DailyDirt: Science With (And Without) Verification

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

The scientific method has undoubtedly advanced the growth of knowledge, but with the enormous amount of data that can be collected now, it can be difficult to turn all that information into reliable and understandable facts. On the other hand, science is also pushing the boundaries of what can possibly be measured -- but can we still call it science if we're proposing unknowable multiverses and spatial dimensions that can never be explored? Almost anyone can publish their crazy ideas -- and sometimes those sketchy papers submitted to arxiv.org lead to successful work proving an infinite number of twin primes. Do the crackpots outnumber the "real" scientists? Does it matter? If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.
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Filed Under: arxiv, cosmology, crackpots, experiments, journals, knowledge, multiverses, peer review, physics, prime numbers, replication, science, scientific method, verification


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  1. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2015 @ 5:46pm

    "can we still call it science if we're proposing unknowable multiverses and spatial dimensions that can never be explored?"


    Speculation is not science.

    Simply stating a hypothesis without any corroborating data gleaned from experimentation is just speculation.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2015 @ 7:01pm

    Re:

    I see your logical empiricism and raise you one critical rationalism.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2015 @ 8:50pm

    Re:

    While there may be uncharted areas that can't be explored, one can still map the the shores on the opposite sides.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. icon
    Bri (profile), 5 Mar 2015 @ 10:38pm

    Getting into the realm of philosophy

    "They assert we're in a "post-empirical" period for understanding fundamental physics."

    And that is where we astronomical observationalists laugh at them because their "advanced models", while getting quite a bit right, fail so horribly in other respects to describe what is seen and it just gets waved away.

    However, I did go to a talk at this years American Astronomical Society meeting by Max Tegmark, a leader in the multiverse theories, and he explained several things we CAN observe to at least rule out some of the multiverse theories. There are some proposed observations that, if observed, would narrow it down to one kind of multiverse. I wish for the life of my I could remember what kind of observations he was talking about, but I only work in nearby galaxies so it wasn't something I would add too.

    In the end, unless we figure out SOMETHING to observe, the theories are a bit meaningless because they just play with ideas and don't effect the rest of the science. They turn into really mathematical philosophers. Still, string theory would be so cool if it turns out to be correct.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  5. identicon
    governments NEED pseudo- science, 6 Mar 2015 @ 12:17am

    governments NEED pseudo- science

    governments NEED pseudo- science for the
    global cooling/ global warming/ climate change/ vaccination
    laws
    how could they do tax farming without them?

    mass- Human- farming is not easy these days...

    link to this | view in thread ]

  6. identicon
    TOR Poster, 6 Mar 2015 @ 5:07am

    Seeing how long it takes for response to make it through holdup

    May as well make a use of these kinds of posts and see how long it takes for post to make it through.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  7. identicon
    TOR Poster, 6 Mar 2015 @ 5:09am

    Re: Seeing how long it takes for response to make it through holdup

    Freaking amazing - less than a minute.

    Thanks to the Techdirt team for fixing this problem

    link to this | view in thread ]

  8. identicon
    TOR Poster, 6 Mar 2015 @ 5:10am

    Re: Seeing how long it takes for response to make it through holdup

    Rats, the last post was held for moderation as I suppose this one will be

    link to this | view in thread ]

  9. icon
    orbitalinsertion (profile), 6 Mar 2015 @ 5:52am

    Re: governments NEED pseudo- science

    Sorry, who is just making things up out of thin air, without even the benefit of a speculative (but self-consistent) mathematical framework now?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  10. icon
    musterion (profile), 6 Mar 2015 @ 7:37am

    Let's be more exact in our use of scientific terminology

    One post here points out:"Simply stating a hypothesis without any corroborating data gleaned from experimentation is just speculation."

    And the article: " Some theorists argue that their theories to explain the universe may not be verifiable by observations"

    The post has it correct. The article should have said:" Some theorists argue that their hypotheses to explain the universe may not be verifiable by observations"

    The word theory, unfortunately, does not have a single meaning. On one hand there is the usage of a proven scientific body of facts like "Number Theory" This is not to say that the body of facts explains every thing. Then there is the meaning equivalent in many respect to the word "philosophy" examples: "Marxist Theory". So, the theory of multiverses or dark matter or dark energy are hypotheses that attempt to explain observations or failings of a current theory. These maybe consistent with our current understanding, but are unproven. Unfortunately, some of these hypotheses must be agrees to, or you will not be able to get any funding for your research, try to get funding for work that attempts to disprove "string Theory".

    link to this | view in thread ]

  11. icon
    musterion (profile), 6 Mar 2015 @ 7:40am

    Re: Let's be more exact in our use of scientific terminology

    Sorry, I wrote this without reading the article linked to in Techdirt.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  12. icon
    John Fenderson (profile), 6 Mar 2015 @ 9:42am

    Re: Getting into the realm of philosophy

    This.

    Without the ability to test hypotheses there is no science. It pretty much becomes little more than faith-based belief at that point.

    link to this | view in thread ]


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