Warp wrote:
> after relativity and quantum mechanics basically showed that almost
> everything we thought we know is inaccurate.

I think it's probably also the case that at the time, there was little 
evidence that scientists were wrong in this respect. There were very few 
measurements that were different than theory predicted to the limit of 
accuracy of the instruments, relatively few "unexplained" observations, and 
so on. Nobody had seen the cosmic background radiation, nobody had seen 
enough quantum effects to realize what they were, nobody had measured the 
orbit of Mercury accurately enough to realize it was "wrong", and so on.

I suspect that had instruments started getting more accurate, the failure of 
reality to line up with theory would have triggered more explorations of new 
theories, just like photoelectric phenomena did.

>   New plausible theories are not immediately shut down and ridiculed.

Yeah. The difference is, new theories not only have to explain *some* of the 
results, they have to explain *all* of the experimental results, and 
hopefully *also* explain something the current theories don't. And as 
physics and other sciences get more and more complete, it gets harder and 
harder to come up with a new theory that still agrees with the old theory 
except in the places we haven't looked.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   My fortune cookie said, "You will soon be
   unable to read this, even at arm's length."

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