On Tue, Jul 22, 2003 at 12:08:43AM -0500, Dan Minette wrote: > It was the alternate thinkers who insisted that science must describe > reality.
Is Feynman an "alternate thinker"? He said that "the test of all knowledge is experiment". That sounds to me like he thinks scientific knowledge should be about experimental reality. > The answer to whether these particles really have infinite charges is > "shut up and calculate". No, the answer is to hypothesize "they don't have infinite charge" and then come up with an experiment that can verify or falsify the claim. If it cannot be falsified, then the answer is to suspend judgement. Is it so hard for you to say "I don't know, so I will suspend judgment?" > But, the physicists who made progress didn't worry about the reality. > Those that did, got little done. Baloney. Did Feynman get little done? He was certainly concerned whether his theories were experimentally verifiable. > Finally, what happens when there are two models, with very different > descriptions of reality, that both describe observations equally well. > Are both real? Is neither real? That is a problem with your model based definition of science. Science is about testing knowledge by experiment. -- "Erik Reuter" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.erikreuter.net/ _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
