| All models are wrong, some models are useful. And what is useful is subjective. The Newtonian model works brilliantly at human-scale resolution. But if you are a quark, it is totally unconvincing. So the quarken-creatures' understanding of physics would have developed totally differently. Similarly, SM/GR seems basically fine at solar-system resolution. But at an intergalactic scale it's completely unworkable – "regular" matter is only 5% of the universe! You are not going to get very far through the galaxy on that. In reality, even "hard" science is very squishy. It's closely tied to the sort of creatures doing it, and different creatures would have done it differently. "Our" physics can answer a lot of questions – unless you want to leave the galaxy or learn about 95% of the stuff in the universe in which case we have no idea. But that doesn't matter (yet) because what we've got is good enough for a bunch more planetary expeditions. Similarly, economics has solved some problems and not solved others. The difference is, lots of the "unsolved" problems seem quite urgent. Dark energy might be useful someday, but minimum wage theory would be useful right now. But that has nothing whatsoever to do with science, or with correctness (all models are incorrect). It has more to do with our goals as a society, and how closely our discoveries map onto problems we think are urgent. A quarken society would have completely different set of priorities than we do, and the way they think about "sturdiness" would be entirely different as a result. |