[JRowe]

My philosophy on scientific theory is simple: it is a house of cards. There's the natural to urge to want to focus in one some small aspect of a model in discussion and exclusively talk about that, but that has very limited use because no part of a model ever stands alone. Every statement has prerequisites and consequences. The way to analyze a model is to look at how it all comes together. You look at the assumptions, you look at the consequences, and most importantly you look at what is held as reasonable. If those developing the model consider as reasonable an absurdity, those are sufficient grounds to question the rigidity of whatever framework they use.

So let's look at black holes, specifically microscopic black holes. Technically speaking much of these are theory, but it is a well-respected theory, so we can certainly use it to examine the character of mainstream RE scientists.
As most of us probably know, black holes are formed by incredibly dense masses, where mass exerts gravity, and the mass is within such a small volume that there is a radius around it where the gravity is so extreme that not even light can escape from it. They are inescapable.
It is also commonly held that these black holes do indeed collapse. That is, energy escapes them.

The astute among you will notice that this seems contradictory. If nothing can escape a black hole, then how does it run out of mass, how does the gravitational force run down?
The answer to this is is Hawking radiation. However, examination of what this entails will unearth a contradiction, but bear with me for a moment as I explain the concept for those unaware of it. Hawking radiation relies upon so-called 'virtual-particles,' which are posited as a particle and anti-particle pair that come into existence spontaneously, and annihilate each other in an instant, thus meaning no new mass is created and the laws of physics are followed. That, broadly speaking, is the theory. (I'm assuming a basic understanding of anti-matter). This ties to quantum theory, that any energy is ultimately composed of quanta, so any energy on a quantum level is composed of these particle/anti-particle pairs appearing and annihilating each other to produce said energy. It's complicated, but the basics are there.
Now, at a black hole, should a particle/anti-particle pair appear on the event horizon, the border between being able to escape a black hole and being trapped, they would be separated. That is, one particle would be drawn into the black hole, and one would be sent outwards. They would not come into contact and not annihilate each other, and the black hole will seem to emit radiation in the form of that half-pair. This is Hawking Radiation.

The claim is that this essentially acts as a black hole emitting its energy, and thus weakening.

Except... it isn't, is it? The virtual particles are the source of the radiation, not the mass within the black hole. So why, then is it so commonly held that this would work?

Let's look at the easy answers.
One is the claim that the virtual particles are just the manifestation of the energy contained within the black hole's gravitational field. Thus, the virtual particle being lost and not becoming energy will in fact weaken the gravitational pull, and thus ultimately shrink the event horizon until the black hole is no more. This, however, does not make sense. The mass in the black hole is not changing, that is source of the gravitational pull, it isn't being 'used up,' it isn't being teleported out to the event horizon. What this idea says is that mass will end up existing without exerting any gravitational pull, because when the black hole collapse, the superdense mass will still be there, unaffected by the virtual particles. This is fundamentally at odds with the laws of physics this model relies upon. Even somehow involving odd quantum phenomena like entanglement doesn't resolve this precisely because the lost particle is by definition not being destroyed.
One might then ask about the particle that goes into the black hole. If anything you would expect it to gain mass, not lose it. Some of you might have argued that the anti-particle is what is to blame, annihilating the matter inside the black hole particle by particle, until it is just energy captured and there's no mass to sustain the event horizon. This too is illogical. Statistically, it is equally likely that a particle will be the half of the pair to go inwards, as opposed to the anti-particle. The mass annihilated by any anti-particle would be replenished by a particle, and vice versa. The mass stays constant.

In conclusion, the central mass of a black hole is unaffected by whatever virtual particles do at the event horizon, and yet we are supposed to believe its gravitational pull will diminish just because.

True, we are in the realms of more theoretical science here, but these are the respected thinkers, these are the ones pushing frontiers. Why is such absurdity even considered?
Well, because it follows from believed statements, and that a black hole is needed to decay because if it doesn't the model would predict mass being generated by nothing, something too unreasonable. It demonstrates a willingness to bend the rules by supposed respected figures, and indicates the model is held together by string and hope when these are the things that are actually considered, actually studied, rather than be expected to develop to a worthwhile level.
It's like a paper cut. It's small, seemingly insignificant, but if you get a lot of them, the effect can be rather more worrying indeed. There are countless tiny flaws, things you look at and assume it's nothing, but all together they paint a worrying picture indeed about the state of RET.

[Tom Bishop]

What you described is called pseudoscience. Astronomy is a pseudoscience.

Sciences based on observation and interpretation were largely abolished during the Enlightenment and preceding Renaissance. The number one lesson learned that it is incredibly weak to observe and interpret. Human logic is fallible. We must test things. The Scientific Method of empirical experimentation brought us to better truths. Huge swaths of 'logical' sciences that came before were thrown away.

Unfortunately Astronomy is one of those sciences in which experimentation is impractical. Rather than throwing it away, we just kept it and continue on with the ancient pseudoscience, piling one interpretation and hypothesis upon the next like a house of cards. As long as you can imagine an explanation it's good enough.

The only other choice to the charade is to admit that you don't know anything and that your science based on interpretation is invalid, just as we decided those sciences were invalid at the birth of the Modern Science and the Era of Enlightenment.

[GreatATuin]

What you described is called pseudoscience. Astronomy is a pseudoscience.

Nice try, but no.

Science is about making a hypothesis, then trying your hypothesis. Of course for a very long time, before the Space Age, astronomical hypothesis could only be tried through observation. But even that way, you can try your hypothesis and see if it gives you a better understanding of how the world works.

And you know what? In the case of astronomy, it does. Astronomers gradually built a better and more precise description of what we see in the skies. For example, eclipse predictions got more accurate as astronomical knowledge progressed. The existence of Neptune was postulated in the 19th century based on calculations of the other planets' orbit, and then confirmed through observation. This is what science is about. Building models and see if they work. Astronomical models work pretty damn well, and they did long before we even launched our first rocket.

On the other hand, Flat Earth offers us several models, incompatible with each other, and these models don't give us any answer or prediction, just more questions on how they are supposed to work. The existence of several models allows flat earthers to cherry pick an explanation for anything. Where is the pseudoscience?

[Tumeni]

Tom;
From the Wiki - "What type of experiment do astronomers perform?" - even if we accept that the astronomers have done "None", that still leaves a continuous history of space flight since 1957, with Sputnik 1.

Explorations to; the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars and the other outer planets, with at least one craft heading out of our solar system, and still operating.

So whilst you might attempt to discard the observations of astronomers since the first use of the telescope, it's clear that many of their early, mid and late observations have subsequently been confirmed by physical means.

[JRowe]

On the other hand, Flat Earth offers us several models, incompatible with each other, and these models don't give us any answer or prediction, just more questions on how they are supposed to work. The existence of several models allows flat earthers to cherry pick an explanation for anything. Where is the pseudoscience?

That is how science should be done. FEers don't cherrypick answers from whatever model is convenient, every FEer has their own model that they hold to and can answer the questions for, some choose to be more representative when they answer newbies and people that seem ignorant of that, but they don't switch between models when convenient. I can tell you what model I subscribe to, just as Tom Bishop could tell you which he favors, and many others could do the same.
This is preferrable to the tradition-based system of RET where a model gains traction simply because it's been around longer, and you have to take on faith that people a century ago with the resources of a century ago didn't make a mistake, because your system is incapable of replacing something established. It only appends and tweaks small changes, or adds things, but never goes back, never questions. Fundamental claims like relativity, dark matter, those should have been the call to go back and re-examine earlier discoveries and claims in light of it, instead they were added to a model assumed to be accurate rather than re-verified, creating this ever-unstable pile of hypotheses that cracks keep opening up in.
Prediction does not matter. Explanatory power does. Demanding a model make new predictions, while it can be sufficient, only serves to further the tradition-over-logic approach of RET. If you have two theories, A is established, B is new and competing, and an experiment was performed a decade ago because it was predicted by theory A, if theory B also predicts the same, then all that sets the theory apart is which came first. If someone was to go back in time and suggest B before A, and perform the same experiment, suddenly A would be the one that needs to make a new prediction. The predictive model of scientific theory does nothing but favor what has already been suggested, and thus prefers the models that were designed when less was understood. It is one of the many fundamental errors with the RE approach.

RET does raise many questions, such as the one I raised in the OP. The difference between RET and FET is that we ask the questions. You are taking your own refusal to question as evidence there are no flaws, when if anything it means the opposite. A true scientific approach is one where there are questions, where nothing is ever taken as complete or fully settled, and those questions are actually asked rather than conveniently ignored.

Further, claiming eclipse predictions grew more accurate with understanding is simply false. This is one of many crucial misunderstandings the predictive approach takes. You think because you can more accurately describe something in terms of a model, that it means the model has more evidence behind it. Instead, eclipses are by definition a predictable phenomenon, repeating completely after each saros cycle, the equations that govern them were once filled with unknowns, and then filled with values from past recorded eclipses. To say our understanding made eclipses more predictable is to confuse cause and effect, it was the predictability of eclipses that led to the equations that supposedly describe them, simply because you can make a formula for anything predictable.

[JSS]

Prediction does not matter. Explanatory power does. Demanding a model make new predictions, while it can be sufficient, only serves to further the tradition-over-logic approach of RET. If you have two theories, A is established, B is new and competing, and an experiment was performed a decade ago because it was predicted by theory A, if theory B also predicts the same, then all that sets the theory apart is which came first. If someone was to go back in time and suggest B before A, and perform the same experiment, suddenly A would be the one that needs to make a new prediction. The predictive model of scientific theory does nothing but favor what has already been suggested, and thus prefers the models that were designed when less was understood. It is one of the many fundamental errors with the RE approach.

Prediction is the ONLY thing that matters. If your theory can't explain how things work, then exactly what is it good for? How do you verify a theory is true without testing it, and how can you test it if you don't make predictions with it?

The whole idea behind science is to explain what we can observe. It's done a pretty good job, wouldn't you say? We have airplanes and cell phones, we decoded our own DNA, we can take apart atoms and make computers out of parts so small that light itself is too big to view them. This is all the result of science, of theories that predict how things should work, and once we know how something should work we can then build it.

We build bridges based on science and math because we want to know if they will hold up BEFORE we make them.  If someone had an 'alternate bridge theory' but it couldn't be used to tell if a bridge will work or not, what is the point of arguing over using it instead of engineering and science?

As for your A and B example, if two theories A and B both equally and accurately predict something, well that does happen all the time. Things can be explained in more than one way, and if both WORK then we use whichever fits the current problem best.  Eventually more evidence will be uncovered, more experiments done and one will be shown to be more accurate and we will use it when that accuracy is needed. See Einstein and Newton for examples of this.

We use what WORKS. Why? Because using anything else would be silly now, wouldn't it?

Maybe the world IS flat, and there is some crazy branch of physics that hides it from us by making all our measurements and observations and travels LOOK like the world is round.  But if that is so, until flat earth theory can actually do something useful, until it can show us a faster way to get from New York to London, or shows us how to build a subway around the bottom of the disk, until then we will continue to behave as if the earth is a globe because it WORKS, and flat earth doesn't.

[JRowe]

Prediction does not matter. Explanatory power does.

Prediction is the ONLY thing that matters. If your theory can't explain how things work, then exactly what is it good for?

You might find you get better results in discussion if you don't completely ignore what the other person said. Prediction and explanation are not the same thing. Every theory must be able to explain all we can observe, that's not in question, that's explanatory power, prediction is saying that in addition to that it must also be able to predict the result of a yet-to-be-performed experiment. True, that can have value, but requiring it is to slant science towards tradition, not logic, as I went over.

Maybe the world IS flat, and there is some crazy branch of physics that hides it from us by making all our measurements and observations and travels LOOK like the world is round.  But if that is so, until flat earth theory can actually do something useful, until it can show us a faster way to get from New York to London, or shows us how to build a subway around the bottom of the disk, until then we will continue to behave as if the earth is a globe because it WORKS, and flat earth doesn't.

It doesn't make the world look round, it makes the world look flat under a working model. You are again showing the bias towards tradition. How do you know what 'looks flat' or 'looks round' if you are not comparing models? The models are what matters. RET does not do anything useful, practicality solved all those problems, real experiments, real tests, with tweaks any time the experiment was at odds with prediction, RET didn't invent the plane, inventors and years of trial and error did. RET didn't tell you that if you start in New York, heading that way will get you to London, explorers did. Accepting that the world is flat won't stop planes working. You are saying you are happy to hold to a lie just because it's been nipped and tucked to bring what we observe in line with it, even when, as demonstrated in the OP, those tweaks have become exceedingly tenuous at best.
And again, you show the tradition-based leanings by demanding something prove itself by doing more. That approach is going to hit a wall sooner or later, indeed I suspect it already has, because it cannot allow for error. This goes beyond FET and RET, the scientific community is fundamentally broken. Forget FET, if you are only concerned with practical results, that is something you should be concerned with.

[JSS]

Prediction does not matter. Explanatory power does.

Prediction is the ONLY thing that matters. If your theory can't explain how things work, then exactly what is it good for?

You might find you get better results in discussion if you don't completely ignore what the other person said. Prediction and explanation are not the same thing. Every theory must be able to explain all we can observe, that's not in question, that's explanatory power, prediction is saying that in addition to that it must also be able to predict the result of a yet-to-be-performed experiment. True, that can have value, but requiring it is to slant science towards tradition, not logic, as I went over.

I'm not ignoring, I'm trying to understand.  Can you explain to me what "explanatory power" is and why it doesn't require prediction and testing to be considered true?

How exactly do you determine that an explanation is correct if you aren't willing or able to test it?

[JRowe]

I'm not ignoring, I'm trying to understand.  Can you explain to me what "explanatory power" is and why it doesn't require prediction and testing to be considered true?

How exactly do you determine that an explanation is correct if you aren't willing or able to test it?

How on earth are you getting 'not willing to test it' from 'explain all we can observe?'
I am objecting to the claim that the only valid test is a new one. Trillions of tests and observations have been taken throughout human history, countless observations, countless facts. Now, not all of those were reliable, there are errors, mistakes in experimentation, things not accounted for, but all that is data, all that is raw information that can be examined, and all of it must be accounted for, even if some of that accounting is 'yeah, the Piltdown Man was a hoax.' Test, use experiments, use data, use everything you can find out. I've never even said 'don't make predictions,' so claiming I'm somehow not willing to test is even more unfounded.

What I am saying, is that something does not need to reveal something new about the world in order to be true. If it does, great. If it doesn't, we already have plenty of observations, plenty is already known. If it can explain the same thing as a competing theory, and it does so better (ie: fewer assumptions, fewer contradictions), then it is better, and does not need to predict the result of an unperformed experiment for the weight of that evidence to mean anything.
Prediction and explanation are not the same thing. Explanation is working with the tools you have, prediction is inventing new ones. Prediction favors tradition, because the more time passes, the less room there is for new experiments with any degree of significance.

[JSS]

What I am saying, is that something does not need to reveal something new about the world in order to be true. If it does, great. If it doesn't, we already have plenty of observations, plenty is already known. If it can explain the same thing as a competing theory, and it does so better (ie: fewer assumptions, fewer contradictions), then it is better, and does not need to predict the result of an unperformed experiment for the weight of that evidence to mean anything.
Prediction and explanation are not the same thing. Explanation is working with the tools you have, prediction is inventing new ones. Prediction favors tradition, because the more time passes, the less room there is for new experiments with any degree of significance.

I have to disagree, that's not how the scientific method works.

If you come up with an alternate theory for something, and it explains all previous tests and data just as well as the current theory then your theory is just as correct. But now we have two separate theories, and both can't be right.

However you don't pick which theory is better based on which is more elegant or is better worded.  You examine both theories, you find the places where they disagree, and you devise an experiment so it's result will verify one or the other.

That is why we test new things. Not just because it's tradition, but when you need to decide between two theories the best way is to explore their differences and test it. Maybe some data already exists that can do it, but if not you need to do something else.

Then you have indeed, revealed something new.

[JRowe]

That is why we test new things. Not just because it's tradition, but when you need to decide between two theories the best way is to explore their differences and test it. Maybe some data already exists that can do it, but if not you need to do something else.

That's a way of doing it. It isn't the only one. One could look at assumptions, or the parts of a model that are more loosely explained, areas such as the one I went over in the OP and seems to have been totally ignored, existing areas of the subject where one model lacks an answer. Existing data serves just as well if holes can be seen, or unnecessary assumptions are required. It is always going to be possible to tweak the existing model to answer basically any objection, it's just that doing so requires more and more assumptions, oddities, things that should have been noticed long since or that need special pleading, are at odds with past parts of it... The current method of perpetually appending rather than replacing is focused on maintaining tradition, not true scientific analysis.
Insisting that a prediction is the only way serves just to put the status quo on a pedestal and say that it is above reproach, that there are no flaws in it to be examined, nothing to compare. That is not remotely scientific, but it is what the current mainstream scientific community relies upon.

[GreatATuin]

On the other hand, Flat Earth offers us several models, incompatible with each other, and these models don't give us any answer or prediction, just more questions on how they are supposed to work. The existence of several models allows flat earthers to cherry pick an explanation for anything. Where is the pseudoscience?

That is how science should be done. FEers don't cherrypick answers from whatever model is convenient, every FEer has their own model that they hold to and can answer the questions for, some choose to be more representative when they answer newbies and people that seem ignorant of that, but they don't switch between models when convenient. I can tell you what model I subscribe to, just as Tom Bishop could tell you which he favors, and many others could do the same.

They do. Tom did post very recently that he favored a bipolar earth model, but still tried to argue something based on a monopole model. Cherrypicking, as blatant as possible. And a common answer to any question seems to be "it really depends on the model".

This is preferrable to the tradition-based system of RET where a model gains traction simply because it's been around longer, and you have to take on faith that people a century ago with the resources of a century ago didn't make a mistake, because your system is incapable of replacing something established. It only appends and tweaks small changes, or adds things, but never goes back, never questions. Fundamental claims like relativity, dark matter, those should have been the call to go back and re-examine earlier discoveries and claims in light of it, instead they were added to a model assumed to be accurate rather than re-verified, creating this ever-unstable pile of hypotheses that cracks keep opening up in.

Do you mean that, for example, the discovery of quantum physics and relativity did not lead to re-examination of what we knew? That the Copernician model did not supersede the geocentric Ptolemaic model? The Copernician model or relativity didn't gain traction because it'd been around longer: it gained traction because it works better than previous models.

Prediction does not matter. Explanatory power does. Demanding a model make new predictions, while it can be sufficient, only serves to further the tradition-over-logic approach of RET. If you have two theories, A is established, B is new and competing, and an experiment was performed a decade ago because it was predicted by theory A, if theory B also predicts the same, then all that sets the theory apart is which came first. If someone was to go back in time and suggest B before A, and perform the same experiment, suddenly A would be the one that needs to make a new prediction. The predictive model of scientific theory does nothing but favor what has already been suggested, and thus prefers the models that were designed when less was understood. It is one of the many fundamental errors with the RE approach.

Prediction matters a lot. If you hold a theory to be true, then you should be able to make predictions based on this theory, that you can test and that will fail if the theory is wrong. That's what falsifiability is about. If there is no way to make an observation that could prove your theory wrong, then it is not falsifiable and has little or no scientific value.

Also, if two theories predict the same thing, then they are not really competing.

RET does raise many questions, such as the one I raised in the OP. The difference between RET and FET is that we ask the questions. You are taking your own refusal to question as evidence there are no flaws, when if anything it means the opposite. A true scientific approach is one where there are questions, where nothing is ever taken as complete or fully settled, and those questions are actually asked rather than conveniently ignored.

FET asks questions that have been answered long ago.

Further, claiming eclipse predictions grew more accurate with understanding is simply false. This is one of many crucial misunderstandings the predictive approach takes. You think because you can more accurately describe something in terms of a model, that it means the model has more evidence behind it. Instead, eclipses are by definition a predictable phenomenon, repeating completely after each saros cycle, the equations that govern them were once filled with unknowns, and then filled with values from past recorded eclipses. To say our understanding made eclipses more predictable is to confuse cause and effect, it was the predictability of eclipses that led to the equations that supposedly describe them, simply because you can make a formula for anything predictable.

Saros cycles are not enough, by far, to accurately predict the specific time and location of an eclipse. You are rewriting history. Halley made his precise prediction of an eclipse in 1715 thanks to the equations of Newton's laws of gravity. These formulas did not come out of nowhere. Newton made a hypothesis. People tried his hypothesis and saw it worked. They used it to make predictions, and these predictions were accurate. Newton wasn't looking for a way to predict eclipses.

Then centuries later, Einstein made a hypothesis that was mostly compatible with Newton's, but filled the gaps where Newton's failed. Einstein showed Newtonian physics' limits. But within these limits, it still applies, and still is in use today.

If tomorrow someone comes with a new theory that updates Einstein's relativity, it will have to be compatible with all the many cases that relativity correctly predicts, just like relativity had to be compatible with all the cases that work with Newtonian mechanics.

[JSS]

That's a way of doing it. It isn't the only one. One could look at assumptions, or the parts of a model that are more loosely explained, areas such as the one I went over in the OP and seems to have been totally ignored, existing areas of the subject where one model lacks an answer. Existing data serves just as well if holes can be seen, or unnecessary assumptions are required. It is always going to be possible to tweak the existing model to answer basically any objection, it's just that doing so requires more and more assumptions, oddities, things that should have been noticed long since or that need special pleading, are at odds with past parts of it... The current method of perpetually appending rather than replacing is focused on maintaining tradition, not true scientific analysis.
Insisting that a prediction is the only way serves just to put the status quo on a pedestal and say that it is above reproach, that there are no flaws in it to be examined, nothing to compare. That is not remotely scientific, but it is what the current mainstream scientific community relies upon.

I'm not really sure what you're arguing here.  Science does all of that, looking at theories, trying to find holes, judging them, fixing them when found or replacing them with new ones. You can read thousands upon thousands of papers simply arguing one theory over another.  (Flat Earthers have NOTHING on the string theory guys when it comes to arguing against mainstream physicists.) And yes, coming up with new experiments is part of that process. I still fail to understand why this is a PROBLEM. It's the core idea of science. Argue about a theory, and when you find something nobody can agree on, design experiments and test it.

It's gotten us the high tech world we live in. Personally I'm pretty happy with how science has progressed. What exactly is science failing to do that you are so upset about all the experimenting going on?

I'm not sure why you hate the idea of coming up with new experiments so much.  There is only so much you can argue over a theory before you are just arguing in circles.  Prediction, experimenting, testing, that's all basic science. If you think it's better to stop doing all these new experiments and stop collecting data, well, I'll just have to disagree there.

If you want to throw out everything we know and replace it all with something new and better, go for it. You won't be the only one trying to work out a brand new Theory of Everything. It's the holy grail of science, and every theory, experiment and observation is another step along the way.

[JRowe]

And a common answer to any question seems to be "it really depends on the model".

So the fact that models are different and so the answers would depend on the model is... somehow an example of cherrypicking rather than just true? REers seem to struggle with the idea of understanding other viewpoints. One doesn't have to believe in a model to give the answer it would contain. Sometimes it's easier to do so, either because a thread is on that topic, or the answer you believe in requires much more in the way of required knowledge than you're willing to explain on a dime. It happens.

Do you mean that, for example, the discovery of quantum physics and relativity did not lead to re-examination of what we knew? That the Copernician model did not supersede the geocentric Ptolemaic model? The Copernician model or relativity didn't gain traction because it'd been around longer: it gained traction because it works better than previous models.

They really didn't work the way you are claiming, and when you have to go back almost five hundred years to give an example, it's very clear that isn't remotely representative of the current climate.
Quantum physics and relativity did not lead to any re-examination. They added to what was considered known, but nothing was actually changed, they were only ever used to look at things already considered question marks, not to look at what reasonable consequences would have been for things previously believed. The scientific community was happy to leave those unquestioned on the basis of tradition, expanding ever-outward and never looking inward.
I remind you again of the OP. That is an example of what re-examining actually looks like. When a new discovery is made, you find something in a related field that already has a supposed explanation, and you see if there would be any knock-on effects from the newly discovered theory. Science however is not concerned with that, it never discards, just tweaks, just appends, relativity is only used to add, not take away. QFT is only used to add, not take away. Everything is founded upon the religious belief that all that is known is fact and beyond question, no matter what major new discoveries there are that ought to have effects.

As you put it:
"If tomorrow someone comes with a new theory that updates Einstein's relativity, it will have to be compatible with all the many cases that relativity correctly predicts, just like relativity had to be compatible with all the cases that work with Newtonian mechanics."
Just add. Never re-examine.

You are working under the false premise that accurate calculations means truth. As I said, that isn't how it works. Yes, Newtonian physics were used to create equations to predict eclipses. That didn't happen in a vacuum. It would not have happened without recorded facts and figures from how often eclipses occur. Those are what predicted the eclipses. If it hadn't worked, they'd have tweaked the values until it did. All that can actually be read from this is that at best they mostly knew what the variables were, ie the relative speed of the moon and Sun. Big deal.

I liken it to cosmological constants. Under RET, there are a handful of numbers that govern everything in the universe. If any one of them is tweaked a little, stars won't form, or matter would collapse, any number of things like that, life wouldn't exist. But if all of them were changed at random, rather than altering one just slightly, and you'll be able to find a completely different set-up that still allows for life. I believe Victor Stenger wrote on that.
The scientific community is geared towards only allowing small changes. If you try to build to something larger, you'd fail, small oddities get swallowed up by some other hypothesis and by the time you want to build upon that small tweak, it's considered part and parcel of the mainstream and nothing to build from. It is categorically impossible for the scientific community to change consensus in any significant fashion without major overhaul.

What exactly is science failing to do that you are so upset about all the experimenting going on?

I'm not upset. I was answering an idle question of yours on an offhand remark while waiting for someone to actually address my OP, which now looks like it's just never going to happen because all REers are apparently physically capable of doing is ignoring what I said and lying about it.
I said several times over I'm fine with experiments, and encouraged doing so. My objection was only the belief that it was the only way to compare models, when you can also compare quality and quantity of assumptions. A fact you, as ever, ignored. You are lying to my face again, and it is genuinely disgusting the ease with which you do it.

[JRowe]

This is genuinely absurd.

If I said that magnetic attraction was the result of tiny invisible pixies, and put that alongside the electromagnetic explanation, are you truly saying that your only recourse for comparing the likelihood of those explanations is more experiments?
I'm not saying an experiment wouldn't work, I've never said that, I've said several times over they do add to evidence, they're where evidence comes from, but you are saying that so long as I said the fairies acted in the same way as the electromagnetic spectrum, according to you these would be equivalent theories.

Personally speaking I think that's utter rubbish, but whatever.
This is what you have been arguing over and distracting the thread over. I hope you're proud.

[GreatATuin]

This is genuinely absurd.

If I said that magnetic attraction was the result of tiny invisible pixies, and put that alongside the electromagnetic explanation, are you truly saying that your only recourse for comparing the likelihood of those explanations is more experiments?
I'm not saying an experiment wouldn't work, I've never said that, I've said several times over they do add to evidence, they're where evidence comes from, but you are saying that so long as I said the fairies acted in the same way as the electromagnetic spectrum, according to you these would be equivalent theories.

Personally speaking I think that's utter rubbish, but whatever.
This is what you have been arguing over and distracting the thread over. I hope you're proud.

If your theory works exactly the same way, with the same equations, and the same causes result in the same consequences, they are actually equivalent theories: they will give the same predictions, and experiments will give the same results.

The part that differ, the invisible pixies, is unfalsifiable. See Russell's teapot or the Invisible Pink Unicorn. It cannot be tested and therefore cannot be part of a scientific theory. I can't prove the invisible pixies don't exist, but I don't mind: no one can prove they exist either, and I have no need of that hypothesis.

[JRowe]

If your theory works exactly the same way, with the same equations, and the same causes result in the same consequences, they are actually equivalent theories: they will give the same predictions, and experiments will give the same results.

For the love of god, no one is saying there are no tests, that predictions cannot be made, I am getting utterly sick of repeating that, and 'the equations and causes are identical!' is something you just pulled out of your ass.
I am saying that there are ways to see whether a theory functions better than a competitor solely on how well it explains facts that are already known. If there are unnecessary assumptions, special pleading, oversights, contradictions... those are flaws.

Are you objecting to that, or agreeing? Stop this endless pointless run-around over nothing.

And why are we still on this distraction? Do you feel capable of saying anything relevant to the OP rather than an offhand remark I made about the motive behind it?

[JSS]

What exactly is science failing to do that you are so upset about all the experimenting going on?

I'm not upset. I was answering an idle question of yours on an offhand remark while waiting for someone to actually address my OP, which now looks like it's just never going to happen because all REers are apparently physically capable of doing is ignoring what I said and lying about it.
I said several times over I'm fine with experiments, and encouraged doing so. My objection was only the belief that it was the only way to compare models, when you can also compare quality and quantity of assumptions. A fact you, as ever, ignored. You are lying to my face again, and it is genuinely disgusting the ease with which you do it.

Accusing me of lying isn't going to help anything.

What got me to reply was this quote of yours: "Prediction does not matter."

And yes, I do believe that experiments and predictions ARE the final say when comparing competing models. You say we should compare the quality and quantity of assumptions? How do you decide quality? Why are more or less assumptions better or worse? More details is good or bad? Your post had a lot of talk about Hawking radiation, but also a lot of talk about how science is being done wrong with too many experiments, and that's what most replies are focusing on. You can't pretend your post wasn't equally an attack on science as it was on Hawking radiation.

In the end, what is a theory for? It is to describe the world we observe. The only way to validate it is to test it. It's been said before in this thread, a theory you can't test is no theory at all.

I don't deny that there is a lot of good in comparing and discussing and debating theories, but in the end, you HAVE to test it or it's just a lot of math. That's not useless, it's how discoveries are made.

Back to your question in the original post, since you are right, the subject has been ignored, so I'll tackle it. There is a distinction between applied and theoretical physics. There are plenty of untestable theories out there, Hawking radiation is one. It's an interesting theory, it might be right, it might be wrong, we simply don't know. Not until we can create mini-black holes and observe them anyway. You will find as many professors arguing that Hawking is right as there are that he was wrong.  That debate started the moment he presented his paper, and will continue until we are one day able to test it and see what happens. You should post what you said on a physics board, I'm sure you would get a lot of healthy debate, there are plenty who would agree with you that Hawking radiation has problems and would be happy to hear your ideas and any alternative explanations for what we can observe.

[JRowe]

And yes, I do believe that experiments and predictions ARE the final say when comparing competing models. You say we should compare the quality and quantity of assumptions? How do you decide quality? Why are more or less assumptions better or worse? More details is good or bad? Your post had a lot of talk about Hawking radiation, but also a lot of talk about how science is being done wrong with too many experiments, and that's what most replies are focusing on. You can't pretend your post wasn't equally an attack on science as it was on Hawking radiation.

I wasn't attacking Hawking radiation, I don't care one way or the other about it. An attack on science, no, but an attack on the community that allows such things to be propagated? Yes, absolutely.

Why? Because it's founded entirely in bias. Look at what you are now defending, even after clarification.
If I put a shoebox in front of you and told you that inside it was either a phone or a baby dragon, you are saying you would need to open it in order to work out it wasn't a dragon. The rest of us already know dragons don't exist. That wasn't arrived at by experiment, you can't prove a negative, but most people are aware of why you don't pile up unnecessary assumptions.
And you're asking why more assumptions are worse.

And again, you are ignoring me. You are using implicitly the idea that the only tests that can be performed are new ones, rather than simply using the vast amount of knowledge that already exists. You are wholesale inventing a claim about a 'theory that you can't test' when what I've been talking about is the opposite, a theory that is tested, compared to known tests, known results, found to suffice, and found to need fewer assumptions than its competitors.
You are saying to reject that theory simply because it was discovered second. If we were to flip things around, have that theory be discovered first so the last test performed would be a new one, it would then be favored for no measurable reason. That is the definition of relying on tradition. That is what I object to, insisting that the only way anything can be examined is not by existing knowledge, but by fallacy.
If you disagree please, tell me, what is the qualitative difference between the theory discovered first and the theory discovered second? All I can see is that the latter is made better informed, which ought to make it more trustworthy, not less.

Back to your question in the original post, since you are right, the subject has been ignored, so I'll tackle it. There is a distinction between applied and theoretical physics. There are plenty of untestable theories out there, Hawking radiation is one. It's an interesting theory, it might be right, it might be wrong, we simply don't know. Not until we can create mini-black holes and observe them anyway. You will find as many professors arguing that Hawking is right as there are that he was wrong.  That debate started the moment he presented his paper, and will continue until we are one day able to test it and see what happens. You should post what you said on a physics board, I'm sure you would get a lot of healthy debate, there are plenty who would agree with you that Hawking radiation has problems and would be happy to hear your ideas and any alternative explanations for what we can observe.

It doesn't matter if it's testable. The problem is not that Hawking radiation does or doesn't exist, the problem is the contradiction within it. It is the attitude indicated by a community that will champion something they haven't thought about to any significant extent.
I think you'll find far more professors arguing in favor of something as mainstream as this.

[JSS]

Why? Because it's founded entirely in bias. Look at what you are now defending, even after clarification.
If I put a shoebox in front of you and told you that inside it was either a phone or a baby dragon, you are saying you would need to open it in order to work out it wasn't a dragon. The rest of us already know dragons don't exist. That wasn't arrived at by experiment, you can't prove a negative, but most people are aware of why you don't pile up unnecessary assumptions.
And you're asking why more assumptions are worse.

Of course I'd open the box. If you told me there was a baby dragon inside, and I said their wasn't, and you said there was, and I said no that's impossible, and you said I'm wrong... we could argue back and forth all day.

I could say dragons don't exist, I could say that a fire breathing baby couldn't be held in a cardboard box, I'd say if it was a baby dragon where is the mother and why aren't we running for our lives? I'd say why isn't it making any baby dragon noises? You could come up with counter arguments for all of those, that you lined the inside with asbestos, that you shot the mother with a tranquilizer dart and she's being held captive in your basement, that you muzzled the baby dragon. (How mean!)

The point here isn't that I'd believe you, of course I wouldn't. The point is that if arguing logically with you about it fails, then the only solution is to open the box!

And again, you are ignoring me. You are using implicitly the idea that the only tests that can be performed are new ones, rather than simply using the vast amount of knowledge that already exists. You are wholesale inventing a claim about a 'theory that you can't test' when what I've been talking about is the opposite, a theory that is tested, compared to known tests, known results, found to suffice, and found to need fewer assumptions than its competitors.
You are saying to reject that theory simply because it was discovered second. If we were to flip things around, have that theory be discovered first so the last test performed would be a new one, it would then be favored for no measurable reason. That is the definition of relying on tradition. That is what I object to, insisting that the only way anything can be examined is not by existing knowledge, but by fallacy.
If you disagree please, tell me, what is the qualitative difference between the theory discovered first and the theory discovered second? All I can see is that the latter is made better informed, which ought to make it more trustworthy, not less.

I never said you can ONLY use new tests. But if you have a new theory that competes with an old one, of course most tests you come up with will be new, because before that new theory existed nobody would have thought of performing any of those tests. You can't just use old test data to compare a new theory that has brand new implications. We tested gravitational lensing with new experiments to prove that Einstein was right and Newton wasn't. Why didn't we use old data? Because before Einstein nobody ever tired to see if mass bent light because of mass, so there was no old data to test.  If there was, we certainly would have used it.

I also never said anything about early theories being better or worse than later ones. In pretty much every case we scrap older theories in favor of newer ones. As mentioned before, Newton's laws of gravity are now superseded by Einstein's theories.  I would agree in most cases that yes, later theories are better than earlier ones. We know more. We have more data. We have better methods of testing them.

So to clear things up, when a theory was introduced has no bearing on if it's true or not, only the data does. And if old data and tests can prove a new or old theory wrong, there is no need to make a new test, other than curiosity.

It doesn't matter if it's testable. The problem is not that Hawking radiation does or doesn't exist, the problem is the contradiction within it. It is the attitude indicated by a community that will champion something they haven't thought about to any significant extent.
I think you'll find far more professors arguing in favor of something as mainstream as this.

Again, Hawking radiation is an idea in theoretical physics to try and imagine what happens around black holes based on what we know. If you can prove it has contradictions, please share your views on an astrophysics board. I'm being serious here, pretty much everything about black holes is argued about, they are the poster child for some of the craziest physics out there and so there are a lot of people fascinated by them and trying to figure out what they would be like. They would happily read your arguments and ideas. Inspiration can come from unlikely sources.

(PS. Also, I'd open the box even if you eventually admitted it was empty because... well... what if it was a baby dragon? I want to pet it! Part of being human is dreaming after all, and I can want something to be true even though I know it isn't.)