Gravity?

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I'd say don't ignore Tim's letter.  One nice thing is that it demonstrates
that many "normal" people don't really understand what science is and it
gives us a chance to point out the differences between science and
sophistry.  Most of the programming and information that people get is
religious and political rhetoric  consisting of opinions backed up by: 1) a
lot of quotes taken out of context; 2) other peoples opinions; 3) most of
the people I know agree so it must be true; 4) if we can convince 12 people
or get a majority it must be true; 5) some "important" figure said it on
the 700 Club or other "news" (ugh!) program; etc....

This example being set leads a lot of people to think that likewise,
important figures such as scientists are people that sit around spouting
off ideas in a similar manner.  Do we read a few books or articles (or
watch a TV program), ponder our feelings about the material, then sit down,
zip off a paper to Science or Nature and get famous?  Nope.  Perhaps people
don't understand the blood sweat and tears that go into scientific work,
and that we are confined in our ideas to what the data do and don't tell us
(It's usually most difficult to figure out exactly what our data aren't
actually telling us).  It's difficult to convince the public what data are,
how we get them and that it takes a great depth of knowledge to figure out
what's important and make interpretations based on that data.

The good arguers that people are exposed to who tell us the way things are,
are generally very eloquent and charismatic religious and political
figures.  The ideas that they portray as the truth are often actually just
ideas that popped into their heads, and the reasoning goes something like
"if this is what I think, then it must be the truth."  Hmm....  One might
think that if that's how ideas are made, then why can't I do the same
thing.  Why is somebody else's idea any better than mine?

There's nothing wrong with Tim's ideas, he's entitled to them.  He should
understand however, that there are methods to test these ideas, and we've
been working on them for a long time as well as trying to develop new
methods.  Perhaps we've been careless in blurting out our interpretations
and data in nature programs and to newscasters without spending more time
educating people about how we form and test hypotheses by collecting and
presenting real data.  The problem is that the data collection usually
strikes people as tremendously boring (taxonomic breakthroughs rarely make
the 6 o'clock news), and many scientists seen on TV and making
counter-arguments to a lot of faulty logic have not tended to be
tremendously eloquent and charismatic.  People look at our theories in the
same way they look at religious and political opinion.  If somebody puts on
a better show, has a flashier idea, or if that's what grandpa taught me,
that's who's right.

But that's just an opinion,

Dave