MODEL-BUILDING vs THEORIES OF PRINCIPLE
Conventional physics requires that 26 fundamental parameters be put into the “standard model” of particle physics by hand.
Conventional physics has not been able to resolve the vacuum energy density crisis (120 orders of magnitude difference between quantum theory expectations for the VED and astrophysical measurements of the VED).
Conventional physics cannot explain the fine structure constant.
Conventional physics cannot specifically identify the universal dark matter.
Conventional physics could not predict the masses of fundamental particles.
Conventional physics cannot reconcile General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics.
Conventional physics cannot explain why galaxies exist, or why they come in radically different flavors like ellipticals and spirals.
Conventional physics has major problems explaining the basics and details of star formation, not to mention that supernova models have to be fudged to get them to explode.
Ahhh, Houston, we have a problem!
Particle physicists seem to be mostly making it up as they go. Here’s an archetypal example: They could not find even a single free quark after many years of heroic searching, so they made it a “law” that quarks are hidden from view and confined inside other particles (just so!).
Here’s another. The standard model of particle physics predicted that all particles are massless (which was obviously wrong). Solution: invent a Higgs field (unobservable of course) that gives particles mass as they plow through it (just so!). Note also that one cannot directly observe the Higgs boson because it is too unstable. One can only infer its putative existence from its putative decay products. Same old slight-of-hand.
For the last 45 years it has been mainly heuristic model-building and ad hoc epicycles (when needed) in theoretical particle physics, no matter how vociferously they sell it to a credulous public and put down skeptics. Definitive predictions are nonexistent or can be finessed with multiple hedges and “adjustments” to fit contradictory results. Arbitrarily expanding parameter space is another convenient dodge, as has been extensively used to avoid the obvious regarding the failure of WIMPs and supersymmetry “sparticles” to materialize.
There is a very different and far better way to do physics than ad hoc model-building, as exemplified by Einstein. It’s called Theories of Principle. Theories of Principle, like Special and General Relativity, seek to do more than reproduce observational results. They attempt to explain how nature actually works.
Because of the strict principles at their very foundations, Theories of Principle generate definitive predictions that are: prior to testing, feasibly tested, quantitative, most importantly non-adjustable, and unique to the theory being tested.
Theories of Principle are the way the best science is done. Unfortunately this approach to science has been largely abandoned in the theoretical physics of the last few decades, especially in particle physics and cosmology.
You would think that after 45 years of this mediocre situation theoretical physicists might be ready to entertain the possibility that some (many?) of their cherished assumptions are wrong.
Yes, you certainly would think so!