the point - While Einstein's theory is &quot;wronger&quot; than a correct theory of quantum gravity, is &quot;righter&quot; than Newton, whose theory was in turn righter than Aristotle's.  You just need more nuanced language.</p><p>Shalom,</p><p>George</p><p>&gt;   &gt; Don &gt;   &gt; &gt; ----- Original Message ----- &gt; From: George Murphy &gt; To: Don Winterstein ; asa &gt; Cc: Randy &gt; Isaac &gt; Sent: Saturday, July 07, 2007 12:47 &gt; PM &gt; Subject: Re: [asa] YEC--What can we offer &gt; them? &gt; &gt; Don - &gt;   &gt; I can't agree that Newton's theory is simply &gt; &quot;wrong.&quot;  Of course a lot depends on what one understands &quot;Newton's &gt; theory&quot; to be.  Certainly a model in
 which masses exert instantaneous &gt; inverse square forces on other masses which move in accord with F = ma is &gt; inferior to Einstein's model of curved space-time &amp; can't even be &gt; considered an approximation to it:  masses exerting forces are &gt; qualitatively different things from non-Euclidean geometries.  But the &gt; fundamental model is the math.  Newtonian gravitation in that sense is &gt; then Poisson's equation for the potential with mass density in the source term &gt; plus the statement that ma is minus the gradient of the potential.  &amp; &gt; that statement, while not as accurately in agreement with observation as &gt; Einstein's equations, is an approximation to the latter equations under &gt; well-defined conditions. &gt;   &gt; Lest this seem to Platonic, note a couple of other &gt; facts.  1st, when we we want to know how to correlate the math objects in &gt; Einstein's theory with physical entities we look at the Newtonian limit.  &gt; In that
 sense Einstein needs Newton.  &amp; 2d, it's pretty certain that &gt; Einstein's theory itself will have to be extended to make it consistent with &gt; quantum theory, &amp; thus that classical general relativity is only an &gt; approximation to a better theory.  If we apply your criteria it seems &gt; that we have to say that Einstein's theory is &quot;wrong&quot; even though we don't yet &gt; have any observations that it disagrees with &amp; don't yet know what to &gt; replace it with if any discrepancies were to found.  &gt;   &gt; ShalomGeorge http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/ &gt; &gt; ----- Original Message ----- &gt; From: &gt; Don Winterstein &gt; To: asa &gt; Cc: Randy Isaac &gt; Sent: Saturday, July 07, 2007 1:53 &gt; AM &gt; Subject: Re: [asa] YEC--What can we &gt; offer them? &gt; &gt; &gt; &gt; Randy wrote: &gt;   &gt; &quot;By the way...I ended up claiming that, as far as I could tell, &gt; there has been no case where a scientific theory which has been &gt; valid
 ated by data from many independent sources and which is accepted as &gt; consensus by the mainstream community, has been later invalidated. I'd &gt; love to hear of any examples that any of you might think of.&quot;  &gt;   &gt; I wrote earlier that QM and plate tectonics were theories that had &gt; invalidated earlier accepted theories, but &quot;Newton was not wrong, but his &gt; theory lacked generality.&quot;  On second thought I now &gt; claim that Newton also was wrong, that his theory of gravitation was &gt; invalidated by general relativity.  The reason his theory is wrong &gt; is the same reason the others were wrong: they were based on the &gt; wrong models.  &gt;   &gt; Let me explain:  What does it mean for a scientific &gt; theory to be invalid or wrong?  Globally all theories are wrong because &gt; none is absolutely true.  What we mean when we say a theory is correct &gt; is that it is the best theory currently available.  When we say a &gt; theory is the best
  available, we mean that we prefer its underlying models &gt; over those of any competing theory, because those models give results in &gt; some way superior to results of competing models.  &gt;   &gt; So the underlying models--or paradigms, as I've been calling them--are &gt; absolutely decisive in any effort to determine whether or not &gt; a theory is wrong.  While a theory based on the wrong models may &gt; sometimes give good quantitative answers, from the point of view of &gt; theoretical science the underlying models are more important than the &gt; answers (within limits, of course).  Even absurd theories &gt; can sometimes give good answers.  &gt;   &gt; Newton's paradigm assumed space-time was absolute and independent &gt; of masses within, and it assumed masses fall towards one another &gt; because of a force between them acting at a distance.  General &gt; relativity, the better theory, says those assumptions are not &gt; true.  Therefore Newton's theory is wron
 g because it's based &gt; on invalid models.  Even though general relativity gives Newton's &gt; formalism in a limiting case, from the point of view of scientific &gt; theory it doesn't make Newton's theory right.  &gt;   &gt; Science advances in a sort of bootstrap fashion by replacing &gt; current models with new models.  In the process the replaced models &gt; become obsolete as theory--in other words, wrong.  &gt;   &gt; So I'd revise Randy's claim to read as follows:  Scientific &gt; theories go where experiments and human minds lead.  In no case &gt; have scientists gone back to an old theory once data and theorists made &gt; it clear there was a better theory.  (Exception: Sometimes &gt; an old theory still has pedagogical or computational uses.)  &gt; &gt;   &gt; Of course, this may well not be the kind of thing Randy &gt; wanted to say!  &gt; &gt; </p>
George L. Murphy

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Received on Tue Jul 10 20:52:30 2007