Replies

Re:""At this point in the history of the theory, the Correspondence principle applies. That says that any new theory must contain the old as a limiting example. Tossing out "fallible" is pointless. Evolution ain't going down.""

" Please refer to "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" by Thomas Kuhn for an opposing viewpoint."

Kuhn's book is philosophy and social science. It is not a science book. Once DNA was established as the fundamental mechanism for genetics, the theory of evolution was established as bedrock. The theory went from one with weak evidence at the time of Darwin to strong evidence before Watson and Crick. Once you have such a complete theory, it stays.

" Please refer to my post #483; wherein I said:
"Newton's law obviously ... was, however, disproven.

You are mistaken. As I said, Newton's law applies to any region of space were the energy density is sufficiently low. That means when you attempt calculations in GR and the local energy density is low enough, one can drop negligable terms. The same applies to QM in the classical limit.

"Actually, many argue that it is still valid as a special case -- it is still useful for ordinary purposes here on earth."

Not many, any scientist that understands GR does this, because Newton's law is the limit of GR at low energy density, just as Euclidian space is the limit of the hyperbolic space of SR at low velocity.

"it seems that newer theories of gravitation are emerging. "

Thanks for the link. I scanned it. All objects and interactions can be observed from a bounding surface.

GR is complete as it stands, just as Newton's theory was. Any new theory can not change GR. GR must be contained within it. In the case of the "new" theories, the simplest are the deSitter(dS) and antideSitter(AdS) spaces of 5 dimensions, our 4d and one more time_d. They contain all simple string theories. dS space is flat in 5d, and AdS is curved. Regardless of which particular one is correct, all theories that exist now, for our 4d world will survive. That includes the Standard Model.

"Kuhn's book is philosophy and social science. It is not a science book."

What would "science" be without the underpinning of a (still evolving) philosophy of science? The only thing that sets alchemy or astrology apart from physics, chemistry and astronomy is the difference in the underlying philosophies, and the methods, procedures and protocols developed on the basis of that philosophy.

Kuhn was a "hard scientist". See: http://www.des.emory.edu/mfp/Kuhnsnap.html

"Thomas Samuel Kuhn was born on July 18, 1922, in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States. He received a Ph. D. in physics from Harvard University in 1949 and remained there as an assistant professor of general education and history of science. In 1956, Kuhn accepted a post at the University of California--Berkeley, where in 1961 he became a full professor of history of science. In 1964, he was named M. Taylor Pyne Professor of Philosophy and History of Science at Princeton University. In 1979 he returned to Boston, this time to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as professor of philosophy and history of science. In 1983 he was named Laurence S. Rockefeller Professor of Philosophy at MIT."