There is a very vigorous conversation that is occurring right now in the world of “science.” I put the word science in scare quotes because the very thing under discussion is whether much of the research performed in Physics today could actually be called science. A long and very interesting article in Quanta Magazine titled A Fight for the Soul of Science starts out like this:
String theory, the multiverse and other ideas of modern physics are potentially untestable. At a historic meeting in Munich, scientists and philosophers asked: should we trust them anyway?
It has always been my understanding that if something is not testable or falsifiable in Popperian sense, it did not mean that that something could not lead to truth. It did mean, however, that that something could not be defined as science. Now, a group of scientist want to morph the definition of science to include untestable theories such as String Theory. A conference was held to discuss the issue and that is what this article is about. For those interested in this question, it is a very interesting article. I read through it once last night, but plan to read through it more carefully over the holidays. I am not sure what I think about this, but it is an emotional and important issue for people her earn their living in Physics research.
Betty Blonde #446 – 04/01/2010
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