Science Forums 2

[CraigD]

Originally Posted by KickAssClown

My reasoning for remaining skeptical arrises from the simple fact that these interpertations, by even the most knowledgable, come about without a real scientific basis.

I must disagree that it is a “fact” that none of the interpretations provided in this thread, or, I gather KAC means, in the whole of physics literature, have a “real scientific basis”. If none of what most people have for centuries called “science” qualifies as “having a real scientific basis”, this meaning of “real scientific basis” seems so far from the usual one that it’s not useful.

One of the characteristics of science is its ability to make and test predictions in the absence of a complete understanding of underlying causes. Kepler's laws of planetary motion provided very good predictions of the motion of orbiting bodies 80 years before a good, but still incomplete, explanation was provided by Newton’s law of universal gravitation. Lavoisier’s caloric theory, even though absolutely incorrect, provided an explanation of heat that allowed many scientists and engineers to successfully predict, test, and build useful technologies based of phenomena involving heat.

IMHO, scientific theories must always be viewed as provisional. They are constantly in need of improvement. However, this need does not negate their theoretical predictions.

For example, AFAIK, gravity has not been successfully included in a theory of particle physics that successfully predicts the observed behavior of phenomena on the m scale. This does not mean that the motion of the planets as explained by Kepler’s laws, or the interaction of photons and atoms explained by the standard model, have no scientific basis, or that the terms such theories define – distance, mass, energy, etc. - are ill defined.

PS: A note on diction: The term “theorem” does not mean “explanation”, as the term ”scientific theory” does, but means “a proven proposition”. It’s ordinarily used only in formal mathematical language. It certainly does not mean to most people who recognize it “a really good/perfect theory”.

I believe the sentence

Originally Posted by KickAssClown

There is no theorem of mass, no theorem of matter, no theorem of energy

should have been written:
“there is no theory of mass, no theory of matter, no theory of energy”,
or
“there is no explanation of mass, no explanation of matter, no explanation of energy”.