The trouble with physics

[David Bailey]

I have just been reading "The trouble with physics", by Lee Smolin. It is primarily concerned with the problem, as the Author sees it, that string theory has dominated theoretical physics for 30 years without producing any clear testable results.

Much of the book is concerned with issues around string theory, and although meant for the layman, I found myself skipping some of the most technical parts. It is relevant to our discussions because Lee describes at great length, the way in which theoretical physics departments - and by implication, many other areas of academic science - have become extremely closed-minded. Lee Smolin considers that this is partly responsible for an ever greater concentration of effort on a theory (actually many possible theories, which is part of the problem) that have not born any real fruit.

In passages that are hauntingly familiar, he describes how scientists with a good track record are suddenly shunned if they start to work on non-string theories! I really think he has put his finger on the real reason for the academic response to paranormal data.

He describes the careers of a number of scientists that chose to go against the grain and had to more or less fund themselves for many years. One thinks of course of Rupert Sheldrake, but these individuals were not trying to integrate Ψ and science - only trying to investigate such ideas as hidden variable theories of quantum mechanics!

David

[Mizzark]

I get sick of these skeptics like Novella claiming that psi is treated just like any other area of science as if believers claim that psi is treated any differently than other "out of the box" areas. All "out of the box" areas are treated like garbage by the skeptics, and this is the claim, I believe, that is most often made by psi proponents, even though skeptics try to twist it into psi proponents claiming that only their area of specialty is treated differently. There are serious problems with the fundamental assumptions most skeptics make, and that is the real problem that needs to be addressed.

[Matt Colborn]

Yes, the Smolin book is interesting, and I think it's symptomatic of just how narrow institutional science has become. See also this ebook;

AGAINST THE TIDE
A Critical Review by Scientists of
How Physics and Astronomy Get Done
Martín López Corredoira &
Carlos Castro Perelman (Eds.)

full text here;

http://archivefreedom.org/freedom/againsttide.pdf


I personally think that bureaucracy and exclusivity is strangling innovation in Institutional science. One should also never forget that most research is carried out to (1) devise new and better ways for killing more and more people and (2) to draw in more and more huge profits for corporations. Henry Bauer once commented to me in an interview that science is a now a career and a profession, and hasn't been a quest for truth for a long, long time. Bauer's views on science and 'knowledge cartels' can be found here;

Science Studies

Unfortunately, the way public debates are framed on science mean that people generally end up arguing about science/anti-science, or science/religion, etc. (The 'you are 'for us or against us' thing again).

This means it's very hard to criticize the current form of science because criticisms are often taken as attacks on the principles of 'Science' and 'Reason.' Richard Dawkins is a prime propagator of this way of thinking e.g. his 'Enemies of Reason' series for Channel 4.

A lot of 'Skeptics,' most of whom are NOT scientists, and have not spent time working in institutional science, end up perpetuating this myth by supporting an often very idealised model of 'Science.' Dawkins, for example, has what is to me an unbelievably naive view of 'Science.' I often wonder whether some of them really understand what it is that they are defending....

See here for a rather dystopian of professional science training as a form of brainwashing;

http://disciplinedminds.tripod.com/

I must say that I'm increasingly sympathetic with Feyerabend's ideas that there's no real 'exclusive' scientific method, and that the current forms of science are actually rather totalitarian and ruthlessly exclude other forms of thinking.

If I come across as having a chip on my shoulder about this, you're right. I had a fairly rotten time doing a (mainstream) DPhil., and ended up kicked out of the institution for which I was working, jobless, in debt up to my eyeballs and completely disillusioned about the whole thing. But if you consult some of the references above, you'll see that I'm hardly alone in this.

(However, I have moved on to a large degree from this situation, am rebuilding a career outside academia which I hope will include independent -- probably psychical -- research. I wouldn't go back to academia, though, not after my experiences there.)



Matt.

[David Bailey]

Matt,

There is probably more reading matter there than I will ever get through - but I take your point! Of course, the problem is that there is also a lot of CRAP ideas floating about - partly because the press finds them lucrative to publish - and this makes it extremely hard to distinguish the sound ideas that have been sidelined by the machine, and the garbage.

I left science in 1975, part way through a post doc. I guess I felt a bit disillusioned with the whole process, and also became more interested in computers and software - which were really cutting edge at that time. One thing that amazed me, was that the head of the research group I was in, explicitly admitted to me that there were serious flaws in the equipment, but said he needed to let various people finish collecting their data (perhaps that is the wrong word) before he could do something about repairing them!! My impression is that things have become much worse since then, although the internet does provide a useful check on the worst excesses.

David

[Matt Colborn]

Originally Posted by David Bailey

Matt,
I left science in 1975, part way through a post doc. I guess I felt a bit disillusioned with the whole process, and also became more interested in computers and software - which were really cutting edge at that time. One thing that amazed me, was that the head of the research group I was in, explicitly admitted to me that there were serious flaws in the equipment, but said he needed to let various people finish collecting their data (perhaps that is the wrong word) before he could do something about repairing them!! My impression is that things have become much worse since then, although the internet does provide a useful check on the worst excesses.

David

Interesting. Schmidt's 'Disciplined Minds' give what seems to me a fairly accurate picture of the tortures of the Doctoral process! I think that the internet does indeed help -- which is a reason why some of the defenders of 'mainstream science' are so shrill about it sometimes....

I didn't want to give the impression that I've become bitter about the whole of science -- I wouldn't be mailing on this forum if that was true. Nor that there aren't good people inside the mainstream, or indeed worthwhile research happening. Also, I too find big science projects fascinating -- for example, research in CERN on the Big bang, and I've been an avid follower of the space programme for many, many years. I think that the unmanned missions to Mars are amongst the most exciting things I've seen in my lifetime.

But I think that the achievements of high-profile science often blind us to a number of serious problems in the way that science is done. If you want to get a general overview, then Bauer's paper on Knowledge cartels is probably a good general intro to the issues, without having to wade through it all!


Matt.

[David Bailey]

Matt,

I finally got round to following your link to Martín López Corredoira &
Carlos Castro Perelman's work. The thought that the standard model of the cosmos, in which red shifts measure distance might be wrong, is pretty damn shattering. The fact that several key pieces of evidence are hard to publish is equally amazing.

I am left with the feeling that a large chunk of 'established science' might just fall apart!

I think that if I worked in astronomy or cosmology, I would always be worried that most of the observations require so much theory to interpret them, that if one piece were to fall, the subject might suddenly be left with a pile of raw data and nothing else!

David

[Matt Colborn]

Originally Posted by David Bailey

Matt,

I finally got round to following your link to Martín López Corredoira &
Carlos Castro Perelman's work. The thought that the standard model of the cosmos, in which red shifts measure distance might be wrong, is pretty damn shattering. The fact that several key pieces of evidence are hard to publish is equally amazing.

I am left with the feeling that a large chunk of 'established science' might just fall apart!

I think that if I worked in astronomy or cosmology, I would always be worried that most of the observations require so much theory to interpret them, that if one piece were to fall, the subject might suddenly be left with a pile of raw data and nothing else!

David

David --
Cosmology's one of those fields I find fascinating, but hard to judge because I'm not an expert (a bit like the HIV/AIDS debate). However, my own philosophy is that the further we get from our own every day experience, the more inferential and flimsy our models get. Just how 'real' can the mathematical models of the deep past really be?!

One thing that disturbs me a little is that most dissent in cosmology seem to have evaporated in the last decade or so, maybe because of new evidence, but also maybe because the consensus has been cemented with some pretty big bucks.

Whilst it's true that evidence for the standard model has mounted, there are still what are to me some pretty whacking assumptions in there (dark matter and energy being basically a couple of mathematical fudges -- I won't believe in either until I've isolated 'em. Maybe after big Bang day in CERN....)

I also worry a little that 'evidence' for things like the Big Bang might be in some sense a product of our minds. I watched an interview with a cosmologist recently who commented that it was fortunate how the relatively simple models developed from the mid-twentieth century on have turned out to be mostly correct.... How convenient for us!

However, one should not forget that one needs to have a pretty good grasp of maths/ modern observational astronomy to appreciate the ins and out of the debate, so I personally file alternative cosmologies in the (already bulging!) 'Maybe' file in my brain. What alarms me, as usual, about this debate is the rather unscrupulous treatment of the dissenters....



Matt.

[David Bailey]

Matt,

I think another thing that Lee Smolin's book exposed was that you can have loads of mathematical theories that more or less fit the evidence! He pointed this out with regard to string theory, but he also speaks approvingly of a guy called Ted Jacobson, who thinks Special Relativity might be wrong! If that theory went, there really would be an earthquake in theoretical physics!

There seems to be a real possibility of reaching a state in which there are lots of theories and no rational way to choose between them.

I agree very strongly about the maths barrier. I find it takes enormous effort to even try to understand, say General Relativity, and even when I got a feeling that I understood a bit, it didn't stick! I don't even try any more!

David

[Matt Colborn]

Originally Posted by David Bailey

Matt,

I think another thing that Lee Smolin's book exposed was that you can have loads of mathematical theories that more or less fit the evidence! He pointed this out with regard to string theory, but he also speaks approvingly of a guy called Ted Jacobson, who thinks Special Relativity might be wrong! If that theory went, there really would be an earthquake in theoretical physics!

There seems to be a real possibility of reaching a state in which there are lots of theories and no rational way to choose between them.

David

Yes! This is another reason why I'm pushing for a more pluralistic kind of science. There's no one TRUTH out there, but lots of little 'truths,' each of which reveals the Universe in a subtly different way. Remember all the debate over whether light 'was' a wave or a particle? Well, it behaves as a wave under a certain set of conditions and a particle under a contrasting set of conditions. Both models are 'true' to a degree (and in a sense, neither). We have to go beyond the Aristotelian Either/or.

This is why I'm an instrumentalist and pragmatist, philosophically speaking.

Instrumentalism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Originally Posted by David Bailey

I agree very strongly about the maths barrier. I find it takes enormous effort to even try to understand, say General Relativity, and even when I got a feeling that I understood a bit, it didn't stick! I don't even try any more!

Yeah, its frustrating.... but again, there are some very deep questions to be asked about how closely the maths approximates to reality, especially on the more abstract levels.... I think I'd have done cosmology or physics at uni if my maths hadn't been so poor.... The sort of level psychology's at is very crude in comparison....

Matt.

[Larry Boy]

I began to read Smolin's book today, and one thing I found particularly interesting was that "dark energy" seems to be used much in the same way as the ether was before the turn of the century! That is, it is being postulated - completely in the absence of any evidence - in order to account for discrepancies in certain observations and current theory (general relativity). One thing I find interesting here, is the rhetorics surrounding relativity theory: no observation has yet contradicted it, but only if one assumes the existence of postulated entities! This is nothing but circular logic.

To me, all of this suggests that perhaps relativity is not the final word, but maybe a bigger theory - that includes but transcends relativity (in the same way that quantum physics includes but transcends Newtonian mechanics) - awaits around the corner. This would possibly include and transcend quantum mechanics as well.

As for scientific dissent and the suppression of it, the following site is a good resource:

Suppression of dissent