>Hmmm..but surely you miss the point that science is self-correcting. The >theory proposed in 1987 is longer supported as science has moved on. This >list appears to cater to those who would attack science for various >reasons. Are we supposed to believe that it is some kind of miracle that >the theory of general relativity has been vindicated by empirical studies >of binary pulsars to within one part in ten to the power twelve? > Stanley Jeffers How do we KNOW "science is self-correcting"? Theories change, sure. The changes usually result in our explanations encompassing more of our experiences each time. BUT, how do we know these are more "correct"? At any given time, how do we know that there is not another explanation which does not just as well explain all experience so far plus more that our current explanation does not? The only data we have, all the data we have so far tells us there is always such a new explanation, the character of which or direction of which was not imagined. If the history of science appears to tell us nothing else, it appears to tell us this, doesn't it? I would add too that with each major new explanation the assumed nature of the phenomenon has changed in an unpredictable, non-asymptotic way. Light was something that came from the eyes, then it was rays from sources, then it was tiny particles, then it was waves of aether, then it was waves of EM field, then it was chunks of energy... This is not an asymptotic approach to anything, yet all the while we are able to explain more and more of our possible experience with the phenomenon we call light. I'm not attacking science, but I am taking issues with representations of science that do not seem to make sense. Dewey +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Dewey I. Dykstra, Jr. Phone: (208)426-3105 Professor of Physics Dept: (208)426-3775 Department of Physics/MCF421/418 Fax: (208)426-4330 Boise State University [log in to unmask] 1910 University Drive Boise Highlanders Boise, ID 83725-1570 novice piper: GHB, Uilleann "As a result of modern research in physics, the ambition and hope, still cherished by most authorities of the last century, that physical science could offer a photographic picture and true image of reality had to be abandoned." --M. Jammer in Concepts of Force, 1957. "If what we regard as real depends on our theory, how can we make reality the basis of our philosophy? ...But we cannot distinguish what is real about the universe without a theory...it makes no sense to ask if it corresponds to reality, because we do not know what reality is independent of a theory."--S. Hawking in Black Holes and Baby Universes, 1993. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++