Forum Overview :: Biohazard: Code Veronica :: Senor Barboritio MetaFilter Post

[quote name="Senor Barborito MetaFilter Post"]Orthogonality, there is one problem with what you're saying, though. While, yes, the predictive ability of correct theories is amazing, one must be careful not to fall victim to the fallacy of universality. That is, the assumption that theories can be universally applied. This is why relativity was needed to correct Newtonian physics on the extreme upper end, and why quantum mechanics was needed to correct Newtonian physics on the lower end. We still haven't found the graviton, and there appears to be evidence coming out now that gravity does NOT work consistently over extremely large distances. Our models of physics are far from finished. At some point biology may encounter extrema and unknowns that demand a major revision to current prevailing theory. Darwin's predictions about mechanisms that could be there before he'd seen them could have been wildly wrong if he'd used his theory to attempt to predict qualities of these as-of-yet-unencountered extrema. I guess what I'm saying is that you need to be careful about how far you run with that idea - a lot of awfully good scientists have been blinded by universality. posted by Ryvar at 12:03 AM PST on March 26 [/quote]