Sorry, when someone has a history of saying ridiculous things, I have
a hard time respecting their further statements on the matter.

In his recent book "The Grand Design" Hawking states:
Because there is a law like gravity, the universe can and will create itself out of nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing. It is not necessary to invoke God.

John Lennox, the Oxford professor responded to that statement by saying:
Nonsense remains nonsense, even when talked by world-famous scientists.
(God and Stephen Hawking, Who's Design Is it Anyway?)

Very well said!

Common folk will often say some strange things, but it takes an intellectual to say something completely and utterly ridiculous.

I saw a video a while back by Peter Kreeft, and he talked about how a farmer can't afford to have a stupid idea. If the farmer tries a stupid idea and his crops all fail, he's broke.

On the other hand, the ideas of philosophers don't actually have to do anything. If they're famous enough, not only can they propagate dumb ideas, but they can do so at taxpayers expense!

You really want to have your cake and eat it don't you, you say things like "When a field proves itself again and again in such spectacular manners, anyone who claims to be interested in the nature of our universe would be a fool to ignore it." but then try to pretend that the specific reasons why that field has 'proved' itself don't really matter and you can use any methodology you want really as long as you're educated, wear a white coat and call yourself a scientist and have peers.... and you try to pretend that this field doesn't contradict and replace a different field (theism) that has been totally useless in explaining our universe.

Tell me why non-emprical methods are not 'used much' in physics? And why the monte carlo method, as a mathematical model, doesn't fall foul of the criteria that make something a scientific theory?

Lol, farmers have lots of very stupid ideas (I grew up working on a farm). What you mean is that they can't afford to have stupid ideas about farming. While true, this doesn't stop farmers from also having lots of stupid ideas about farming. Intellectuals have done at least as much as farmers in providing the good ideas about how to farm. What we can say is that there is selection pressure on farmers to adopt good farming methods because there is competition over productivity and so effective feedback on which ideas are actually good. Luckily for us, science also looks for effective feedback on whether its ideas are any good, and so we should expect that speculations like Hawkings won't be accepted willy-nilly.

Yes, if a farmer has a bad idea about farming he goes broke. On the other hand, a philosopher with tenure can have all the nutty ideas he wants and get paid for it.

+1.

+1

Nitpick: It depends on how bad the idea is and how it impacts the outcomes. If a farmer believes that marching around his field one time and playing a trumpet can help his crops and does it, it doesn't mean he's going broke.

It should be noted that what was discussed in this thread was actually also a non-empirical approach to physics (at least the significant portion of it, i.e. the conclusions), because Hawking argues for a from-model approach to understanding the origin of the universe.

This is the reasoning behind his quotes in the article FesteringZit quoted, as these phenomena he describes are actually predicted by the model he uses (a variant of m-theory, if I am not mistaken).

^^ This is precisely why there's argument over whether or not String theory is actually a theory, or should better be called a hypothesis, or maybe just an 'idea' .

C'mon, Aaron, you know by now that nuance isn't my forte.

It's a large mathematical framework of theoretical physics that incorporates the two reigning models of physics. At this point in time it's a model (or several models to be exact), but an enticing one.

Whether or not it is a theory isn't a terribly important discussion, I would say that it is not. It is most certainly science, however.

If you absolutely want to call "just an idea" I won't stop you, but don't object the next time someone calls ToE "just a theory" or science for "just an opinion".

'Just an idea' was a joke, it's clearly more than just an idea, but since it is not the 'accepted explanation', because it doesn't really meet any of the criteria that would make it a reliable account of our reality, it's still just a hypothesis in the processs of being examined, it is not a scientific theory. It's a theory in the lay sense of the word, but not in the scientific sense.

And yes, that is a very important distinction. That you don't think the 'label' matters is just further proof that you don't understand what that word is doing.

In this discussion we're debating m-theory (since we're into Hawking). There are definitely arguments that merit the usage of the word "theory". It fits the two reigning models so anything that applies to them also applies to m-theory, it fits the data, it has observational support. I'm still fine with it not being counted as a scientific theory in how the term is usually applied, mainly because one hasn't landed on a specific interpretation / model yet.

As for your point: Yes, it makes predictions that have not yet been tested and it contains free adjustable parameters to fit data, but so both the standard model and quantum mechanics and they are both undoubtedly counted as theories.

That is why it isn't a terribly important discussion, because it's nitpicking with either side making a big deal out of points that gets blown out of proportion and commonly misunderstood.

These points have been raised by me before, perhaps you should start reading them and try understanding what they imply.

You know what they say, "there's a first time for everything."

[QUOTE=tame_deuces;53560732]In this discussion we're debating m-theory (since we're into Hawking). There are definitely arguments that merit the usage of the word "theory". It fits the two reigning models so anything that applies to them also applies to m-theory, it fits the data, it has observational support. I'm still fine with it not being counted as a scientific theory in how the term is usually applied, mainly because one hasn't landed on a specific interpretation / model yet.

As for your point: Yes, it makes predictions that have not yet been tested and it contains free adjustable parameters to fit data, but so both the standard model and quantum mechanics and they are both undoubtedly counted as theories.

That is why it isn't a terribly important discussion, because it's nitpicking with either side making a big deal out of points that gets blown out of proportion and commonly misunderstood.

What you're still not getting is that m-theory, string theory, whatever you want to call it is not the 'accepted explanation', it's just a candidate for one (for a 'theory of everything' actually) but it's actually just a hypothesis, an idea that hasn't been proven yet no matter how many tests it's apssed so far, so it doesn't hold the status of 'scientific theory' no matter how loosely the word is bandied around.

Raise these points as many times as you want, 'ad nauseum' if you want, you'll still be wrong.

What is there to get?

You believe in some naive cartoon-variant of science that doesn't exist. At least you're debating it on the right forum.

That you don't undertsand what a scientific theory is.