The maturation of science

[Leigh Palmer <palmer@SFU.CA>]

At 8:39 AM -0800 12/29/99, David Bowman wrote:
> Regarding Ludwik's recently reported results for a rocket problem:
> > ...
> > I did this and the new results are in very good agreement with thetheory,
> > especially when the mass of each bullet is reduced (which means more
> > firing steps for the same "amount of fuel").  ...
>
> I'm sorry to be so pedantic here, but your results *are* the theory,
> (albeit numerically calculated) and hence, *must* agree with the theory.

Which, while correct, is contrary to the contemporary spirit in, for
example, climate research. In that field "experiments" are performed on
numerical models, and the degree of agreement with the results of other
numerical models is the criterion on which the "experiments" are judged.

Perhaps we have finally outgrown the Galilean paradigm in which Nature
played an unsuitably large part in determining the validity of science.
A more democratic approach is clearly better attuned to the times.

Leigh