Guy Macon <http://www.guymacon.com/>
wrote:
> Jonah Thomas wrote:
> >Consider the following widespread scientific argument:
> >
> >Quantum mechanics always returns the correct answer for every
> >scientific experiment.
> >
> >With no fudge factors or error bars, QM sometimes provides the
> >correct answer to 20 decimal points. And it never ever fails.
> >
> >Therefore QM is correct and any alternative must be wrong.
> >
> >This argument is often made, minor variations on it are (in my
> >experience) made whenever and wherever someone suggests that there
> >might be an alternative to QM. This is how science is actually done,
> >as opposed to standard scientific method.
>
> I have worked with many scientists, and none of them argue as you
> have done above. Engineers, maybe. Scientists, no. The closest
> to the above that you will find among scientists is something like
> "I have looked at all the proposed alternative theories as well as
> the null hypothesis and found them all to be weak compared to QM.
> Someone may come up with a better theory tomorrow, but right now
> QM is the best theory we have."
That's good. Of course I don't hear physicists discuss QM with each
other. I mostly hear physicists and engineers and crackpots discuss QM
with crackpots. I noticed this argument regularly on
alt.physics.electromag and sci.physics electromag, for example. And I
hear it at parties, the kind of parties where people argue about QM. It
came up recently on comp.lang.forth, where this argument was stated in a
slightly muted form by John Doty.
I'm glad that working scientists don't talk this way.
incidentally, I haven't followed up the "20 decimal" claim but my guess
is that to get that they are doing something like measuring something's
length against itself and using interference patterns to show that yes
indeed, it is precisely as long as itself. Probably not impressive. But
I haven't actually checked.
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