This article raises some interesting questions. How far should a scientific discipline go in its theories of “the possible?” before it stops being a science?
For all it’s been romanticized, no one mentions the study of science can be an exhausting rat race with professional jealousies and money grabs. I’m willing to believe that half of the body of pseudo-scientific theories are scientists generating attention with the ultimate end of securing more of both of those things.
Everyone wants to be in the spotlight in some form or another. Why would scientists be any different?
A few months ago in the journal Nature, two leading researchers, George Ellis and Joseph Silk, published a controversial piece called “Scientific Method: Defend the Integrity of Physics.” They criticized a newfound willingness among some scientists to explicitly set aside the need for experimental confirmation of today’s most ambitious cosmic theories — so long as those theories are “sufficiently elegant and explanatory.” Despite working at the cutting edge of knowledge, such scientists are, for Professors Ellis and Silk, “breaking with centuries of philosophical tradition of defining scientific knowledge as empirical.”
Whether or not you agree with them, the professors have identified a mounting concern in fundamental physics: Today, our most ambitious science can seem at odds with the empirical methodology that has historically given the field its credibility.
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I recall reading the history of how DNA was discovered. What a petty, sniping bunch of brats were the parties involved! Yet here we now take it all for granted.
Do you mean the Watson-Crick experiments, or something else?
Yep; they had some competition, but I can’t recall the names and places. I read about it all back in my college days in late 1970s.
You can Google around about Crick and how he believes human life was created by aliens seeding Earth some time ago. A little silly, though I’m open to any possibility (with God the ultimate first mover of all life).