\u201cA Waste of Good Champagne?\u201d<\/a>)<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
The definitive verdict now appears to be in:<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
An article in the Economist<\/em> for 7 February 2015 reports on a joint paper in Physical Review Letters<\/em> written by 274 scientists associated with Planck<\/em>, the orbiting telescope belonging to the European Space Agency, and with BICEP2<\/em>, an astronomical instrument functioning from Antarctica.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
One of the biggest science stories of 2014 was BICEP2\u2019s<\/em> apparent discovery of primordial gravitational waves \u2014 essentially ripples in space-time \u2014 produced mere microscopic fractions of a second after the Big Bang. \u00a0Such waves would confirm the cosmological model called \u201cinflation,\u201d which holds that the universe expanded extremely rapidly (far faster, indeed, than the speed of light) during the first instants of its existence.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThis theory,\u201d the Economist<\/em> observes, \u201csolves several knotty problems in cosmology, and so most astrophysicists work on the assumption that it is true.\u201d<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, the scientists working with BICEP2<\/em> were misled, despite their best efforts, by interstellar dust. \u00a0They thought that they had been able to factor such dust out of their calculations, but, as it turns out, they were mistaken.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Besides the obvious extrinsic interest of the question and of the research that has gone and continues to go into it, I\u2019m struck by at least two things:<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
First, there is science\u2019s admirable capacity for self-correction. \u00a0Some critics like to contrast this with what they love to depict as religion\u2019s obstinate insistence on demonstrable falsehoods. \u00a0But it\u2019s not that simple. \u00a0The physical sciences self-correct fairly neatly and easily and quickly. \u00a0The biological sciences rather less so. \u00a0And the social sciences much<\/em> less so. \u00a0This isn\u2019t because physics and chemistry are superior modes of seeing the world that should be adopted everywhere. \u00a0It\u2019s because of the special properties of their particular area of investigation. \u00a0Experimental verification is far more difficult in sociology \u2014 and, for that matter, in geology \u2014 than it is in particle physics. \u00a0And it\u2019s essentially impossible<\/em> in such fields as literary criticism, Palestinian archaeology, and cultural history. \u00a0Applying the thought-processes of physics to Shakespeare, to the excavation of Tel Gezer, or to the rise of the Renaissance would be silly and fruitless.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Experimental verification and falsification are virtually impossible, too, in the very fields that deal with the most humanly-significant questions. \u00a0It\u2019s not obvious that Kantianism represents a linear progress upwards and onwards from Aristotelianism, and that it has now been eclipsed by existentialism, say, or by logical positivism. \u00a0Neither philosophy nor religion works that way. \u00a0Not because thinkers in those fields are stupid, or dishonest, but by reason of the special properties of their subject matter.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Second, I think it significant to note that scientific theories (as, here, in the case of the inflationary model of the Big Bang) don\u2019t always, as many imagine, simply flow from the data. \u00a0Cosmological inflation is an elegant theory still awaiting empirical confirmation.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 About 2.5 months ago, I posted an entry here about a major recent discovery in cosmology that was already being called into question at that time. \u00a0(See \u201cA Waste of Good Champagne?\u201d) \u00a0 The definitive verdict now appears to be in: \u00a0 An article in the Economist for 7 February 2015 reports on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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