Okay, I have noticed a lot of transhumanists and technophiles, who are often science fiction fans, have absolutely silly ideas about what is possible under any plausible interpretation of the range of unexplored physical phenomena. This is really hampering the serious coherence of the arguments presented, since a lot of people seem to have garnered their knowledge of physics from Star Wars. For those of you who claim to have a love of science and technology, and want to promote a vision of an ascendent future, it would be helpful if you made any sense. In this vein I have decided to present you with something originally written for science fiction authors, but even more applicable to many of the space-travel/transhumanist cranks.: Atomic Rocket's Respecting Science and Discovery Magazine's Alternative Science Respectability Checklist.
Particularly Applicable Excerpts:
"It's Just A Theory"
This generally takes the form of "Well, Einstein's relativity is just a theory, not a fact/scientific law." However, such a statement only demonstrates that the speaker is either severely scientifically illiterate or an evil demagogue trying to pull a fast one.
The colloquial meaning of the term "theory" is the opposite of "fact", it is a guess, or hunch (what a scientist would call a "hypothesis"). But in Science, the meaning of the term "theory" is totally different. Theory and fact can be the same.
So if Einstein's relativity theory is "just a theory" in the same way that atomic theory is "just a theory", then you shouldn't mind sitting on top of this thermonuclear warhead while I sit in a bunker a few kilometers away pushing the detonator button, hmmmmmmm?
"Well, Maybe In The Future There Will Be A Scientific Breakthrough That Will Let Me Have My Way"
This argument usually takes the form of "Well, they said that man would never break the sound barrier either, but they were wrong!".
That formation of the argument is doubly suspect, since if you do the research there does not appear to be any scientist on the record who actually stated that breaking the sound barrier was impossible. For one thing, bullets were breaking the sound barrier almost since the invention of gunpowder. Heck, whips have been doing it since the invention of whips. The "crack" of a whip is actually a the tip of the whip creating a tiny sonic boom (By the late 1940s, no competent engineer or test pilot thought that there was anything mysterious {beyond the mysteries of complex aeronautical design itself} about the sound barrier) .
But the core of the argument is that maybe some future scientific breakthrough will remove all those pesky scientific theories that are keeping the author from doing what they want.
First off, from the standpoint of probability, there is at least a 50% chance that any new scientific breakthrough will actually make it harder to do what you want. There was an amusing SF story by George R. R. Martin called "FTA" where scientists discovered how to enter hyperspace. They were initially jubilant, with visions of FTL starships and Nobel prizes dancing in their heads. Their hopes were quickly dashed when they found out that the speed of light in hyperspace was slower than in our universe.
But actually it is probably a better than 50% chance that a breakthrough will make matters worse. And this will still be a problem if you try to declare by authorial fiat that the breakthrough is indeed in your favor. Let me explain.
The general rule is what physicists call the correspondence principle or the Classical limit. This states that any new theory must give the same answers as the old theory where the old theory has been confirmed by experiment. Newton's laws and Einstein's Relativity give the same answers in ordinary conditions, they only give different answers in extreme conditions such as near the speed of light, refining the accuracy of the GPS system, or calculating the orbit of Mercury (none of which Newton could confirm by experiment).
Which means if you just state that in the year 2525 Professor XYZ came up with the "Take THAT, Einstein!" theory of FTL travel, you still have a problem. You have to explain how the TTE theory allows FTL flight while still giving the same answers that relativity theory did for all those experiments it confirmed. Experiments that were accurate to quite a few decimal points.
This may not please your Star Trek super-space god dreams, but as Richard Feynman said, "You don't like it? Too bad! Move to another Universe!"
Edited by ChromodynamicGirl, 13 October 2010 - 02:12 PM.