wrote in message
...
In article , "Steve Harris"
writes:

wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Joe Bugeja" writes:

When Einstein raised relativity, it was not all
immediately testable, that
came later.

The requirement is for "testable in principle", not
"immediately
testable". Of course, it helps if at least some parts of
it are
readily testable. But not necessarily all of it.


It's an interesting question how "testable in principle"
needs to be in practice. Is a theory "scientific" even if
only testable by making a superconducting accelerator that
loops around the entire equator of the planet? How much of
string theory is science, in Popper's sense?

I would say that the question here is primarily not about "scientific"
but about "theory". You know, we've been over this topic before, how
the usage of the term "theory" in science differs from this in layman
language (which is why we get all these posts harping on "but this is
not proven, this is just a theory":-)).

So, it is usually understood (though rarely spelled out) in science
that in order to call something "theory" it should have at least some
empirical support. Thus I would say that it is premature to call
string theory a "scientific theory".

Why? It has lots of support, including emperical support.

How does one saying "this is not proven; it's just a theory" differ from a
scientific theory? Not all scientific theories are proven. Having evidence
in support of a theory is not the same thing as proving a theory.

Jeff


Or how about cryonics? It's testable in theory, BUT not
now. You have to wait 100 years to see if technology comes
up to the point that quick-frozen "corpses" in liquid
nitrogen really are repairable (or not). What do we say
about the idea in the meantime?

We call it "scientific speculation" or something of the sort.

There's a lot of stuff that is on the borderlands of
science. It's conjecture that isn't testable, but should be
one day. It sounds reasonable to some scientists, but
completely looney to others. Cryonics. Terraforming Mars.
Sending "people" to Alpha Centauri. Construction of
artificial intelligence. Nanotechnology, including the holy
grail of duplication of humans (not just cloning, but full
duplication up to the point of raising questions of
identity). Production of group minds formed by connected
clusters of humans and/or machine minds (borganisms).

All this is not really religion, but it's not really
science-as-we-know it either. It's borderland stuff. My best
term for it is the old one: science fiction.

That's fine, for some of it. Point is, you've a whole spectrum.
Starting with stuff which is a pretty immediate extension of existing
science and/or technology and ending with some really speculative
things.

Beware making fun of science fiction as "science fantasy."


Good point

Mati Meron | "When you argue with a fool,
| chances are he is doing just the same"