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From WIRED, again. Sometimes they have good stuff.
In the early 1970s, people studying general relativity, our modern theory of gravity, noticed rough similarities between the properties of black holes and the laws of thermodynamics. Stephen Hawking proved that the area of a black hole's event horizon—the surface that marks its boundary—cannot decrease. That sounded suspiciously like the second law of thermodynamics, which says entropy—a measure of disorder—cannot decrease.
Yet at the time, Hawking and others emphasized that the laws of black holes only looked like thermodynamics on paper; they did not actually relate to thermodynamic concepts like temperature or entropy.
Then in quick succession, a pair of brilliant results—one by Hawking himself—suggested that the equations governing black holes were in fact actual expressions of the thermodynamic laws applied to black holes. In 1972, Jacob Bekenstein argued that a black hole's surface area was proportional to its entropy, and thus the second law similarity was a true identity. And in 1974, Hawking found that black holes appear to emit radiation—what we now call Hawking radiation—and this radiation would have exactly the same "temperature" in the thermodynamic analogy.
[...] But what if the connection between the two really is little more than a rough analogy, with little physical reality? What would that mean for the past decades of work in string theory, loop quantum gravity, and beyond? Craig Callender, a philosopher of science at the University of California, San Diego, argues that the notorious laws of black hole thermodynamics may be nothing more than a useful analogy stretched too far.
After what Hawking said about philosophy, I think that astrophysicists need a bit more perspective.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Thursday September 12 2019, @06:30PM (24 children)
Were always wrong about everything. We're just are slightly less wrong than yesterday.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by ikanreed on Thursday September 12 2019, @07:40PM (20 children)
Definitely some signs that, no, we're getting more wrong than yesterday about some things.
For example, I'd go as far as to conjecture that the field of economics is so far astray from anything resembling reality and so far up it's own ass, that if you used methods produced in 2019 for a problem we've known about since 1800, you'll get worse results. Mileage will vary, behavioralists are less up their ass than praxeologists.
The assumption that science culls bad ideas runs against the problems that bad ideas help some people stay rich.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 12 2019, @07:47PM (8 children)
Yep, dark matter, string theory, everything based on NHST. Science is in a bad place currently.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday September 12 2019, @10:09PM (7 children)
What is your alternative to null hypothesis testing? And don't say "hurr hurr do real science derp," actually lay out your replacement methodology.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 12 2019, @11:28PM (6 children)
I already explained this to you last time. The "alternative" is to test your hypothesis instead of a strawman hypothesis. Literally just go read the scientific literature before 1940 or so and do what they did: science.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday September 13 2019, @12:47AM (1 child)
Yes, you did. As I recall, the explanation was that you are an obsessional layman who does not understand science. Is that about right? Something about the null hypothesis being that you are a 14 year-old in a basement somewhere, but since our theory provides a better explanation, more congruent with observed phenomena, it is to be taken, provisionally, as proven. WE HAVE the P VALUE!!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 13 2019, @02:43AM
Keep your hands inside your cloak when speaking publically!
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday September 14 2019, @12:29AM (3 children)
Enlighten me. Spell the methodology out step by step. Do you even Bayes, bro?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday September 14 2019, @08:06AM (1 child)
Bayesian Hazuki! Oh, my god, don't even get him started (has to be a "him", right?), because the probability of the theory in advance is the theory is always less than the probablity of the theory after the theory is understood, but not as great as the theory deduced into a experimental matrix. He has "one thing", the p-value. Do not make his head explode by bringing in Bayes, or Popper. or Quine, or god-forbid Lakatos. He will understand none of this, and this should be a lesson to him, in case the Azumi Hazuki's lesson was not clear? Idiot? Do you now understand how and why you are an idiot? We can explain it again, in smaller words, if you need.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 14 2019, @10:25PM
Lakatos agreed with me. He called NHST "intellectual pollution that will destroy our cultural environment before we get a chance to destroy the physical environment".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 14 2019, @03:09PM
I don't know how you can be so dense. DO THE EXACT SAME THING EXCEPT TEST YOUR HYPOTHESIS INSTEAD OF A STRAWMAN HYPOTHESIS.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday September 12 2019, @08:04PM (5 children)
Equating economics and science is the main problem in the stated thought process...
I had a realization earlier yesterday: nuclear power, unscientifically and unfairly made into the big bogeyman over the last 5 decades, doesn't make as many people filthy rich as the alternatives - thus explaining quite simply its political challenges and (purchased) popular perception.
If you want to make something happen in this world, make a large number of people rich, rich to the level that they can buy politicians, a larger number of people than the entrenched alternatives that are being harmed by the "new thing."
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 12 2019, @08:12PM (1 child)
So basically... the BIT Coin.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday September 12 2019, @09:43PM
A combination of: market speculation (gambling), pyramid scheme, and international funds transfers... trifecta!
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Thursday September 12 2019, @08:46PM (2 children)
Nominally, as a philosophical point, economics should absolutely be a soft science. It should, at its core, make testable predictions that can help guide understanding reality.
And it sucks shit at it.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday September 12 2019, @09:30PM
Sure, and we should all get pretty ponies for our birthdays... the economists with access to the most complete, accurate source data are, to a great extent, politically captive - if not by a specific set of government officials then to the corporate and wealthy interests the government serves first/best. They tell the tale that their masters want to be told, and one might occasionally argue that, when they lie and how they lie, they do it for the good of the masses - if for no other reason than a more prosperous population feeds a more prosperous ruling class.
We may well achieve greater understanding and repeatable behavior from black holes than we ever do from economists. In fact, we may have passed that point already.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday September 14 2019, @12:31AM
Economics sucks at making testable predictions because nearly all of it is predicated on the idea that humans are rational actors. This is somewhere between "not even wrong" and a form of secular blasphemy, and I am surprised anyone says it with a straight face. My only guess is that the people saying it know damn well it's not true, consider *themselves* some sort of rational ubermenschen, and intend to flatter people with the idea that they are rational actors in order to take advantage of their irrationality.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday September 12 2019, @08:33PM (4 children)
I'm not sure that economics is a science. It seems more like religion to me.
This explains it pretty well. [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 12 2019, @08:44PM (3 children)
Economists just don't collect good enough data to test their theories. So they are left philosophizing.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Thursday September 12 2019, @08:55PM (2 children)
Economists also cannot generally conduct live real-time experimentation unless they can persuade government officials (or others with authority) to do so, or more accurately become government or banking officials themselves. Even then, the experiments are never clean and have so many counfounders as to always leave questions to the methodology. Or unless they are employed by a gaming company [ctvnews.ca] and then their results are even more questionable as to real life applicability.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 12 2019, @09:02PM
Astronomers did fine with much less information available. At least once they got the positions of all the planets sufficiently precise.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Friday September 13 2019, @01:56AM
Strange that every other field of sociology doesn't suffer from such problems.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday September 12 2019, @07:58PM (2 children)
First statement is true.
Second statement is often false, why? See first statement.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 12 2019, @08:18PM
Someone has been reading too much Godel.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 13 2019, @07:45AM
First statement cannot be true, why? See first statement.