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Fascinating observations from watching real science in action. Half of data conflicts with theoretical expectations:
Although the researchers were mostly using established techniques, more than 50 percent of their data was unexpected. (In some labs, the figure exceeded 75 percent.) … “The results kept contradicting their theories. It wasn’t uncommon for someone to spend a month on a project and then just discard all their data because the data didn’t make sense.” …
There were models that didn’t work and data that couldn’t be replicated and simple studies riddled with anomalies. “These weren’t sloppy people,” Dunbar says. “They were working in some of the finest labs in the world. But experiments rarely tell us what we think they’re going to tell us. That’s the dirty secret of science.” …
Most such anomalies are just ignored:
The vast majority of people in the lab followed the same basic strategy. First, they would blame the method. The surprising finding was classified as a mere mistake; perhaps a machine malfunctioned or an enzyme had gone stale. … The experiment would then be carefully repeated. Sometimes, the weird blip would disappear, in which case the problem was solved. But the weirdness usually remained, an anomaly that wouldn’t go away. …
Even after scientists had generated their “error” multiple times — it was a consistent inconsistency — they might fail to follow it up. “Given the amount of unexpected data in science, it’s just not feasible to pursue everything.” …
Marginalized folks contribute more to innovation:
Thorstein Veblen was commissioned … to write an essay on how Jewish “intellectual productivity” would be changed if Jews were given a homeland. … [he] argued instead that the scientific achievements of Jews — at the time, Albert Einstein was about to win the Nobel Prize and Sigmund Freud was a best-selling author — were due largely to their marginal status. … They were able to question everything, even the most cherished of assumptions. …
Diversity induces far view talk, which finds creative answers:
The diverse lab, in contrast, mulled the problem at a group meeting. None of the scientists were protein experts, so they began a wide-ranging discussion of possible solutions. …. “After another 10 minutes of talking, the protein problem was solved.” .. The intellectual mix generated a distinct type of interaction in which the scientists were forced to rely on metaphors and analogies to express themselves. … These abstractions proved essential for problem-solving, as they encouraged the scientists to reconsider their assumptions. Having to explain the problem to someone else forced them to think, if only for a moment, like an intellectual on the margins, filled with self-skepticism.
Thorstein Veblen is under-appreciated, as is how weak are our theories. How much innovation do we lose because Jews are no longer on the margin? Hat tip to R0bert Koslover.
Real Science
Let's clear THIS up right now.
QED is a hodgepodge Rubegoldburg of tangled and intertwined mathematical tomfoolery which, once you get done going around the world nine times to get to your own elbow, finally results in something approximating a right answer. It is neither elegant, easy to use, or insightful, and even Feynman on his deathbed proclaimed it a hierarchal mathematical structure without a theory.
You did read my statement about how we get good enough approximations, yes?
But QED is very little different than the old Epicycle theory of planetary motion. You can GET correct enough answers from it to work with without ever coming close to the reality.
Simply put, if you had bothered to actually read the article I posted in response to, you would see how clearly obvious it is that science DOESN'T KNOW WHAT THE REAL TRUTH IS. They have some good ideas, they have some very useful tools, but when 75% of all experiments result in findings that are unpredicted, unexpected, and cannot be reconciled with theory, then it's a pretty good indicator that the THEORY is wrong, not reality.
The problem with most theoretical sciences is that they stopped being about reality the day they allowed mathematics to become more important than reality. Physics is about REALITY, not mathematical fictions. By divorcing theory from that very real physical limitation, we have created a vast horde of mathematicians who are constantly complaining about how the real world fails to met their mathematical expectations, a entire generation of scientists who spend all their time doing their best to make science as obscure and impenetrable as possible to anyone who is not part of their inner circle, and who's sole concern has ceased to be truth, but has become an endless quest for funding.
Science is about understanding the world. This post makes it quite clear that there is a vast difference between what they CLAIM to understand, and what the REALLY DO.
And you are quite naive to believe I haven't done my research. I grew up cutting my teeth on this stuff. It's simply as I have grown older and considerably LESS naive that I have started to see the cracks and rotting foundations of a science system I once loved. I believe and always shall, that EVIDENCE trumps THEORY every day. I have simply made an effort to study ALL the evidence, both for and against, which it is quite apparent, you have not.
Would our scientific understanding of reality be different if Maxwell's full original equations had remained unchanged? We'll never know will we? But the fact that everything, including QED, were developed and influenced by the altered versions instead of the complete versions means it would have been different, and as such, perhaps a study should be done to see HOW different it might be, rather than the simple dismissal you chose to cope with any possible request to look outside the little box you've chosen as your comfort zone.
And you illustrate precisely why this article, and this study, will be ignored in the long run. Scientists are humans. And like you, they would rather dismiss without examination anything which does not fit into their world view. Enormous progress may have been made, but when you build a palace on a patch of sand, sooner or later the entire thing is going to come crashing down.
Which world view is correct? In the end I suspect that none of them will be. But by denying any need to continually re-examine and re-evaluate all evidence, instead advocating picking and choosing which evidence to study and which to toss out, you are as guilty as the researchers mentioned above for failure to actually OVERCOME BIAS and let reality be the final truth sayer.
I have often wondered how much “quantum weirdness” could be explained if the original 20 equations were used with their more complete descriptions instead of the four Oliver Heaviside mangled and condensed because he felt the fourth dimensional calculations needed to be “murdered” from the math
Let's clear this up right now: the answer is "none." People pompously promoting this would-be re-interpretation of classical EM are evidently (and sometimes, it appears, deliberately) unaware of the enormous progress in theoretical physics since the time of Maxwell and Heaviside. Classical electromagnetism has gently given way to Quantum Electrodynamics (QED), now widely regarded as the most successful physical theory every devised by humankind, and which explains vastly more phenomena, with absolutely stunning accuracy, and which was not envisioned at all by Maxwell and Heaviside. Yes, those gentleman were brilliant geniuses and ahead of their time, but please don't kid yourself; they were not ahead of our time! The world's greatest minds (no exaggeration) since their time have exhaustively examined attempts to unify classical electromagnetism and gravity more or less along the lines you are mentioning, and along countless other paths as well. Einstein worked on such unification theories for a long time and many others have too. There is simply no coverup, no conspiracy, no mental block, and no deep dark secret that you know while the rest of the physics community doesn't. Mr. or Ms. Valkyrie Ice, you are naive to think there is such a secret. There is no "there" there. But there are many good books on theoretical physics. If you really want to understand modern physics, you should start studying and learning from the modern textbooks. Even if you spent your life on it, it could be a life well spent. Good luck in your studies.