Scott Mayers wrote:We treat a 'theory' justified when it has been relatively 'confirmed' and avoid 'new' interpretations upon them unless they can (a) assert some new theory and (b) provide a novel experiment to dislodge the old theory (and 'confirm' the alternative as uniquely improved).
No 'we' don't. Theories are not 'confirmed'; the predictions either are either verified, or they are not and any complementary mathematical treatment either works or it doesn't. A favourite example is Einstein's theory of general relativity. The field equations generated describe the observable behaviour of the interactions of material objects very well; it does not follow that the theoretical 'spacetime' therefore is confirmed.
Scott Mayers wrote:This happens to be a contention I have with much of science on the fringes (Cosmology and Atomic physics) where the institutional nature commands we have to first conform to treat the theory as defaulted to being 'true' until we've invested enough (through those institutes) and then and only then can we begin to question it as (a) and (b) above.
This is at best half true. If you want to engage with applied physics and actually advance our manipulation of the physical world, you have to familiarise yourself with the best tools that are currently available. So, for example, if you want to put a satellite into a stable orbit, you need to be familiar with Einstein's field equations. This does not commit you to believing, as Einstein did, that there is a substance called spacetime that is warped by the presence of another substance called matter.
Scott Mayers wrote:...you can posit a belief in some other thing that derives EXACTLY the same results of past experiences.
Indeed. You can believe that gravity is caused by angels pushing things together, if it so pleases you. It is the problem of underdetermination,
any metaphysical hypothesis could be true. What you cannot do is deny that the field equations describe what actually happens very accurately.
Scott Mayers wrote:For instance, in the past, the model using epicycles was valid and 'confirmed' as true in the past.
It is still the case that you can use Ptolemy's model to plot the position of the heavenly bodies to a remarkable degree of accuracy. It is the phenomena, in this instance the lights in the sky, which are the subject of science.
Scott Mayers wrote:That theory 'rationally' justified allowing the Earth to be at the center of the universe with the sun and all other objects orbiting us.
And the point about relativity is that you can take any point as your reference; for all we know, the Earth really is the centre of the universe, and everything is moving relative to it, but given the vastness of space, the odds are vanishingly small.
Scott Mayers wrote:But others had proposed the sun as the center with an alternate and even more closed arguments. Yet they were dismissed for the same irrational ('foolishness'?) argument as this above statement and our present scientific paradigm: Unless you can BOTH suggest a new theory AND dispel the old, we are considered 'foolish' to question the present authorities.
As it happens, the first person on record to assert that the sun was the centre of the universe was Aristarchus of Samos. The original book in which he made the claim has been lost, but it is referred to by Archimedes in The Sand Reckoner. In essence, Aristarchus calculated that the sun is twenty times larger than the Earth (it's actually 400 times bigger) and he reasoned that a larger object would not orbit a smaller. While this view was taken seriously by both Archimedes and Hipparchus, considered by many to be the most talented astronomer of ancient Greece, they preffered to use the models that went back to the Babylonians, because they predicted the phenomena better. That and the fact that Aristotle's physics demanded that of the Greek elements, earth was the 'heaviest' and therefore everything else floated on it.
