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Originally Posted by freeztar
James,
I gather from reading your posts and some of your writing on your website that your fundamental problem here is..err...fundamentalism.
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I have to say that I do not know what you mean by fundamentalism.
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I understand what you're getting at. At first, philosophers spoke of an aether and then an atom. Science then started looking deeper and deeper into the microscopic world in search of the "essence" of matter. Science found that materials were made up of atoms, and furthermore that even smaller particles made up the atom itself. So deeper they looked still and found other particles, such as gluons. At a certain point, some of these particles were no longer reducible, like the electron. This is where science has drawn the line and labeled these things as fundamental particles. It does not mean that it is the end all be all for describing these particles, or others, but we've simply not found anything on a deeper level. Someday this may very well change, and so will science. Until then, we're stuck with what we know.
Theoretical physics is interesting science because it deals with abstract ideas. Because of this, some people, even some scientists, see it as something other than science. For example, string theory is hotly debated among some scientists on whether it is actually science or not. But ultimately, theoretical physicists seek to explore nature in new ways and push the boundaries of our understanding of the universe. Einstein used theoretical physics to create his theories, and today we have GPS.
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It is not the fundamental existence and behavior of particles that is being challenged. Empirical science will continue to enlighten us. The challenge is to refute claims by scientifically minded people that theory represents reality. Yes we have Einstein's theories. His theories were designed to agree with empirical evidence. Therefore, it is not necessarily surprising that GPS works. What is surprising is that the success of GPS is used to insist that Einstein's theories are therefore correct. Do you believe that time dilation is a fact? In the face of the supporting empirical evidence, would it be unscientific to challenge the theory of time dilation?
James
