@Sam may have misunderstood. What I wrote was:
“No one in engineering was saying that physics did not apply.”
but what I really meant was:
“No one in engineering was saying that physics did not apply.”
Much to NASA’s loss, I was never appointed to head the agency, so yours truly wasn’t in a position to personally green light the launch. Would I have? No way! Engineers are notoriously conservative and risk adverse; maybe it is some spell emitted by the iron pinky ring. Were it left to me, we would still be back testing Mercury rockets, so maybe that is why I never got the call.
People know that snow tires have better grip in winter, but decide to ride the summers because they do not want to drop a grand for a short cold snap. People take risks all the time, talk to any insurance actuary. The risk adverse are sidelined in their careers by alpha driven risk takers. NASA management deemed the risk acceptable. So why would anybody try to frame this as involving science denial? Well according to Sam, concerning evolutionary biologists:
They are people. With the same biases, prejudices, desires for confirmation bias, willingness to be ‘gate-keepers’ at the temple of ‘orthodoxy’. If scientist working at the premier science organization in the world, NASA, can obfuscate and deny good and even simple science when the situation suits them, what in the world would make you think you’ve ‘fenced off’ the good scientists that are above such?
TaDaaa! All those scientists - microbiologists, ecologists, paleontologists, and especially evolutionary biologists, just may be, like 100% are, engaged in a massive, and I do mean massive, conspiracy or delusion - which one depends on the duplicity of the individual scientist. Need support for this narrative? The Challenger disaster, there you are. Credit for originality.
The oh so often missed vital point is that science does not progress because scientists are saintly, without biases, prejudices, or desire for confirmation. And most certainly science does not progress because scientists are a tight knit group who love and protect each other - if that be doubted just read some of the exchanges in this forum. Science progresses because its methodology eventually - and this can take time but does not take forever - filters out the truth about nature, despite the fact we all have a little of the DSM-5 in us. It all comes back to the evidence.