Vladimir Vassilevsky wrote:
>
> > Stan Pawlukiewicz wrote:
> >>
> >> How about string theory?
> >>
> > If you watch the "The Elegant Universe" you'll see one of the leading
> > string theorists saying that at the moment string theory is untestable,
> > so for the moment it is just philosophy. Which is why there are string
> > theorists out there working hard trying to figure out how to test it.
> >
>
> The science is not what is testable. The science is what can be
> disproved by an evidence. If there will be found a single fact that comes
> against the string theory then it will be the end for the string theory.

not necessarily the end of the whole theory, because if there is one
prediction that came out inconsistent with some evidence, they might be
able to adjust the theory to make it consistent with that evidence.
you can say that Newton's gravitation is wrong and that Einstein's is
right (because of some evidence that contradicts Newton's), but i would
say that, in a sorta loose and sophisticated way, that General
Relativity is an *adjustment* of Newton's gravitation that makes it
work in cases where it didn't before. the Darwinian theory of
evolution of species, natural selection, and the sorta random mutation
still works *only* because palentologists have made adjustments to
their "life tree" or "species descent chart" or whatever they call it,
when some newly discovered evidence proved some part of it wrong. they
didn't toss the whole chart, just dug out an eraser and drew some
different lines to make it fit the evidence.

r b-j