> but nobody is out there trying to actively disprove what we know of physics.
You get a Nobel when you disprove what we know of physics, so it is an interesting research topic. Currently the main problem in particle physics is that everything is working too well, so nobody know where too look to find a new theoretical result.
A few years ago many people was thinking that the neutrino was a Majorana particle (in particular, in implies that the neutrino and the antineutrino are the same particle). I didn't like that idea too much [1], and luckily the experiments failed and that theory is slowly fading [2].
More recently, some other people expected that the next step was supersymmetry (the electron is a fermion, and the supersymmetry says that has a heavy version that is a boson). I liked it [1], but I think the experiments are also not favorable [2].
> There's a lot of resistance to observing new and old phenomena because that can "disprove science"
No. The LHC is working, and making observations and redoing the old calculations. Sometimes because there are new combinations of particles that nobody had seen before, sometimes because they must give some calculations to the graduate students so they can publish something.
> My theory is that after a few generations we've treated Science as a truth, and not a process.
In other comments in internet discussions I sometime get this feeling too. But don't confuse that with the attitude of the people doing research.
[1] I'm not an expert in this area, I only took a few courses in particle physics. It's more like a coffee time discussion level opinion.
[2] But you never know if experiments at higher energy will revert the trend and have results that agree with the theory.
You get a Nobel when you disprove what we know of physics, so it is an interesting research topic. Currently the main problem in particle physics is that everything is working too well, so nobody know where too look to find a new theoretical result.
A few years ago many people was thinking that the neutrino was a Majorana particle (in particular, in implies that the neutrino and the antineutrino are the same particle). I didn't like that idea too much [1], and luckily the experiments failed and that theory is slowly fading [2].
More recently, some other people expected that the next step was supersymmetry (the electron is a fermion, and the supersymmetry says that has a heavy version that is a boson). I liked it [1], but I think the experiments are also not favorable [2].
> There's a lot of resistance to observing new and old phenomena because that can "disprove science"
No. The LHC is working, and making observations and redoing the old calculations. Sometimes because there are new combinations of particles that nobody had seen before, sometimes because they must give some calculations to the graduate students so they can publish something.
> My theory is that after a few generations we've treated Science as a truth, and not a process.
In other comments in internet discussions I sometime get this feeling too. But don't confuse that with the attitude of the people doing research.
[1] I'm not an expert in this area, I only took a few courses in particle physics. It's more like a coffee time discussion level opinion.
[2] But you never know if experiments at higher energy will revert the trend and have results that agree with the theory.