The first is something along the lines of an inadequacy analysis (a la Inadequate Equilibria). Given the incentives people face, if Newtonian mechanics was this flawed, would we expect it to have been exposed?
I think we can agree that the answer is an extremely confident “yes”. There is a lot of prestige to be gained, prestige is something people want, and there aren’t high barriers to doing the experiment and subsequent writeup. So then, I have a correspondingly extremely strong prior that Newtonian mechanics is not that flawed. Strong enough where even this experimental result isn’t enough to move me much.
The second is surrounding things that I think you can assume are implied in a stated theory. In this pendulum example, I think it’s implied that the prediction is contingent on there not being a huge gust of wind that knocks the stand over, for example. I think it’s reasonable to assume that such things are implied when one states their theory.
And so, I don’t see anything wrong with going back and revising the theory to something like “this is what we’d predict if the stand remains in place”. This sort of thing can be dangerous if eg. the person theorizing is proposing a crackpot medical treatment, keeps coming up with excuses when the treatment doesn’t work, and says “see it works!” when positive results are observed. But in the pendulum example it seems fine.
(I’d also teach them about the midwit meme and valleys of bad rationality.)
I’d have two main things to say.
The first is something along the lines of an inadequacy analysis (a la Inadequate Equilibria). Given the incentives people face, if Newtonian mechanics was this flawed, would we expect it to have been exposed?
I think we can agree that the answer is an extremely confident “yes”. There is a lot of prestige to be gained, prestige is something people want, and there aren’t high barriers to doing the experiment and subsequent writeup. So then, I have a correspondingly extremely strong prior that Newtonian mechanics is not that flawed. Strong enough where even this experimental result isn’t enough to move me much.
The second is surrounding things that I think you can assume are implied in a stated theory. In this pendulum example, I think it’s implied that the prediction is contingent on there not being a huge gust of wind that knocks the stand over, for example. I think it’s reasonable to assume that such things are implied when one states their theory.
And so, I don’t see anything wrong with going back and revising the theory to something like “this is what we’d predict if the stand remains in place”. This sort of thing can be dangerous if eg. the person theorizing is proposing a crackpot medical treatment, keeps coming up with excuses when the treatment doesn’t work, and says “see it works!” when positive results are observed. But in the pendulum example it seems fine.
(I’d also teach them about the midwit meme and valleys of bad rationality.)