[cycomanic]

The article is really weird. First it alleges that we scientists only use "beauty" when talking about theory, but not in scientific publications. That claim by itself is dubious at best, even his examples about the standard model or LIGO contradict it, all the theory that was done before the experiments (and the following experiments) where in a way motivated by "beauty" and they could be published, i.e. it was not like nothing was published until we had experimental evidence. String theory is another counter example (although somewhat more controversial).

He then makes the claim that using experimental facts be the only judge of a usefulness of a theory is somehow detrimental (without actually making an argument).

Finally at the end of the article he directly contradicts this claim using his LIGO example.

So I'm a bit lost what the author wants to tell us. Yes theoretical beauty is a motivator for pursuing experimental evidence. Unlike in previous centuries where theory was often trying to explain known experimental phenomena, it is often theory now that directs experimental science.

In the end however, if a scientific theory is useful for science, is based on if it can accurately predict reality (as measured in experiments), otherwise it might be very elegant math, but not science. To make an counterpoint, nobody would argue we should accept a scientific theory that directly contradicts experiments, even if it was extremely elegant.

[T-A]

> I'm a bit lost what the author wants to tell us

He wants to tell you this: "I conjecture, modern science arose in the 17th century, in the course of the so-called Scientific Revolution, precisely because it stumbled upon the extraordinary motivating power of ‘only empirical evidence counts’ – a story I tell in my book The Knowledge Machine (2020)."

It's a book ad.

[wombatmobile]

> The article is really weird.

I noticed that too. A straw man battling an Oedipus complex that wants to have its cake and eat it too.