Discredited Theories

Why Einstein will never be wrong

You could say we now know that the caloric model is completely wrong.
Except it isn’t. At least no more wrong than it ever was.

A perhaps subtle but important point. Models are adopted because they work, and it’s a matter of their scope that leads us to later discard them. And, as the article continues on to say, if you want a newer model to be adopted, it had better do more than the model you want to supplant.

Einstein’s theory didn’t supplant Newton’s until we had experimental evidence that agreed with Einstein and didn’t agree with Newton. So unless you have experimental evidence that clearly contradicts general relativity, claims of “disproving Einstein” will fall on deaf ears.

The inability of a thought experiment, rather than a physical experiment, to confirm a model is something I’m fond of pointing out, and something that the psychoceramics never seem to grasp.