I know very little of the natural sciences relative to my understanding of the social sciences, both in terms of it’s epistemological/ontological foundation and in terms of major theoretical insights.
It recently occured to me: What if the “mainstream” intellectuals in physics/biology/chemistry are just as corrupted and mediocre as in economics/philosophy?
Wouldn’t that mean that someone like Hawking is dead wrong about something like the theory of relativity and that there is another school of thought out there, similar to the austrian in economics, that advances a completely different way of understanding the universe?
I think the reason economics and political science are so distorted is that the State has a vested interest in their findings turning out a certain way, or concluding that certain types of policies should be adopted. I don’t see any obvious reason why the same would hold for physics, unless/until there is a major public policy issue that will be partially decided based on findings in that field (for instance, global warming in the field of climatology).
Engineering provides a healthy check on the physical sciences. You can’t design and build anything useful on the basis of Krugman type physical science. ############
It just so happens that most Engineering rests on very firm theoretical science that has been mostly developed already by the beginning of the 20th century. All of the improvements in Technology are Engineering innovations, and NOT pure theoretical science innovations like everyone thinks. Those who say that Austrian economics are stuck in the past and that science is something that is always progressing like in the natural sciences don’t have a clue.
I guess it’s the same with medicine and biology. Fair enough. Still, it doesn’t account for more abstract theories of the universe such as “string theory”
This guy has been claiming just what you described. His videos are interesting and he has a website with some interesting snippets from his book where he explains things in more detail. He’s actually pretty inflammatory about these topics. Similar to how economists here react to Krugman and the like. He even has a healthy skepticism of mathematics like we do as well (though I think his goes beyond ours). His personal economic views is that humans will become extinct very soon – which is a bit head scratching, though.
I think it was Gauss that once said that if the implications of mathematics and the natural sciences were at all political we would still be debating if 2+2=4. It’s strange, I think a kind of market competition survives in the natural sciences, because even those who for example may decry general relativity would still want to apply it for navigational and GPS purposes.
Personally, I’d say apply the same critical attitude to science as (I presume) you do Economics, and you’ll beigin to see how a self consistent body of thought, though not perfect has been built up in the natural and mathematical sciences.
That being said, it’s not that for periods of time there have been false paradigms that have wasted resources in their pursuit. Examples are the search for a static frame of reference or “ether” in Newtonian mechanics, or the phlogiston theory of heat preceding the Kinetic theory. Ludwig Boltzmann provides another example of a brillian Austrian Ludwig (probably my 2nd favourite[;)]) who was professionally isolated for a long time and whose brilliant ideas took a long time to be accepted, eventually wholeheartedly.
I think Thomas Khun’s work does apply to the development of Physics for example, but in a more limited sense. For example Max Planck, a brilliant physicist who is often considered the founder of Quantum theory, could never accept it or its later developed form in what we refer to as Quantum Mechanics today. I think it was him that coined the phrase science advances one generation at a time.
I think most abstract theories like “string theory” have no political implications. They don’t affect public policy. Of course, then you have climate change theories, which do affect policy. That’s where Krugman would likely be if he was a “scientist”.
how would old political controversies regarding science have shaped science though? I’m sure something had to have happened with galilleo/pope/reformation/counter-reformation era. Also in ancient times how would a socratic-platonic view of the universe jive with a skeptical or sophistic view? Instead of looking at how science could be corrupted by politics we should look at how the philosophy of science was corrupted since the philosophy is what determines the scientific conclusions (e.g. soviet union banning genetics).
There are debates among the members op the physics community:
Relativity vs Quantum Mechanics-Ongoing since Rutherford Scattering in the 1910s.
What is really string theory?
Is the universe finite? Does all the matter in the universe just suck itself back together.
Is the universe deterministic? Are particles in the universe independent? Are there forces acting on things other than the known forces: Strong Nuclear, Electricity and Gravity?
Do the Laws of Thermodynamics hold true for sub-nuclear particles? Which ones?
There are two reasons why I think there is a lack of press on physics:
It really does not affect the daily lives of people. A new addition to string theory or the discovery of hydrogen metal on the moon really will not affect lives in the same way that a new IPOD will.
There is a lack of press is in my opinion because there is a lack of excitement as the folks that post new theories rarely battle those sticking to old ones. Instead the folks posting new and old theories are waiting around to see their work disproven by the next new experiment. It is hard to keep up with as the experiment dudes are ahead of the theory folks.
I’ve read and I own A Brief History of Time and I’ve read a lot of The Road to Reality: A complete guide to the laws of the universe. Now I can’t say that I understand all the math and physics, but I think I know enough to trust those guys and say that they are not the “Paul Krugman” equivalent in their fields. From what I understand, Hawking and Penrose were able to show the existence of black holes, mathematically, before any were actually discovered. I think these guys have their bases covered.
Well, that’s still debated, at least amongst philosophical circles. Some claim that the symbol “2” is utterly meaningless, while others claim that the external world remains unproven.
Has the existence of the Weak Nuclear Force come back into vogue? When I graduated college, quite some time ago, the scientists were arguing that it is a product of the Strong Nuclear Force and the Electrical Forces.
