On Tue, 12 Jan 2021 21:05:30 +0000, in
, Ahem A Rivet's
Shot  wrote:

>On Tue, 12 Jan 2021 20:45:59 +0000
>Jim H  wrote:
>
>> Except... science has something much more demonstrable than "belief"
>> to hang its hat on.
>
> Ultimately it does not, science hangs its hat on the belief that the
>universe actually is self consistent rather than just appearing to be so
>most of the time.

I'd like to hear your definition of "most."

Granted the "Newtonian" view of the universe is slightly different
from the quantum view, but the difference is miniscule when dealing
with things that aren't almost infinitesimally small (particle
physics) or incredibly massive (black holes). In those two cases the
classical view - the only thing available to Newton and the common man
- breaks down and the quantum view is required to explain things more
exactly.

In any case, we can observe and predict the behavior of physical
things - whether by Newton or quantum - infinitely better than we can
say anything provable about things that have nothing but belief to
back them.

I don't buy the *TOTAL* debunking of anything based only on "we can
never know for sure and thus everything is only belief." This is
little more than sophistry in my book. The smart money goes with
widely accepted (among scientists) science as being correct at least
as far as it goes. There always seems to be more that builds on what
is already known. Rarely, at least in the last several centuries, does
it throw everything we "know" into a cocked hat.

That last said, I'd guess the poor "string theory" or "M theory" folks
were a little disturbed when the Higgs boson predicted by the Standard
Model of particle physics was proven to exist when the string or M
theory model had no Higgs boson. Back to the drawing board. Not
everything necessarily debunked, but it's a huge problem for a theory
to deny the existence of thing that's proven to exist.

Now don't tell be we only "believe" Higgs bosons exist.
--
Jim H

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