Of course it is the young ones with fresh intellects who will jump on
things they see as correct. Defending the current paradigm is not a
weakness. It makes the argument much sharper and the possibilty of
truth. It is the very essence of the scientific method, I think. The
creativity of the defense is all to the good.
Just because Einstein muttered about God not rolling dice does not
mean that quantum theory did not go ahead without him. He was not a
high priest who could excommunicate or imprison people he disagreed
with although many people who do not like science criticize it that
way. Not talking about you by the way. What is often seen as
arrogance and deafness to other ideas is just the testing of those
ideas and since these things are at the very edges of understanding
sometimes it takes a long time and a lot of groping around and
sometimes some just do not get it.
I tend to think, and I am probably wrong, that not many are really
happy with the idea dark matter. That is why I thought that an
alternative useful way of explaining things would be jumped on with
some enthusiasm. I also think that cosmology is different.
Cosmologists that originate meaningful statements about the universe
change their minds from time to time. Hawking changed his mind about
black holes a couple of years ago. The academic community that
intellectually tests the ideas often do not have a real stake in the
outcome of a speculation, are entertained by the ideas, play with
them, discuss them with colleagues and may even approach their own
experiments a little differently.
Even the ridiculous nuclear fusion in a bottle idea was listened to
and discussed. Of course it was derided by some because it was absurd
on the face of it. However several experimenters immediately set out
to verify it. When they got no results they investigated why some
would get results and pushed the envelope for careful scientific
method a little farther out.
I did run across some interesting recent facts. I would tend to think
of them as inventors gone corporate rather than scientists though.
Edison was so committed to direct current that he travelled around
the US demonstrating the dangers of alternating current by staging
public electrocutions of animals. He even killed an elephant that
way. The had to make metal conductive boots for her. George
Westinghouse won the war though.
I feel the same way as you about dark matter. It should be
something else that is more elegant that causes gravitation lensing
effect well beyond what would be expected with the observable mass of
a distant galaxy, but dark matter works for now. Phlogiston is
probably a good analogy to what we really understand about it, but I
think people are well aware of the similarity and will be happy to
toss if something more reasonable comes along.
Winsor
Long Beach, California, USA
On Apr 5, 2007, at 5:35 PM, Andrew Fildes wrote:
> If you accept paradigm theory as posited by Kuhn, this does not
> happen. In fact, the dominant group nail their colours to the mast
> and defend it to the death because their entire career has been
> defined by that particular view of the universe. The fact that they
> are smart does not stop them from acting in a very human way. US
> foreign policy is developed by some of the smartest people on the
> planet. Knowing that you are smart can make you very arrogant and
> deaf to other ideas. As the anomalies pile up they make increasingly
> bizarre adjustments to defend the dominant paradigm (Phlogiston has
> 'negative mass'?!!) until the whole thing collapses in a heap.
> Hopefully after they have retired.
> This is why I worry about 'dark matter' - the idea that the present
> cosmological orthodoxy can only be maintained by claiming that 80% of
> the universe is made up of 'stuff' that we can't see or demonstrate
> sounds very much like one of those bizarre anomaly adjustments to me.
> Andrew Fildes
> afildes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
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