Newsgroups: sci.lang
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!europa.chnt.gtegsc.com!howland.reston.ans.net!agate!overload.lbl.gov!lll-winken.llnl.gov!fnnews.fnal.gov!gw1.att.com!nntpa!mac-118.lz.att.com!user
From: rte@elmo.lz.att.com (Ralph T. Edwards)
Subject: Re: Chomksy, Significance, and Current Trends
Message-ID: <rte-1708950953330001@mac-118.lz.att.com>
Sender: news@nntpa.cb.att.com (Netnews Administration)
Nntp-Posting-Host: mac-118.lz.att.com
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs
References: <40q490$bbg@mailnews.kub.nl> <1995Aug15.100147.1@ctdvx5.priv.ornl.gov> <40t4sc$9gv@mp.cs.niu.edu>
Date: Thu, 17 Aug 1995 14:53:33 GMT
Lines: 31

In article <40t4sc$9gv@mp.cs.niu.edu>, rickert@cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) wrote:

> In <1995Aug15.100147.1@ctdvx5.priv.ornl.gov> s25@ctdvx5.priv.ornl.gov writes:

> >   I'm sure generations of physicists will be shocked to learn that
> >Michelson and Morley were doing bad science when they disproved the
> >existence of ether.
> 
> This is bad history.  Michelson and Morley did not disprove the
> existence of ether.  They didn't even try to disprove it.  They
> assumed the ether theory, and were testing some conjectures about the
> ether drift.
> 
> I think it would be more accurate to say that the ether theory was
> never actually disproved.  It was just abandoned.  Once it was
> realized that the ether had no measurable properties people simply
> decided that it was unnecessary and stopped believing it.  This
> change did not occur, however, until after relativity was available.
> Thus the evidence from the Michelson Morley experiments is consistent
> with David Leblanc's description that a theory is not discarded until
> there is a better theory.
> 

I'm not sure what lesson you feel we should learn from this.  Your statement
is probably true, the theory probably was not generally abandoned until
well after Einstein published an alternative theory.  On the other hand,
it clearly should have been abandoned (and, indeed, never adopted in the
first place) since there was no evidence for it.

-- 
R.T.Edwards rte@elmo.att.com 908 576-3031
