After the incredible response to two of our recent posts (Krauss on Intelligent Design, Religion (and String Theory); and From the Sublime to the Ridiculous), Sean, JoAnne, Clifford, Risa and I asked Lawrence Krauss if he would be interested in submit…

Wouldn’t this create more confusion? More battles?

I would suspect then that if this was not the case( those well informed as to the nature of quantum gravity and what it is), then we would be looking at about 1% of the population who will guide people along, without pre-biased views right?

How do you wipe away generalizations that may have gone wrong and added to the pot?

I mean really, how do you relieve yourself of the burden of inclination, and not become a stringevangelism(a religion) versus a individual who is a stringevangelist(my mistake was the ism ? This is not my fault Clifford.:)

Wiki needs a clear defintion so we understand Clifford what we do not want in those other respective areas? You’ll have to write it.

So this ism is applicable then is it not, to all areas of respective research? While the Cathiolic church exists and is very concrete there is something magical in our history that has been left for our inspections. Can this co-exist without it becoming a denunciation of all that is good in scientists and the responsibilties that they bear?

Well, the exclusion plots have to be calculated by specifying a model. DAMA uses different elements than CDMS, so the cross sections can’t be related to each other in a model independent way.

Even within supersymmetry it is possible to find a window that will make DAMA consistent with CDMSII. This is the case if you assume spin dependent interactions:

http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0408346

And very recently the DAMA team suggested another possibility:

http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0511262

Here one assumes that light pseudoscalar or scalar dark particles cause interactions with electrons and/or atomic elecrical fields inside crystal. One of the criticisms of the DAMA method was that they couldn’t distinguish between electron and nuclear recoils. CDMS and other experiments reject signals due to electron recoils. But in this latest proposed model CDMS would not able to detect the DAMA signal.

The DAMA team claims to have detected such interactions but other teams have disputed their results. See here for an old physicsweb article:

http://physicsweb.org/articles/world/13/4/3/1

Now, since then the DAMA team has collected more statistics, confirming and strengthening their earlier results. However the CDMS team hasn’t detected anything so far. It turns out, however, that the conflict between DAMA and CDMS only exists if you assume certain supersymmetrical models.

But despite the fact that there are plenty of ways to make DAMA consistent with the CDMS experiment, most people working in the field don’t believe that DAMA has detected dark matter. So, this seems to be the case of an unproven popular theory ruling out experimental results.

No disrespect intended, but I never understood why Lawrence Krauss thought that the support of the Catholic Church is so important to science or the ID debate that he would defend multiverse theories and make appeals to the Pope. Origins science isn’t about speculative and known-to-be-fundamentally-flawed theoretical physics projections, multiverse theories have no business in origins science, unless you are “fending-off” an equally unsubstantiable attack. This is fine if the attack includes something the ludicrous plausibility of alien intervention, but it is NOT okay when the anthropic principle is used to support the idea that a fundamental and goal-oriented form of structuring/”design” forever exists in the energy of nature.

If this is correct for only one possible universe, say, the one that’s actually observed and “known”, then this is what defines the values of the forces and the asymmetrical reason why the forces cannot be unified at any level.

If you want to beat-back the lame hop to supernatural forces that’s supposed to lie beyond evidence for goal-oriented “design in nature”, then do it simply, by the fact that there is absolutely no evidence that the structuring of our universe isn’t forever inherent, regardless of how it started for us, and regardless of whatever mathematical “idealizations” may be pointed “toward” by our theories. That doesn’t even come close to actually getting there.

You can’t conclude anything else without an unprovable assumption, so don’t even open the door beyond empiricism until these guys finally find a good reason to quit fighting with each other over which theory is the most screwed up!

Part of the issue is that, since Lawrence is not here every day, I took more time than usual here, and now will have to go into my cave…

Lee (question from sidelines) have you got some idea of moving on to a beefed-up Loop Gravity, or some related approach to QG, which would generate the Standard Model?

have to go, back later

I am puzzled about the roundabout way you present your point. If you want to ask Lee for clarifications, and I agree that may be interesting, then why don’t you just do that? I thought we are already beyond symbolic actions.

Moshe, there is no need to end discussion just when it becomes substantive. Recrimination has quieted down and Clifford seemed welcoming of Lee’s last post where he says:

—quote Smolin #78—
And, if I may add one point on the science side: the debate is not about whether it has been useful to do research in string theory, LQG, dynamical triangulations, causal sets, twistor theory etc. Everyone (or averyone who takes a respectful view of what their colleagues do) can see that these programs have produced lots of non-trivial results. The question is where it is worthwhile, as individuals and as a community, to invest our efforts in the future. The question to be asked about each theory is, have we learned enough about it yet to regard it as unlikely-by itself-to be the right theory and, if so, shall we take in the lessons learned, positive and negative, and move on. Move on means try to invent new theories that have the strengths of those investigated without the weaknesses.

For sure there is a right theory of quantum gravity and beyond the standard model physics out there. My view is that we should spend less of our time investigating theories and ideas already on the table, because if one of them was the right theory we would know it by now. We should instead spend our time trying to invent new, better theories.

I also am very sure that when we find the right theory it will provide us with lots of new, surprising and falsifiable predictions. So I’d rather spend my time looking for that theory than arguing over whether we can live without such predictions.
—-end quote—

Will the next occasion be any better than at CV at this point? Now is your chance to ask Smolin what he has in mind in the way of moving on from the present state of Loop and Spinfoam quantum gravity. He has explicitly and unguardedly suggested he might see a need to do that. Not just to move on from string but from other QG. If the atmosphere is adversarial then asking what he has in mind might seem an unfriendly question, but if it is fact collegial then it is a natural and friendly question to ask.

If you experts want a friendly conversation out in the open, here is your context. The tumult and shouting has died for the moment and the next occasion whenever might not be any more propitious than the present one.

yes.. and that was one of the purposes of the new book, which was, as honestly and accurately as I felt I could, to portray this difference, and to discuss what it is like to be in the midst of not knowing…

..and, actually I don’t think the Pope came out in favor of ID at all.. the press are distorting what he said.. I have been spending a great deal of time working outside of, and within, the catholic church on this issue, and I believe that they will settle on the correct side… the pope said merely that there was purpose to the universe.. which he surely must believe.. and which itself says nothing about evolution.

there is no conflict between having a good, honest, respectful debate over the open questions and presenting the science to the public. In my experience the best way to present what science is and how it works to the public is simply to carry out such debates in publically accessible forums like this-as well as in books and public talks. The public is smart and savy and they want the real thing.

cvj says:

Yes! Yes! this is what I’ve been getting at on the other thread, (whereas people seem to get distracted and think I’m defending string theory).

-cvj

Wow, these debates are perhaps finally getting somewhere. But if I can suggest something-there is no conflict between having a good, honest, respectful debate over the open questions and presenting the science to the public. In my experience the best way to present what science is and how it works to the public is simply to carry out such debates in publically accessible forums like this-as well as in books and public talks. The public is smart and savy and they want the real thing. Many of them would rather look over our shoulder as we talk to each other than listen to something specially prepared for them.

And, if I may add one point on the science side: the debate is not about whether it has been useful to do research in string theory, LQG, dynamical triangulations, causal sets, twistor theory etc. Everyone (or averyone who takes a respectful view of what their colleagues do) can see that these programs have produced lots of non-trivial results. The question is where it is worthwhile, as individuals and as a community, to invest our efforts in the future. The question to be asked about each theory is, have we learned enough about it yet to regard it as unlikely-by itself-to be the right theory and, if so, shall we take in the lessons learned, positive and negative, and move on. Move on means try to invent new theories that have the strengths of those investigated without the weaknesses.

For sure there is a right theory of quantum gravity and beyond the standard model physics out there. My view is that we should spend less of our time investigating theories and ideas already on the table, because if one of them was the right theory we would know it by now. We should instead spend our time trying to invent new, better theories.

I also am very sure that when we find the right theory it will provide us with lots of new, surprising and falsifiable predictions. So I’d rather spend my time looking for that theory than arguing over whether we can live without such predictions.

Others may certainly disagree. But this is where I see the important questions are.

Thanks,

Lee