On Thursday, July 9, 2015 at 6:20:09 PM UTC-4, Martin Hardcastle wrote:
=20
Nor should there be. 'Theoretical bias' is a pejorative way of saying
that we interpret individual results in the framework that
successfully incorporates other observations. This is certainly likely
to be more productive than ignoring all other observations and
developing a novel ad hoc explanation for every individual phenomenon
(the standard approach of the internet crackpot).=20

But you imply that there are only two extreme choices: have a high
degree of faith and trust in currently popular models or "ignoring
all other observations and ..." Talk about "pejorative"? That's a
nice example. There is a middle path that does not ignore well-tested
observations, but questions assumptions that are used to explain
them, and keeps an open mind about new conceptual/theoretical
frameworks that might better explain the existing observations and
make predictions about what will eventually be observed.

but particle physics is
one of the great intellectual successes of the last century=20

I have posted a list of 7 serious shortcomings of the standard model
that even its proponents say make the SM clearly a provisional model
of how nature works, and therefore not how it actually works. I
have posted this so many times to different sites that everyone has
probably seen the list, but I would be happy to post it to SAR if
there is an interest in it and it will not be summarily rejected
as outside the SAR purview (even though some members freely talk
about it on SAR with impunity and treat it as virtually infallible.

An open-mind is all I really ask for or could hope for, given that
we are all humans.

RLO
Fractal Cosmology

[[Mod. note --
1. Our newsgroup charter forbids "excessively speculative"
material. I usually interpret this as (roughly) the union of
"not even wrong"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_even_wrong
and "wronger than wrong"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wronger_than_wrong

2. I think our charter is silent on whether philosophy-of-science
material is acceptable. In the past I think Martin has often rejected
it, but I am more inclined to accept it.

3. \begin{philosophy-of-science}
Saying that the SM is "clearly a provisional model of how nature
works, and therefore not how it actually works" is entirely consistent
with it being "one of the great intellectual successes of the last
century". With a change in the time period, the same can be said of
the theory/model that the Earth is is spherical -- this is briefly but
very clearly discussed in the wronger-than-wrong Wikipedia page.
\end{philosophy-of-science}
-- jt]]