[zyxzevn]

The problem is when certain (mental) models are important to a community or science specialization. When these models fail, the community will often enforce the model and censor the opposing facts. I have encountered several such conflicts.

Scientists are still humans. Individual people may be curious and be open to some questioning. But thy find it difficult to discuss such things in the open. It is like a religious dogma.

One example is the model of "colliding magnetic field lines", which is a concept not possible in electron-magnetism (my own expertise). But astronomers use this concept to describe plasma lines that collide with each other on the sun. They call it "magnetic reconnection". I can discuss this problem within communities that know electromagnetism, but not with astronomers. The confusion comes from their model (magnetohydrodynamics) that plasma always follows magnetic field lines. And if plasma collides, so must also the field lines. But in reality (and according tot he inventor of the model, Alphen) the model describes a very special case.

[pfdietz]

Are you talking about magnetic reconnection? It's not in violation of physical law.

[verisimi]

> It is like a religious dogma.

It is religious dogma.

[jknoepfler]

In what way, exactly? It's one thing to assert an analogy between two things, and quite another to assert an identity.

The specific example given was divergent models of colliding magnetic field lines.

How are the models religious?

How are the models dogmatic?

The example under discussion suggests neither in the literal sense.

[verisimi]

The previous poster said:

> When these models fail, the community will often enforce the model and censor the opposing facts. I have encountered several such conflicts.

Censoring opposing fact to enforce the wrong model is religious dogma. Or maybe just dogma. Religious or scientific.

At any rate, it's the antithesis of what the scientific method is. The reality is that scientists in general pay lip service to the scientific method, without forgetting where their paychecks come from (government, military or corporations).