Marcelo Gleiser does not believe in a TOE. Science is not some democratic pursuit of truth. And we are grinning apes running our finger through the cosmos, how else we going to eat strawberry yoghurt or make bow and arrows. What else is there?
Yes, the above statement by Land was a satirical jibe at the type of scientistic view that we can roll the universe into some kind of ultimate theory; and, of course, this is and always will be impossible: the universe is a productive, ever changing force, that cannot and will not be reduced to some mathematical theorem. Even Einstein's E=mc2 was only a partial non-local concept not a fully qualified explanation. Yet, math is the only descriptive language we have at present that can describe aspects of those tensions in the universe. Natural language is the other. An asymmetrical relation if there ever has been one
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A Follow up...earth_wizardFebruary 21 2011, 15:40:01 UTC
What's always been interesting is the divided idea of what scientists mean by a 'Theory of Everything': most layman think of TOE as the idea that science can someday lock down all possible solutions to a description of the universe and its laws; whereas scientists, at least the many I've studied and spoken to over the years, see it not as a finality, some closure to the grand scheme of scientific enquiry that will then say: yes, now we have a fully qualified description of life, the universe, and everything.... no, this is not the real TOE, that is the ficiton, the babble of journalists, instead of scientists
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