I bet there could be some juicy ones.
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Einstein played very little part in the development of the Standard Model. Also, I have looked at the evidence of "Einstein as a fraud" and have found it to be ludicrous, at least as presented to me. It suggests that because he used work from previous physicists and put it all together into one coherent theory that that makes him "a fraud."
Yet that is exactly what all physics is. I'm not saying he's right, but I have seen no evidence of anything other than just good physics from Einstein, even if he got it all wrong.
Here's what people seem to completely misunderstand. Physics has nothing to do with Truth, but it doesn't pretend to. Physics is a set of useful mathematical models. It is absolutely nothing more; and every good physicist knows it. That doesn't mean there is no fuckery there, there is a ton. That doesn't mean there is no dogma there, there is a ton. But that has more to do with how it's sold to the public than how it is seen by physicists.
Don't get me wrong, its easy to drink your own kool-aid and more than a few physicists do, but in general, most physicists understand what physics is; a set of mathematical models. Einsteins mathematical models were extremely useful, and the axioms (which are his true genius and original work, even if wrong) are also useful, even if they may have ultimately led us astray. That leading astray is more the work of other entities than Einstein.
I am not thinking Einstein was some great person. I have no doubt he was as corrupt as any other in his position, but to downplay his contributions to physics has no evidential support, and all arguments I have seen seem to have no clue what physics is (useful mathematical models), and what it is not (truth).
Great comment, Slyver. Sensible and enjoyable to read.
I actually agree completely.
Anyone who knows much about Einstein, the man, will readily agree he was kind of a dick.
But yes, scientists build on each other's work. That's literally the entire point of science. Someone proposes an idea, it gets torn to shreds, and if it's still standing, it's considered a strong enough idea to use as a foundation for new ones.
And you are correct that physics is an attempt to DESCRIBE reality, not DEFINE reality. Defining reality is sort of the idealistic goal that lends us the motivation to describe it using math.
And as anathema as it is to say around here, this extends to ALL science, not just the "harmless" ones. This includes, say, the appropriate medical response to a virus that we haven't encountered before. This includes, say, mathematical models predicting climate change.
Science is an attempt to describe and predict. When people assume it's an attempt to define reality, they hold it to a standard that every scientist will inevitably fail. That doesn't mean science is failing. It just means the people who are making the judgments are expecting certainty the scientific process never was designed to prove. It's a definitional straw-man argument.