Are there answers?
This isn't science, it's philosphy (Leederman and Teresi,p368).
While people argue the validity of pursuing TOE, we are able to see the struggle between the two faces of science, which Gale saw blending. Establishied theories and acknowledged purisuits have the debate already completed. The desire to understand and know is already ballanced whith the desire to control the understanding and knowledge.
In a debate like TOE, neighther sice is wholly right or wrong There are many scientists who find the argument rediculas that the pursuit of TOE is purley the desire to "know the mind of God." Knowledge for knowledge sake is a dangerous path in an economically concious world. "Big science" is expensive, and accounabliy if important. Those scientists clam that is it unethical to spend billions to try to discover particals and forces that can have no application on everyday life.
Yet the other side doesn't quite by this view. How ethical is it to ignore the largest and most basic question of our times because politicans question the cost-effectivness of something that many do not undertans, yet, and cannot understand without scientific pursuit? Who has the right fo deside what theory will be worth anything before all the facts are understood?
Both sides try to break the entire debate into the question of who's philosphy is right, the scientific technician or the scientific philosopher?
…ideas that changed the course not only of science itself but often of whole area of human thought…" (Brain L. Silver, pXIII).
To cast the debate in modern political terms, the techical scientists are conservativem and the philoopher scientists are radical, in the most simplest of desidnations, and the rest of the of the public is left inn the moderate middle and told to choose. Should we fallow Lindley, and denoucen the myth of science, or take up with Leederman, and search for the God Partical?
Now, I am going to go out on a limb and tell you my opinion before I give you the reasons for it.
I think that were should pursue TOE.
WAIT!!! Before you either go or read hurridly on, I want to just say that this was it an easy yes or no answer. I would just like you to hear this out before you decide if I am right or wrong.
I think that the biggest obstical that TOE has to deal with its its youth. Becuase of its cost, people have already turned a very critical eye toward this fledgling theory and condemmed it without a chance.
The problem is that the pursuit of TOE is still rather young, and its experimental side is just beginning to be explored. The physics behind it, quantum mechanics and all its intermediates, is also a very young science itself, not even a century old. Do we even have the right to question its validity and usefulness before it has had time to mature or prove itself wrong? Eith the pace of the modern world today, paciencts is a rare commodity.
…at the borders of our knowledge we run into real complexity, into questions that challenge our ability to define the nature of reality. The very foundations of quantum mechanics, the central theory that we use to describe the physical universe, are the subject of deep controversy." (Brain L. Silver, pXV)
To give TOE a real chance, we need to have a reason to look beyond the contraversy. I think one of the enst reasons that exists is the history of scientific pursuit itself. Form a question, scientists can seem knowledge and form theories that help to explain the world around us. Often, these theories are contraversial because they challenge the status-quo, and attempt to redefine the world around us.
Looking at the history of scientific discovery, it is a very common theme to pursue science for knowledge's sake, before a full understanding of the implications of the theory can be determined.