Comment Re:String theory is "religion" for scientists (Score 1) 344
Interesting that you say that you are not a troll and then perform the typical troll action of taking a quote out of context...
If you continue reading the interview you'll find the exact same response that I have been giving you. We will discard the theory when it gives a predication which Nature tells us is incorrect. Also if you continue reading the interview you'll find what people mean when they say that String Theory is a Theory of Everything. What they mean when they say that is: There are 4 fundamental forces (gravity, EM, Weak Strong), String Theory has the possibility to incorporate all of them. This is considered a huge strength as it is highly nontrivial (ie lots of really smart people spent many, many years trying to do it and have only succeeded a couple of times).
Skepticism is a large part of science, indeed it is the primary component to being a scientist. However, you will note that in general to actually be a skeptic you have to actually know what you are talking about. I did make the assumption that decidedly few String theorists or even particle theorists read /..
Mathematical beauty is considered a plus for any theory. It actually turns out that many of early successes of other theories (ie General Relativity) could be explained by much more mundane means, but the mathematical elegance of GR won over many scientists and convinced them that finding other predications from GR to test was worthwhile.
As I believe I have pointed out previously, there are other competing approaches to fixing the problems of the Standard Model. These approaches are taken seriously by many physicists, it is unfortunate that B. Greene's books and the Nova series have convinced you that String theorists and high energy particle theorists work on the basis of peer pressure.
Finally, I do not see why searching for predications from a very nice mathematical framework is not a pursuit of science as you are suggesting. Just because science as it is practiced in the real world does not fit your idea of how science is practiced does not mean that it is not science. The scientific method is a nice abstraction which exists to illustrate to people how science works, but it does have its short comings. I think your main stumbling block is the fact that we are attempting to connect string theory to nature and if it does not work then string theory will be modified or discarded whereas if string theory was a religion we wouldn't care if it described nature and would just revel in the inherent beauty of the theory. You are just seeing a field which is maturing, not a field which has matured.
I find it amusing that a certain subset of /.'ers commonly spout off about things which they know next to nothing, but you do not see me posting on the arXiv about how /. is no longer a news site and has devolved into a soap box for disgruntled computer types.
If you continue reading the interview you'll find the exact same response that I have been giving you. We will discard the theory when it gives a predication which Nature tells us is incorrect. Also if you continue reading the interview you'll find what people mean when they say that String Theory is a Theory of Everything. What they mean when they say that is: There are 4 fundamental forces (gravity, EM, Weak Strong), String Theory has the possibility to incorporate all of them. This is considered a huge strength as it is highly nontrivial (ie lots of really smart people spent many, many years trying to do it and have only succeeded a couple of times).
Skepticism is a large part of science, indeed it is the primary component to being a scientist. However, you will note that in general to actually be a skeptic you have to actually know what you are talking about. I did make the assumption that decidedly few String theorists or even particle theorists read
Mathematical beauty is considered a plus for any theory. It actually turns out that many of early successes of other theories (ie General Relativity) could be explained by much more mundane means, but the mathematical elegance of GR won over many scientists and convinced them that finding other predications from GR to test was worthwhile.
As I believe I have pointed out previously, there are other competing approaches to fixing the problems of the Standard Model. These approaches are taken seriously by many physicists, it is unfortunate that B. Greene's books and the Nova series have convinced you that String theorists and high energy particle theorists work on the basis of peer pressure.
Finally, I do not see why searching for predications from a very nice mathematical framework is not a pursuit of science as you are suggesting. Just because science as it is practiced in the real world does not fit your idea of how science is practiced does not mean that it is not science. The scientific method is a nice abstraction which exists to illustrate to people how science works, but it does have its short comings. I think your main stumbling block is the fact that we are attempting to connect string theory to nature and if it does not work then string theory will be modified or discarded whereas if string theory was a religion we wouldn't care if it described nature and would just revel in the inherent beauty of the theory. You are just seeing a field which is maturing, not a field which has matured.
I find it amusing that a certain subset of
