"The models that have been thought to predict what should happen are all incorrect"
A bit off topic, but that's why you should never ever draw conclusions from models.
Use a model to guide research (i.e. tell you where to look), but never consider the model as an answer.
I see far too many papers published based on models. This should not be accepted, this is not science.
It doesn't matter if the model is the only available thing. If you have no other way of getting information then you must admit defeat (hopefully temporary), but never give in and start believing your models.
That's not how science works. Everything we "know" is a model, an approximation. Model that describes how the world works to some degree. Molecules aren't rigid balls but a model like that works on some scales. For protein folding atoms are considered rigid balls because the model works for what we need it.
All hypothesis are basically models. Later they are confirmed by experiment and they become a scientific theory. You can definitely draw conclusions from a model and then verify them with an experiment. Which is just what the Voyager is doing
A model in science is a mathematical description that maps inputs to outputs. Science is an iterative process that first hypothesises a model then tests it through experimentation. Over time a model may be refined or perhaps superceeded by a superior model with different foundations. A model then is never considered 100% accurate for all cases, there is always the potential for new observations to lie outside the model.
If you were to be sending a probe to the edge of the solar system, what exactly would you use to plan and predict its journey if not models then? Would you wait until you have a way to measure what happens at the edge of the solar system before sending out your probe to measure it?
The entirety physics is essentially a model. If you want to completely know everything before you start trying to do anything, you'll get anything done.
> what exactly would you use to plan and predict its journey
I guess you didn't read what I wrote. I will quote again for you: "Use a model to guide research".
> Would you wait until you have a way to measure what happens at the edge of the solar system before sending out your probe to measure it?
By all means - send out the probe. But until the probe returns data do not publish any papers purporting to know what the edge of the solar system looks like.
> The entirety physics is essentially a model.
No. It started as a model (or idea), but every single step was confirmed using the actual world, and not a model.
> If you want to completely know everything before you start trying to do anything, you'll get anything done.
Next time read what you are replying to so you can give a better response.
This I'll concede. I misinterpreted your point and tone as "don't rely on anything you haven't already measured". I would also agree that it's rather grating to read things that say "X totally happens (according to model Y)". But I don't think that it is inherently bad for one to say "Model Y predicts X".
> No. It started as a model (or idea), but every single step was confirmed using the actual world, and not a model.
This however, I do disagree with. It's still a model. It wasn't "confirmed"; it was "not disproven". Physics will always be a model. I don't see the problem with saying "this model turned out to be wrong so we need to come up with a better one" (exactly what's happening in the article). A large number of important breakthroughs in physics were from scientists demonstrating the failures of models or running into them accidentally (see caloric theory and the Michelson–Morley experiment).
> But I don't think that it is inherently bad for one to say "Model Y predicts X".
I do. Not because the sentence in and off itself is bad, but rather because when the sentence is repeated it gets changed to "We know X because of Y."
> Physics will always be a model.
Maybe we have different meanings for the word model.
I suspect you are using the word model like a "model car". i.e. a description of what something is.
I mean it in the term of "model these variables", ie. use a computer to put in variables and hope you programmed everything correctly and get a result of what will happen.
I'm not using it in the descriptive sense, but rather the action sense.
> I don't see the problem with saying "this model turned out to be wrong so we need to come up with a better one" (exactly what's happening in the article).
Nothing wrong with saying that, but that's not what actually happened. Instead the model of the boundary was taught as fact (for example I expect that if you read the wikipedia article on it from 5 years ago it would talk as if we had a pretty good idea of what the boundary looked like).
If, it was simply used to decide which experiments to prioritize on the spacecraft that would be fine. But that's not all that the model was used for.
I'm sure in the original they were careful to call it a model, and an idea, etc. But in wider use (even scientific articles) it was understood as fact.
"But until the probe returns data do not publish any papers purporting to know what the edge of the solar system looks like."
I'm pretty sure that no decent scientist ever 'purports to know' what the edge of the solar system looks like - they are merely using what evidence they have available to make an educated guess and try to get a workable model of it.
This is how science works.
You make a model, test it and finds the evidence does not fit your model. You then modify your model.
Also, you seem to be suggesting that all of, say, theoretical physics is necessarily worthless. What about pure maths? String theory? All of these things are just models, and have no basis in reality. What of them?
Hypothesis -> Observe -> Hypothesis -> Repeat. You even learn it at school where they make you give a Hypothesis before running the experiment, instead of after.
The Bible? Ok, I jest.
You observe nature. For instance, that apple that just fell. Then you make predictions about why it fell down and not up or sideways. You hypothesize that this apple and all apples fall at the same rate, call it 5m/s.
You then observe that if it fell from higher up, it is traveling faster than if it fell from a lower branch. Your first model was wrong. Time to revise your model.
Then you invent new mathematics to explain what was wrong about your model and call it the Calculus. With calculus, you hypothesize that it can predict how fast it would be falling if it fell from a completely different height fit constants that match your first and second observations. You then observe that an apple at another completely different height matches your prediction.
Now go and observe other things and hypothesize about them too.
With regards to the Solar System, you observe that the Earth has an atmosphere and observe that it has a magnetic field that affects particles coming towards it from space. You hypothesize that the Sun has significant influence on particles further away from Earth.
In your planetary travels, you observe that there seems to be data that supports your model. You hypothesize that eventually, the Sun will lose its influence and interstellar space will be radically different, that at some point the solar winds generated by the Sun will fall off.
This is more or less where we are now, but we observe that the edge isn't quite as we predicted it would be. This could be because we haven't left the heliosphere yet, or it could be that our model was wrong. We are currently collecting those observations that will allow us to refine our models, and with any luck, the revised model will be tested by the next Voyager.
Observe, Predict, Observe. Even with the next Voyager, we won't know for sure that our model is correct, but it gives you a starting point.
Hm, is there a terribly important difference? I'm not in "formal natural science" so I don't know how it goes in the real world.
But I would think that if you're being honest with yourself and your results in the "observe" state, regardless of whether or not you had an existing hypothesis, you would draw the same conclusions.
I suppose if you intentionally set out to ONLY observe before hypothesizing, you might eliminate some unintended bias or something.
The difference is if you hypothesize you will look for something to confirm or deny your hypothesis.
But if you simply observe you will find out what there is.
It's an issue of imagination.
Also for students it makes them try to predict the results of the experiment - which is utterly pointless. Simply do the experiment and find out - that's the whole point, science is about experimenting, not just coming up with ideas.
A bit off topic, but that's why you should never ever draw conclusions from models.
Use a model to guide research (i.e. tell you where to look), but never consider the model as an answer.
I see far too many papers published based on models. This should not be accepted, this is not science.
It doesn't matter if the model is the only available thing. If you have no other way of getting information then you must admit defeat (hopefully temporary), but never give in and start believing your models.