On the psychological need for unification in physics

[Steve3007]

I think you give a reasonable summary of some aspects of how empirical science works, except for the assertion that it is argumentum ad populum. That implies that it is primarily about canvassing opinions to establish a majority. The foibles of human nature ensure that it might sometimes end up like that, but that is not a correct use of the method. The method is about demonstrating repeatability of experimental results. Science is not democracy. It's not about being in a majority. It's about being able to demonstrate repeatable results. If you can do that, it doesn't matter whether you're in a minority of one. In theory.

Anyway, your description of the way in which the laws/models/hypotheses (whatever you're comfortable calling them) of science are arrived at suggest that, in your view, they are descriptions, not explanations. "Summaries of data" as you put it. So when you say "we are not even close to explaining everything yet" I presume you would add to this that we have never explained anything and never will?

---

Regarding the now-familiar anti-Hawking squawking in many of your posts:

Is it actually based on anything specific in what he has said, or is it just because for reasons not particularly related to physics he is probably the most prominent physicist in the public eye? Or is it just a little running joke?

[YIOSTHEOY]

I think you give a reasonable summary of some aspects of how empirical science works, except for the assertion that it is argumentum ad populum. That implies that it is primarily about canvassing opinions to establish a majority. The foibles of human nature ensure that it might sometimes end up like that, but that is not a correct use of the method. The method is about demonstrating repeatability of experimental results. Science is not democracy. It's not about being in a majority. It's about being able to demonstrate repeatable results. If you can do that, it doesn't matter whether you're in a minority of one. In theory.

Anyway, your description of the way in which the laws/models/hypotheses (whatever you're comfortable calling them) of science are arrived at suggest that, in your view, they are descriptions, not explanations. "Summaries of data" as you put it. So when you say "we are not even close to explaining everything yet" I presume you would add to this that we have never explained anything and never will?

---

Regarding the now-familiar anti-Hawking squawking in many of your posts:

Is it actually based on anything specific in what he has said, or is it just because for reasons not particularly related to physics he is probably the most prominent physicist in the public eye? Or is it just a little running joke?

The community of scientists is clearly argumentum populum.

Never forget that.

There is no group of men (and women) no matter how bright and well educated that can ever be equal to the God(s).

-- Updated June 1st, 2016, 2:44 am to add the following --

Regarding Hawking, he is the most prima donna complete idiot that I have ever seen in science over the past half century.

It's no joke. Until he is gone and his gibberish forgotten there will be no progress in physics or astrophysics.

[Steve3007]

The community of scientists is clearly argumentum populum.

As I said, humans are fallible. They are subject to such things as egotism and group-think. So I'm sure that, in practice, argumentum ad populum does happen in communities of scientists, as in other communities. But the whole point of science is to find a way to avoid argument from blind adherence to authority, whether it's the authority of a king or a majority.

If what you say is true of a community then they are, by definition, not a community of scientists, even if they claim to be one.

-- Updated Wed Jun 01, 2016 10:49 am to add the following --

Regarding Hawking, he is the most prima donna complete idiot that I have ever seen in science over the past half century.

It's no joke. Until he is gone and his gibberish forgotten there will be no progress in physics or astrophysics.

But you're still not willing to say what it is that he has actually said that winds you up so?

-- Updated Wed Jun 01, 2016 10:53 am to add the following --

You appear to have the curious impression that all physicists hang on the words of Stephen Hawking. I don't know why that is, but I can only presume that it's related to his global high profile in the general public eye. As far as physics is concerned, he's just another theoretical physicist among many. Don't fret.

[YIOSTHEOY]

The community of scientists is clearly argumentum populum.

As I said, humans are fallible. They are subject to such things as egotism and group-think. So I'm sure that, in practice, argumentum ad populum does happen in communities of scientists, as in other communities. But the whole point of science is to find a way to avoid argument from blind adherence to authority, whether it's the authority of a king or a majority.

If what you say is true of a community then they are, by definition, not a community of scientists, even if they claim to be one.

-- Updated Wed Jun 01, 2016 10:49 am to add the following --

Regarding Hawking, he is the most prima donna complete idiot that I have ever seen in science over the past half century.

It's no joke. Until he is gone and his gibberish forgotten there will be no progress in physics or astrophysics.

But you're still not willing to say what it is that he has actually said that winds you up so?

-- Updated Wed Jun 01, 2016 10:53 am to add the following --

You appear to have the curious impression that all physicists hang on the words of Stephen Hawking. I don't know why that is, but I can only presume that it's related to his global high profile in the general public eye. As far as physics is concerned, he's just another theoretical physicist among many. Don't fret.

I will fret less when Hawking is dead and gone and someone else takes his place on the tv star shows that is more intelligible and who knows that the scientific model is not reality.

[Aristocles]

(Nested quote removed.)


As I said, humans are fallible. They are subject to such things as egotism and group-think. So I'm sure that, in practice, argumentum ad populum does happen in communities of scientists, as in other communities. But the whole point of science is to find a way to avoid argument from blind adherence to authority, whether it's the authority of a king or a majority.

If what you say is true of a community then they are, by definition, not a community of scientists, even if they claim to be one.

-- Updated Wed Jun 01, 2016 10:49 am to add the following --


(Nested quote removed.)


But you're still not willing to say what it is that he has actually said that winds you up so?

-- Updated Wed Jun 01, 2016 10:53 am to add the following --

You appear to have the curious impression that all physicists hang on the words of Stephen Hawking. I don't know why that is, but I can only presume that it's related to his global high profile in the general public eye. As far as physics is concerned, he's just another theoretical physicist among many. Don't fret.

I will fret less when Hawking is dead and gone and someone else takes his place on the tv star shows that is more intelligible and who knows that the scientific model is not reality.

Is this a pitch for Trump unifying physics for our psychological needs?

[Steve3007]

I will fret less when Hawking is dead and gone and someone else takes his place on the tv star shows that is more intelligible and who knows that the scientific model is not reality.

OK. You're still, to some extent, making me guess as to why you dislike this guy. You haven't mentioned anything specific, like Hawking radiation or something. I guess, from the above, that it is:

1. He is sometimes on TV.

2. In your opinion, he thinks that models are reality.

Ignoring point 1 for now (for hopefully obvious reasons). Could you explain in more detail your evidence for thinking that this particular theoretical physicist, more than any other, has "mistaken the map for the territory" as a previous poster on this site liked to put it.

-- Updated Wed Jun 01, 2016 11:36 am to add the following --

While we're on the subject, you could just dive in at the deep end and explain what this "reality" thing is and the way in which you think it differs from the models we carry around in our heads based on our experiences?

[YIOSTHEOY]

I will fret less when Hawking is dead and gone and someone else takes his place on the tv star shows that is more intelligible and who knows that the scientific model is not reality.

OK. You're still, to some extent, making me guess as to why you dislike this guy. You haven't mentioned anything specific, like Hawking radiation or something. I guess, from the above, that it is:

1. He is sometimes on TV.

2. In your opinion, he thinks that models are reality.

Ignoring point 1 for now (for hopefully obvious reasons). Could you explain in more detail your evidence for thinking that this particular theoretical physicist, more than any other, has "mistaken the map for the territory" as a previous poster on this site liked to put it.

-- Updated Wed Jun 01, 2016 11:36 am to add the following --

While we're on the subject, you could just dive in at the deep end and explain what this "reality" thing is and the way in which you think it differs from the models we carry around in our heads based on our experiences?

Don't make me belabor the point. Move on.

[Steve3007]

OK. It's probably a subject for another thread. It's certainly been discussed extensively on here before. (The subject of the difference between our mental models, based on our experiences, and the thing we like to call "reality").

-- Updated Wed Jun 01, 2016 11:59 am to add the following --

The subject of whether Stephen Hawking is on TV too much has not, to my knowledge, been discussed. Best left that way I guess.

[YIOSTHEOY]

OK. It's probably a subject for another thread. It's certainly been discussed extensively on here before. (The subject of the difference between our mental models, based on our experiences, and the thing we like to call "reality").

-- Updated Wed Jun 01, 2016 11:59 am to add the following --

The subject of whether Stephen Hawking is on TV too much has not, to my knowledge, been discussed. Best left that way I guess.

You can start a Stephen Hawking thread and then we can all complain about him there.

My primary observation of him is that he is like Aristotle and the crystal spheres nonsense.

Philosophy was stifled for centuries after Aristotle because nobody questioned his nonsense.

Hawking has the same issue.

[Steve3007]

Hawking has the same issue.

Well, at the risk of continuing to labour the point, I have to disagree. He's just another average, run-of-the-mill theoretical physicist whose most famous invention/discovery (delete according to preference) is Hawking radiation. It's only his high public profile, due to his illness having captured to public imagination, that makes it seem otherwise from the outside, I suspect.

[YIOSTHEOY]

Hawking has the same issue.

Well, at the risk of continuing to labour the point, I have to disagree. He's just another average, run-of-the-mill theoretical physicist whose most famous invention/discovery (delete according to preference) is Hawking radiation. It's only his high public profile, due to his illness having captured to public imagination, that makes it seem otherwise from the outside, I suspect.

I don't have a problem with his grotesque disfigurement. I actually feel sorry for him.

I just wish he would try to be more coherent when he speaks.

I think coherence for him would come if he remembered that his own complex models are just models.

He seems to me to have built castles in the air and then moved into them himself.

He does not seem in touch with reality or with sanity. But that's another thread.

[Steve3007]

Yes, as I said, another thread about the relationship between models and reality - the map and the territory.

Actually, the idea of a 2nd new thread about physicists with annoyingly high public profiles might have legs. In the UK it's currently Brian Cox who claims that crown much more effectively than Hawking ever did. Brian Cox, a mop-haired telegenic Mancunian with a suitably cool history as a musician is the current carrier of the physics-can-be-cool torch in the media.

[Mark1955]

Yes, as I said, another thread about the relationship between models and reality - the map and the territory.

Actually, the idea of a 2nd new thread about physicists with annoyingly high public profiles might have legs. In the UK it's currently Brian Cox who claims that crown much more effectively than Hawking ever did. Brian Cox, a mop-haired telegenic Mancunian with a suitably cool history as a musician is the current carrier of the physics-can-be-cool torch in the media.

At least he's a practicing scientist, the next name along has to be Dara Ó Briain, although frankly I think science needs every bit of help it can get so even Mayim Bialik helps.

[Steve3007]

Well, Dara Ó Briain isn't a practicing physicists, that's true, but I think he does have a physics degree or something doesn't he? (By the way, well done for going to the trouble of adding the diacritic mark above the O. I just copied and pasted it from you.)

[Sy Borg]

In the 70s the usual complaint was that scientists were not sharing their ideas, being too socially uninterested to communicate their findings without falling into impenetrable jargon. Today that problem is somewhat solved by scientists with communication skills, acting as a bridge between the hard science and public awareness. It's also possible that scientists are becoming more socially adroit through the increasingly managerial role they must take in large operations, with teams of technical officers performing tasks in large hubs - a far cry from the ole world of a scientist with his or her few research assistants working in a small lab full of small glass containers and books.

So an increasing number have the social skills to bring science to the people. Neil deGrasse Tyson is a personal favourite for his balanced views. He is an excellent advocate for the scientific method IMO.