Re: Baghdad

In message <c4704e18-b517-48fa-add7-127b723c4c45@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Franz Gnaedinger <frgn@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes
On May 27, 1:38 am, Harlan Messinger
<hmessinger.removet...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Of course it is. Nothing that can't be tested is accepted as a
scientific conclusion.

The spring

ITYM "string"

theories and M-theory can't be tested
and yet they are accepted as truly scientific.

Not by any means accepted by all scientists:
http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=533
http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/testable.pdf

Those who do accept them as scientific do so on the basis that they make predictions which can in principle be tested, but we currently lack the engineering resources to make the required measurements. That's a very different situation from your just-so stories.

My criterium is fecundity: is a theory fecund?

A criterion which puts the cart before the horse: it conveniently overlooks whether something actually qualifies to be called a theory at all.

The mentioned theories are, they led to a
plethora of new mathematical tools,

.... and are therefore consistent with the existing mathematics ...

and so,
even if they should fail in the end - and there
will never be a Theory Of Everything, so they
are bound to fail - they are still truly scientific.

No, but they might be truly mathematical, a very different thing.

--
Richard Herring
.

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