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To: Seruzawa
Scientists have to dance this annoying two-step because of the "problem of induction", i.e. anything discovered from empirical observations can never be conclusive because there can always be something that was missed or is yet to be seen. This is often referred to as the "Black Swan" problem.

Scientists would like to pretend they are realists and are really discovering things like electrons, quarks, etc. However because they have never seen these things directly they are limited to being pragmatists, i.e. that which works is that which is true rather than that which is is true.

In order to continue to assuage the public and get grant money they have to claim they know things, but they also know that they can never know anything for sure. Thus the prevalence of all of the hedging words and phrases.

If the public understood that billions of dollars were spent to create CERN's particle collider and all that the scientists found were traces that strongly suggest there is a vibration in a field that might contribute to some of the mass in bosons, and they've arbitrarily decided to call that a Higgs "particle" then the public might not want to give them any more money.

18 posted on 03/19/2021 11:58:32 AM PDT by who_would_fardels_bear (This is not a tagline.)
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To: who_would_fardels_bear

It’s more the viciousness with which they attack anyone who threatens their turf that’s disturbing than the fact that science will always be in flux. They’ve discovered nothing yet that justifies the billions spent on the Hadron Super-collider. Now they want even more billions to build an even bigger one. And apparently some of the money goes to Hindu dances:

https://cds.cern.ch/record/745737?ln=en


21 posted on 03/19/2021 12:11:02 PM PDT by Seruzawa (TANSTAAFL)
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