Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> If you tell a scientist that you have measurements that don't match theory, 
> the first assumption is that you measured incorrectly. The second assumption 
> is that the theory is wrong.

  It's not that simple, actually. If you have 1000 different types of
measurements which confirm the theory and 1 measurement which contradicts
it, after corroborating that the measurement is valid the next step is not
to invalidate the theory. The next assumption is usually to see if there
are some *other* causes for the anomaly, and if nothing is found, whether
there are exceptional situations where the universe works differently from
the theory (in which case the theory might need fine-tuning).

  Two example cases are the so-called Pioneer anomaly and the flyby anomaly,
both of which seem to contradict general relativity (AFAIK it's not currently
known whether both are symptoms of the same effect or whether they are
unrelated).

  Just because these anomalies exist doesn't mean GR is bogus, even if
astrophysicists are scratching their heads with them.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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