Philosophy, Occam's Razor takes care of the physics part.
Name:
Anonymous2009-11-20 20:14
Physics
Physics is a branch of Science. Science is the practical application of Logic (in the form of the Scientific Method) to expand knowledge. A Logical Argument requires evidence.
String "Theory" does not have any supporting evidence. It is not based on fact nor reality. It is nothing more than conjecture.
As such, String "Theory" does not follow the Scientific Method. It is not a valid Scientific Hypothesis, let alone a Scientific Theory. It is not Science, it is not Physics.
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of life's problems through Logic and Reason. A Logical Argument requires evidence.
String "Theory" does not have any supporting evidence. It is not based on fact nor reality. It is nothing more than conjecture.
As such, it is not a valid Logical Argument, it is a Logical Fallacy. It is not a topic for reasoned debate or inquiry.
tl;dr:
String "Theory" has no evidence. That makes it fallacious and irrational. It is NEITHER Science nor Philosophy.
>>4
Why would "pseudo-intellectual non-physicists" want to attack string theory? Didn't Brian Greene/Hawking make string theory seem like some magical theory that will explain everything?
I always thought it was the LQG people who were attacking string theory to get more funding for their own research.
>>8 Why would "pseudo-intellectual non-physicists" want to attack string theory?
Because they saw someone else do it on the internet and wanted to sound smart, even though they've never read any serious literature beyond the Wikipedia article. What starts as legitimate criticism gets parroted and morphed into a factoid by people with no real understanding of the issues.
I have the same critisism of Dark Matter and Dark Enregy. None of this stuff can be tested for. Dark matter can't be detected, nor can dark energy. The extra demensions of string theory are supposedly smaller than the planck constant, and thus not even conceivably detectable.
I won't say I know for sure that none of these things exist, but for the love of god why is is called science when it can't be tested or measured?
One thing that seems odd with string theory is the vast number of possible theories, most of which have nothing to do with reality (or am I wrong about this? have only read some popular book about it). It seems to me more like a framework in which a theory could be formulated than a theory of itself.
Name:
4tran2009-11-26 18:37
>>10
Dark matter/energy were invented to explain anomalies in the movements of distant objects. I don't like them either, but the only alternative is to dump GR. If you dump GR, what are you going to replace it with? Newtonian mechanics fails even harder.
>>12
A framework's about all we can ask for at this point; none of the other frameworks have been known to be correct. Actually constructing a true theory requires some sort of boundary condition (even in Newtonian mechanics, the gravitational constant G has to be put in by hand, experimentally).
Name:
Anonymous2009-11-27 20:52
Well, the ideal case would be not needing boundary conditions at all, or maybe just needing one or two. I like the idea of a correct theory emerging from, say, some "large" governing principle or symmetry, that would fix all parameters, or maybe only need a few put in.