| | Bob,
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Our most successful theories are phenomenological, NOT ontological.
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Using words in the way that you are, can you provide an example of an ontological scientific theory -- in order to differentiate from the phenomenological kind?
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The figure of merit for a scientific theory is how well it predicts outcomes.
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This seems to be a poor understanding of the word "merit." Apparently, then, you disagree that the success of science involves -- nay, is entirely exhaustible by -- the amount of human merit which applying the science provides. We may have to simply disagree about that. For you, there seems to be no morality in the floating abstraction: "science."
For me, science is something that humans do for very specific reasons (i.e., it is a moral undertaking).
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Maxwell's Electrodynamics fails to explain the photoelectric effect and the Compton Effect. For that one needs quantum physics. Maxwell's theory does not predict tunneling through a potential barrier either.
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Approximately what proportion of all of the benefit that science has ever afforded to mankind -- would be covered by the sum of these 3 things?:
(1) the photoelectric effect
(2) the Compton Effect
(3) tunneling through potential barriers
My guess is less than 1% (and perhaps less than even 1% of 1%!). What's your guess, Bob?
Ed
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