It’s very valuable to distinguish between whether something works and whether the theoretical underpinning is correct.
Usually there are years between the one and the other.
Einstein formulated the theory of special relativity decades before it had strong empirical evidence. That’s having theory before empirical confirmation.
Washing hands before operating a person is the other case. Even before you know about bacteria and viruses you should start washing your hands if you see that having clean hands generally reduce the number of complications in operations.
The people who advocate washing hands might tell you some magical theory about how washing hands means that you smell better and that your patients are less likely to develop complications because you smell better.
It’s a lot harder to find out that bacteria cause illnesses than to find out that surgeons who wash their hands achieve better results.
On the same token it’s easy to observe that many people who adopt a low carb diet, do lose weight on the diet.
Whether it’s due to changes in insulin production, ketones-in-the-urine or some other factor is a harder question.
It’s certainly nice is someone is right about the reasons why the diet he advocates works but the person who’s suffering about overweight cares primarily about whether the diet works. A person who’s in the advice business is generally forgiven if his advice works but his theory is off.
Einstein formulated the theory of special relativity decades before it had strong empirical evidence. That’s having theory before empirical confirmation.
ITYM general relativity—the Michelson–Morley experiment had been performed 15 years earlier. (OTOH IIRC Einstein said he didn’t remember whether he was aware of it in 1905.)
As far from what I remember from school Michelson-Morley did show that not all was well with the prevailing physical model. I don’t think it provided enough evidence to validate that Einstein was completely right.
Then don’t say that it’s irrelevant.
It’s very valuable to distinguish between whether something works and whether the theoretical underpinning is correct.
Usually there are years between the one and the other.
Einstein formulated the theory of special relativity decades before it had strong empirical evidence. That’s having theory before empirical confirmation.
Washing hands before operating a person is the other case. Even before you know about bacteria and viruses you should start washing your hands if you see that having clean hands generally reduce the number of complications in operations.
The people who advocate washing hands might tell you some magical theory about how washing hands means that you smell better and that your patients are less likely to develop complications because you smell better.
It’s a lot harder to find out that bacteria cause illnesses than to find out that surgeons who wash their hands achieve better results.
On the same token it’s easy to observe that many people who adopt a low carb diet, do lose weight on the diet. Whether it’s due to changes in insulin production, ketones-in-the-urine or some other factor is a harder question.
It’s certainly nice is someone is right about the reasons why the diet he advocates works but the person who’s suffering about overweight cares primarily about whether the diet works. A person who’s in the advice business is generally forgiven if his advice works but his theory is off.
As far from what I remember from school Michelson-Morley did show that not all was well with the prevailing physical model. I don’t think it provided enough evidence to validate that Einstein was completely right.