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Message: <blockquote data-quote="freyar" data-source="post: 4185832" data-attributes="member: 40227">Interesting link, Umbran.  I can see the distinction you want to make between empirical and formal sciences, but I'm not sure if the distinction between "formal" and "natural" sciences is really as clear as that Wikipedia article implies.  At least I can point you to one philosopher of science who disagrees. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Regarding math, I think we may have to agree to disagree.  Self-consistency is an extremely important test, though maybe not an empirical one.  Math is accurate (ignoring human error); what might be inaccurate is a given mathematical model proposed to describe some phenomenon.  As most-likely the only string theorist in the room, I also think I need to mention a couple of things.  First off, self-consistency and consistency with empirically correct models are very difficult to achieve in modeling any fundamental theory of physics.  In fact, it's difficult to convey how stringent consistency is.  So the fact that string theory passes these tests is in itself an achievement, even if not an empirical one.  Another point is that many string theorists (and scientists in bordering fields) take making predictions very seriously.  There's been a tremendous amount of work over the last 5 years on building concrete string models of cosmology for comparison to precision tests, like the WMAP and upcoming PLANCK experiments.  These are not definitive predictions because, well, nailing down all possible string constructions is not possible right now, but it is some progress.  And people are really trying to "compare your models to reality, are honest in measuring your errors, and modify your models when they don't match reality," as you say.  I can provide references on request...</blockquote>

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