Objective Direct and Indirect Evidence, and Subjective Inferences

[dga471 (Daniel)]

Even though you say you agree, I don’t think we do. To take another quote of yours from that thread:

@Jim

Correct me if I’m wrong, but from a laypersons perspective how I see it is that there are varying degrees of certainty in science. The empirical, i.e., observational and experimental, is objective and when confirmed is pretty much considered as fact and accepted without debate. The theoretical is subjective and can be and should be disputed until confirmed by direct observation of some kind, or it can be shown that almost all the evidence that can be available is, and that it is decidedly on the side of the theory.

(Emphasis mine)

The way you’re using subjective here is not what I had in mind. For example, the existence of supersymmetric particles such as the stop squark remains an experimentally unconfirmed theoretical hypothesis right now. However, we normally wouldn’t use the word “subjective” to describe this. The theory is very objective: if the stop squark existed with such and such a mass and other parameters, we would see it have a certain effect on the experiments we’re doing.

The only possible remaining room for subjectivity in theoretical physics is an individual theorist’s opinion of which unconfirmed theoretical hypothesis is likely to be true; there are theorists who have a strong conviction that all types of squarks must exist; while others are less optimistic. However, none of these subjective opinions wield a large influence in determining what we know about particle physics; everyone is in agreement that we don’t yet have experimental evidence of their existence.