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From: brooks@lll-crg.ARPA (Eugene D. Brooks III)
Newsgroups: net.physics
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Bell's Inequality
Message-ID: <596@lll-crg.ARPA>
Date: Tue, 21-May-85 16:57:52 EDT
Article-I.D.: lll-crg.596
Posted: Tue May 21 16:57:52 1985
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> > > (2) I know some computer programs that also appear to work but that in
> > > reality are full of bugs.  Apparent working is not good enough!
> > 
> > If you know that a program has a bug, and you can demonstrate it, then the
> > program does not appear to work.  Of course the program works with some data
> > and your analogy to physics is a rather good one.  In the case of QM and the
> > theory of measurement lets demonstrate the bug before you claim  the theory
> > is broken.  Claiming that the theory is not intuitive or asthetic is not good
> > enough.
> 
> This has the ring of a high minded scientific principle but is in fact a
> dangerous (if taken seriously) narrow mindedness about the proper roles of
> intuition and aethetics in science.  Historically they have *guided* the
> development of many of science's most successful theories, including QM.
> They are clearly indespensable tools of the theoretical physicist.  Of course,
> they are not the final arbiters of good theory; experiment is.
> 
> Ed Turner
> astrovax!elt

As you note the final arbiter of a theory is experiment and not intuition or
asthetics.  It is usually the case that a theory is developed in the first place
to explain anomolous behavior of a new experiment.  In the case of QM,
the theory is well supported by experiment (although not by ones usual
intuition).  The theory was developed in the first place to correctly account
for experiments that could not be explained by classical physics.  The theory
also reduces to classical physics in the appropo limit.  The theory is not
broken!  Lets not fix it until experimental evidence points out a need.