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RE: Faith has much to do with it...

And yet, I think his frustration is quite common among physicists who are working on string theory. Physics is an empirical science, and theories rise and fall on experiment.

A theory, however elegant, must be falsifiable to be considered science. String theory is undoubtedly that, but until experiments can be proposed and conducted its position will be a tenuous one. Not, however, a completely tenuous one, since it a) is an outgrowth of current, very successful falsifiable theories and b) has been handed to us by mathematics -- a gift of God, so to speak.

I do think he's wrong about faith. IMO, the best science can do is treat its own results scientifically, that is, as provisional. So far, it has been remarkably successful. That's a matter of observation, with the utility of the scientific method itself the falsifiable hypothesis. But it could all stop working tomorrow. Boulders could float away. Water could burst into flame. Science can't say that won't happen, but, since it hasn't, the hypothesis that it will is provisionally judged a failed one.

My point here (yeah, I know, I know, I'm getting to it) is that the acceptance of fallibility extends to all scientific results, and is IMO one of the main advantages that science has over other ways of looking at phenomena, such as philosophical system building or religious belief. Both trap themselves by assuming that our knowledge is complete when it isn't.


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