The difference between the creators of two new theories in science reveals the social nature of the scientific process
The article appeared in issue 3 (February-March 2003) of the journal World of Science and Technology - Scientific American, published by Ort. Presented on the Science website courtesy of the journal editors.
Direct link to this page: https://www.hayadan.org.il/shremer03.html
"This book is the culmination of almost twenty years of work, during which I developed a new kind of science. I did not expect it to last so long, but I discovered many more things than I thought I would be able to discover, and in fact, what I have done now touches almost every field of the existing sciences, and more much more than that. Finally I realized that the discovery is one of the most important discoveries in all the histories of the theoretical sciences.''
"The development of this work has been carried out without any help for the last thirty years, as you will discover when reading the book, it was necessary for an outsider to develop these ideas, they overturn conventional thinking to such an extent that the development of any part of this generalized theoretical system It was almost impossible within the rigid structure of institutionalized science.''
The two authors worked in isolation for years, both presented theories that demonstrate an impressive self-restraint, alongside equally exaggerated claims regarding the tattooing of the foundations of physics in particular and of science in general, both chose not to follow the traditional path and did not submit their work to the criticism of their peers in the scientific journals, instead preferring to present their ideas directly in front of the public. Both books are full of self-made diagrams that claim to reveal the basic structures of nature.
There is one distinct difference between the two authors: one has received articles in newspapers such as Time, Newsweek or Wired and a review article in the New York Times. The lot of the other was total disregard, except for a presentation in a tiny art museum in Southern California. Their biographies may shed light on this difference in the reactions to their books.
One of the authors received a doctorate in physics at the age of 20 from the California Institute of Technology, where Richard Feynman called him "amazing", and was a young winner of the prestigious Aisha MacArthur "Genius Award". He founded the Complexity Research Institute at a major university, then retired to start his own software company, where he created an incredibly successful computer program used by millions of scientists and engineers. The other author was an oyster sheller, gold miner, film producer, cave digger, maintenance technician, inventor and self-managed trailer park owner. Can you guess the names of the two authors and which of them wrote each of the two quotes?
The first quote is the work of Stephen Wolfram, the prodigy from Caltech and the author of the book Science of a New Kind, in which the basic structure of the universe and everything in it is reduced to computing rules and algorithms that produce complexity in the form of cellular automatons. The second one was written by James Carter, the oyster sheller who composed the other theory of physics, where the "cyclones" theory of the universe was proposed, which based all matter on hollow annular tubes that connect all things.
Time will tell if Wolfram was right or not, but in the end we will know because his ideas will be put to the test in the competitive science market. We may never know if there is any truth to Carter's ideas. Why? Because whether we like it or not, in science - as in most human intellectual enterprises - the question "who said" is just as important as "what was said", at least as far as the first listening is concerned.
In this sense, science is conservative, and sometimes elitist. He has no other way to face waves of revolutionaries in their own eyes. For every Stephen Wolfram there are a hundred James Carters. There must be some sort of filtering process that will distinguish between revolutionary ideas in the full sense of the word, and ideas that are plucked from the finger.
This is where the skeptics come into play. We are interested in the James Carters of our world because it is possible that the next great revolution will sprout precisely from the seam between science and pseudoscience. Most of these ideas will end up in the trash, but we'll never know if we don't take a good look at them.
