The scientific method is supposed to favor evidence over authority, but what happens when certain results don’t fit the dominant models? From the dismissal of the luminiferous aether after the Michelson–Morley experiment to the introduction of dark matter and dark energy, critics argue that physics sometimes protects its frameworks instead of rethinking them. Are these just natural steps in theory-building, or signs that alternative interpretations aren’t getting a fair hearing?
by davideownzall
4 Comments
The physics world is flailing around right now, but in the best way possible. The Standard Model is incomplete so now it’s time to put together a new model and that is really exciting. It’s precisely what science is supposed to be.
There isn’t a reputable physicist out there who doesn’t understand that the more we learn, the more realize we need to learn more. 0
The only people who think Physics is too rigid right now are people who try to push their crackpot pseudoscience and get told off for talking horseshit.
I mean they are still doing M-M with modern equipment and are up to something like no evidence of variation larger than 10^-17 (from Google) and there are still people thinking through variable light speed theories but not a lot of evidence as far as I can tell. The standard model may be due for a shake up but these don’t seem like the crux of a cover up.
The dismissal of the luminiferous aether *was* the rejection of a once-dominant model.
The introduction of dark matter and energy are understood to be imperfect stand-ins for some more basal model (What is dark matter? What is dark energy?) that nevertheless have immense experimental support.
No physicist is going to stand there and tell you that the current understanding of physics is perfect or complete. The mainstream models, however, are some of the most successfully predictive ideas in the history of human knowledge. Dismissing them requires a well-supported claim that they cannot explain and a model that explains not only that claim but all of the other observations that *are* successfully explained by current models.
That last bit, I think, is often the issue. You can’t just take some sort of unexplained problem in, for example, general relativity, design a theory that explains that problem, and then claim to have superseded GR. And physicists *are* currently testing alternatives: numerous experiments testing for theories of modified gravity vs. both relativity and dark matter have been undertaken over the past few years.
Can dogma hinder new results in science? Absolutely. People don’t like being wrong, and there is bias toward “elegance” (e.g. string theory in physics and universal grammar in linguistics). Is this a fatal flaw? In the long term, I don’t think so. People are still testing new ideas, and scientists are still excited about them.