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2: What is The Portal: Difference between revisions
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[00:08:56] Well, if that's true, let's say peer review isn't really the centerpiece of our science. Is the scientific method the centerpiece of our science? Well, at some level, sure, it's like proof checking, but a lot of the work that we do in science has been incredibly imaginative. And you might even say it's been irresponsible until it comes into final form and can be reconciled with experiment. | [00:08:56] Well, if that's true, let's say peer review isn't really the centerpiece of our science. Is the scientific method the centerpiece of our science? Well, at some level, sure, it's like proof checking, but a lot of the work that we do in science has been incredibly imaginative. And you might even say it's been irresponsible until it comes into final form and can be reconciled with experiment. | ||
[00:09:19] But instead, we've developed a culture in which immediately upon proposing something, we are told that the sine qua non of science is that there be an agreement between theory and experiment. Well, this is wholly untrue. In fact, if you go back to Paul Dirac's great Scientific American article in the early sixties, he says that it is much more important | [00:09:19] But instead, we've developed a culture in which immediately upon proposing something, we are told that the sine qua non of science is that there be an agreement between theory and experiment. Well, this is wholly untrue. In fact, if you go back to Paul Dirac's great Scientific American article in the early sixties, he says that it is much more important that a physical theory have mathematical beauty | ||
[00:09:47] and that we learn to trust a theory, even when it doesn't agree with experiment, if it has a kind of intellectual coherence to it. But how often are people pointed to something like Dirac's 1963 paper? In fact, you could look to Jim Watson, who's told us that in order to make great advances, we have to be irresponsible. | [00:09:47] and that we learn to trust a theory, even when it doesn't agree with experiment, if it has a kind of intellectual coherence to it. But how often are people pointed to something like Dirac's 1963 paper? In fact, you could look to Jim Watson, who's told us that in order to make great advances, we have to be irresponsible. | ||