> Her factual statements, that every high-energy physics experiment since the 1970s has only confirmed an existing theory (the Standard Model) and that every prediction made by physicists about possible extensions to that existing theory has turned out to be wrong, are correct.
Well, the snarky answer is that the equivalent of the LHC (America's SSC) was defunded halfway through construction in the 1990s. This set back the field by nearly 20 years. It's rather unfair to say that no progress was made in the 1990s and 2000s if the very instrument that could have done so was defunded.
Anyway, the real answer is that the vast majority of scientific theories ever formulated were completely wrong. Some people say the early 20th century was the golden age of physics. But there were several failed theories of relativitistic gravity proposed in the 1910s, many failed attempts to formulate the quantum theory of fields in the 1920s, and within particle physics, a slew of failed theories of the atomic nucleus and the fine structure constant. None of this appears in textbooks.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Recall that back then the journals were still getting filled with theoretical papers weekly -- the fact that we teach the material that was right to undergraduates in slim textbooks shows that the vast majority was wrong or irrelevant.
Experimental confirmation has always taken a long time, e.g. see the long disputes over the ether that stretched well into the 1940s, 40 years after the proposal of special relativity, complicated by false positives and systematic uncertainties.
Fundamental science is simply hard, and it only looks like it used to be easy because we forgot 99% of the failures. There is a perfectly valid point to be made that it may be getting harder, but it is insufficient to just point to failures to prove it.
Well, the snarky answer is that the equivalent of the LHC (America's SSC) was defunded halfway through construction in the 1990s. This set back the field by nearly 20 years. It's rather unfair to say that no progress was made in the 1990s and 2000s if the very instrument that could have done so was defunded.
Anyway, the real answer is that the vast majority of scientific theories ever formulated were completely wrong. Some people say the early 20th century was the golden age of physics. But there were several failed theories of relativitistic gravity proposed in the 1910s, many failed attempts to formulate the quantum theory of fields in the 1920s, and within particle physics, a slew of failed theories of the atomic nucleus and the fine structure constant. None of this appears in textbooks.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Recall that back then the journals were still getting filled with theoretical papers weekly -- the fact that we teach the material that was right to undergraduates in slim textbooks shows that the vast majority was wrong or irrelevant.
Experimental confirmation has always taken a long time, e.g. see the long disputes over the ether that stretched well into the 1940s, 40 years after the proposal of special relativity, complicated by false positives and systematic uncertainties.
Fundamental science is simply hard, and it only looks like it used to be easy because we forgot 99% of the failures. There is a perfectly valid point to be made that it may be getting harder, but it is insufficient to just point to failures to prove it.