"H. Curtiss Leung" wrote:
>
>
> Also, the work of these two...well, these two whatever-they-are is in
> *theoretical* physics, and my impression is that even the best of these
> folk are regarded with suspicion by their experimental peers.
This is quite true. Without the work of theoretical physicists the experiemental physicists wouldn't have any work to do! And string theorists, as far as I can tell, are primarily focused on exploring possibilities for testing. Every _honest_ question anyone asks is a plunge into theoretical _______, fill in the blank, but the question provides no work for the experimentalist until a provisional answer is provided. Then the experimentalist can go to work testing the tentative answer. My impression is that most of the questions asked lead to dead ends, but there is no other way really to find the "open ends" except by endlessly going down dead ends. And it is the theoretician who provides the dead (and the few open) ends to go down.
Carrol
P.S. I've been plugging away at _Structure of Evolutionary Thought_ since Aug. 13 and have now reached pg. 383. And on the basis of those first 383 pages it is hard to imagine a more misleading introduction to the book that Hawkes's Nation review. The first two paragraphs (a) merely echo Gould and (b) utterly distort and conceal the actual thrust of Gould's magnificent history.
Hawkes:
****Popular perception notwithstanding, the theory of natural selection was accepted by every serious evolutionist long before Darwin. Earlier scientists interpreted it as the clearest possible evidence for intelligent design of the universe. William Paley's Natural Theology (1802), for example, employs the famous image of the "great watchmaker" to account for the perfect adaptation of creatures to harmonious ecosystems. Darwin's innovation, which may appear small but is in fact immense, lay in his claim that natural selection is the only cause of evolution.
In one sense, this was merely a change of emphasis: The impulse of pre-Darwinian evolutionists, faced with incontrovertible evidence of natural selection, had been to ask why it occurred. They sought after the "final cause" of evolution, and they found it in the proposal of an intelligent designer. But one of the essential principles of modern science is that such final causes are unknowable. Science must limit itself to "efficient" or "material" causes; it must not ask why things happen, but how. Darwin applied this principle to evolution. Whereas his predecessors had seen the adaptation of organisms to their environment as the effects of design, Darwin saw the physical development of creatures as the sole cause of evolution. The great watchmaker had been overthrown. ****
As a grad school seminar paper this deserves about a C+ from an easy instructor -- provided the instructor had not read Gould very carefully. If he/she had, the grade would be nearer a D+.