From: mcirvin@husc8.harvard.edu (Mcirvin)
Newsgroups: alt.sci.physics.new-theories
Subject: Re: Perpetual motion (was Re: anti-gravity device)
Date: 20 Nov 92 22:35:37 GMT
 <xeno.721776591@pv0558.vincent.iastate.edu>   
 <1992Nov15.013238.9221@netcom.com> 
 <xeno.722036028@pv0558.vincent.iastate.edu> <18NOV199211462562@csa1.lbl.gov> <xeno.722250334@pv0558.vincent.iastate.edu>

xeno@iastate.edu (Gary L Snethen) writes:

>In <18NOV199211462562@csa1.lbl.gov> sichase@csa1.lbl.gov (SCOTT I CHASE) writes:

>>People who insist that energy is *always* conserved are being foolishly
>>consistent.  They think they understand more physics than they really do,
>>and then defend their half-understanding to the death.

>I appreciate your post, Scott...

>The attitude you mention is precisely what set me off on the whole topic.
>It is unfortunate that even the best physicists place all their trust in
>'laws' which may or may not hold in the light of new theory (and new
>experimental evidence).

In this case, it's not even new theory-- it's general relativity, which
has been around since 1915.  The problem is partly that undergrad and
high school physics curricula don't usually make any mention of the
limits of the concepts introduced.  Physicists who actually work at the
edge of current knowledge tend to be considerably more humble about
the immutability and solidity of their "laws" than are most undergrads
in physics!

It's important not to take too seriously the phenomenon of popular
science literature that Richard Dawkins, in a book review in, I think,
_Nature_, recently called "Dark Ages syndrome": the idea that pretty
much every new idea in science is a revolutionary hypothesis held
by a small group of young lions and opposed by a power-hungry cabal
of aged enforcers of the orthodox.  The illusion comes in part from the
fact that scientists *have* to be extremely skeptical of anything new;
it's part of their job.  New ideas have to run a stringent gantlet of
experimental tests and/or theoretical checking (depending on what
kind of ideas they are) or they're simply of no use to scientists.
It's also necessary for science writers to inject some human drama
into their writing, and the tale of the underdog versus the system
is one of the great human stories.  It's also true that scientists,
like everybody, possess many irrational hunches and prejudices, and
that inevitably affects their work.  But Dark Ages syndrome is
usually a distortion of what goes on. 

I think that if you were to somehow investigate the smugger claims in
places like sci.physics-- statements not in the nature of "this is
implied by theory X" or "this is not supported by the evidence" or
even "you'll have to be more precise before we can tell what this means,"
but "this is forbidden by the laws of physics" or "this is a proven fact"--
you would find most of them coming from undergrads or people whose
training in the field doesn't extend to areas where not much is
known.  They've probably learned a lot of physics, and learned it
well, but they haven't completely absorbed a feeling of what is
on solid ground and what isn't.  I know I hadn't before I entered
grad school.  Of course, lack of advanced physics training doesn't
necessarily engender such an attitude, and I'm sure many undergrads
are better-informed about such things than I was.  But the people
who will scream about, say, conservation of energy being an inviolable
law of nature do tend to be the ones who jump first into arguments
with purveyors of bizarre theories, which leads to the construction
of convenient straw men.
-- 
Matt McIrvin
Newsgroups: alt.sci.physics.new-theories