Scientific principle. I asked this question at BAUT once. When confronted by two mutually exclusive theories, both of which describe observation to the same degree of accuracy but both are inacurate to the same quantity, one is new and the other is old, which should be taught?
No one at BAUT ever answered the question.
Phil Plait is the original traitor of the Badastronomy group and a betrayer of science.
Re: Scientific principle. What do you mean by mutually exclusive? There's a way of telling them apart? Or, they're just two completely different ways of doing things?
Re: Scientific principle. Two examples that I can think of, are wave mechanics and matrix mechanics, which were shown equivalent (more or less: Why were two theories (Matrix Mechanics and Wave Mechanics) deemed logically distinct, and yet equivalent, in Quantum Mechanics? - PhilSci-Archive) by Schrödinger; and the two separate and distinct approaches of Feynman and Schwinger/Tomonaga, which were shown to be equivalent by Dyson. All four are "taught", but some are easier to use in certain circumstances.
Last edited by grapes; 02-12-2012 at 01:21 PM.
Re: Scientific principle. As expected Grapes has given 3 examples of wrong answers, and a demonstration of ignorance.
Phil Plait is the original traitor of the Badastronomy group and a betrayer of science.
Re: Scientific principle. Are the three examples of wrong answers my three questions?Originally Posted by astrotech
Posting Permissions
LinkBack URL
About LinkBacks
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks