This is about to get ugly (link requires paid WSJ subscription):
Nobel physicist Wolfgang Pauli didn't suffer fools gladly. Fond of calling colleagues' work "wrong" or "completely wrong," he saved his worst epithet for work so sloppy and speculative it is "not even wrong."
That's how mathematician Peter Woit of Columbia University describes string theory. In his book, "Not Even Wrong," published in the U.K. this month and due in the U.S. in September, he calls the theory "a disaster for physics."
Interesting. Of course, I knew that string theory has its critics, but isn't this excessive? What is the objection, precisely?
String theory, which took off in 1984, posits that elementary particles such as electrons are not points, as standard physics had it. They are, instead, vibrations of one-dimensional strings 1/100 billion billionth the size of an atomic nucleus. Different vibrations supposedly produce all the subatomic particles from quarks to gluons. Oh, and strings exist in a space of 10, or maybe 11, dimensions. No one knows exactly what or where the extra dimensions are, but assuming their existence makes the math work.
String theory, proponents said, could reconcile quantum mechanics (the physics of subatomic particles) and gravity, the longest-distance force in the universe. That impressed particle physicists to no end. In the 1980s, most jumped on the string bandwagon and since then, stringsters have written thousands of papers.
But one thing they haven't done is coax a single prediction from their theory. In fact, "theory" is a misnomer, since unlike general relativity theory or quantum theory, string theory is not a concise set of solvable equations describing the behavior of the physical world. It's more of an idea or a framework.
Partly as a result, string theory "makes no new predictions that are testable by current -- or even currently conceivable -- experiments," writes Prof. Smolin. "The few clean predictions it does make have already been made by other" theories.
When I read that, I can't help but be reminded of some of the arguments raised against intelligent design. It has been described as not so much a theory as a critique of the Darwinian model. One reason it falls down as a theory is that it can't make predictions.
But surely, this weakness in string theory would have been evident from the beginning? How is it that the scientific community is able to quickly dismiss one proposition for having a particular weakness while spending years fiddling around with an idea that suffers from, essentially, the same weakness?
Well, I'm painting in almost ridiculously broad strokes here. Obviously, string theory and ID are not the same. There is no questionable group like the Discovery Institute pushing string theory; string theory isn't joined at the hip with a pseudoscientific movement like Creation Science; no one is fighting to have string theory taught in schools for religious reasons.
But then again -- none of those issues go to the merits of the case. If scientific methodology and the scientific community were as objective as they are generally presented to be, would intelligent design have recived the same kind of hearing that string theory has before being rejected? (Not to say that string theory is about to be rejected. This is just one book, after all.)
The answer: no. ID would never have been as warmly welcomed as string theory. This is partly due to the fact that ID commits the much more egregious error -- from the standpoint of mainstream science -- of allowing for the possibility of some reality outside of that which can be accounted for in purely naturalistic terms. Moreover, it has this overall guilt-by-association relationship with red states and bad haircuts and people who go to church.
Unfortunately, the second part of that equation is the reason why even a purely naturalistic take on some of the same ideas presented in ID -- for example, the selfish biocosm hypothesis -- is not likely to get a fair hearing. It turns out that science is subject to the assumptions and prejudices of the scientific community.
Fortunately, given time, it is a self-correcting model.
