Is Beauty a Sign of Truth in Scientific Theories?
By James McAllister
Why are some new theories embraced as beautiful, others spurned as ugly? Progress in science may require that aesthetic ideals themselves change
Why are some new theories embraced as beautiful, others spurned as ugly? Progress in science may require that aesthetic ideals themselves change
DOI: 10.1511/1998.21.174
When a new scientific theory is put forward, scientists wish to know how close it is to the truth. The most straightforward way of estimating how close a theory is to the truth is to test its predictions against empirical data. This procedure is often difficult to carry out, however.
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