It is no revelation that people are not good at estimating realistic probabilities of alternative views of reality. In fact, there is increasing evidence that humans have an evolved tendency to adopt a single view of reality to the exclusion of alternative views that are equally as plausible or far more probable. It is difficult to understand how intelligent people can be certain about a particular political, economic, religious, or scientific belief and ignore the fact that equally intelligent people believe something entirely different, or ignore the unsettling fact that, had they come from a different environment, their beliefs would be different. Obviously, people's beliefs are greatly influenced by the people with whom they associate.

     Generally the unrealistic certainty of a belief is supported by a framework of thinking used to show why the belief is correct* and opposing beliefs are wrong. Ideally, this type of thinking should not happen in the science community, but it does. The "Thomas Gold" link on this web site gives examples. Everyone who has proposed a way of thinking that is contrary to conventional wisdom probably has an example. This is not to suggest that skepticism of new ideas is not justified. Most theories turn out to be wrong, and many are proposed that never should have left the confines of the originators' brains because the theories are based on implausible assumptions or disagree with experimental evidence or are vague, inconsistent, ambiguous or otherwise bad. But skepticism of conventional wisdom is also justified because the history of science is full of examples of conventional wisdom turning out to be wrong. Relativity theory has characteristics that justify skepticism.**

     In industry the process of generating and evaluating new ideas is so important that companies go to great lengths and expense to encourage new product ideas. The scientific community does not have such a process. Rather than searching for better models of nature, the scientific community tends to discourage the questioning of conventional wisdom. People who spend years learning or teaching conventional wisdom take pride in their knowledge and tend to reject thinking that disagrees with their knowledge. This is human nature, and it impedes attempts to question and improve existing knowledge and thus inhibits the advancement of science.

     The plausibility of the quantum medium view is due to its logical premise, which has consequences that result in logical physical causes for a wide variety of mysterious phenomena (e.g. inertia, "relativistic" phenomena) that are not explained by orthodox theory. The view explains why the speed of light appears to be constant for all observers and why the postulate of relativity theory, that light travels at a constant speed relative to all observers, is probably false. The yellow button on the home page will take you to a list of phenomena that relativity theory does not explain but whose causes become obvious once the quantum medium view is understood. Readers who become familiar with this view will find that it has all the characteristics of a sound theory -- logical premise, ability to explain a wide variety of phenomena in terms of logical physical causes, internal self-consistency, consilience with other logical theories, laws, and realms of awareness, etc. (The well-known incompatibility between relativity theory and quantum mechanics does not appear to have a counterpart with the quantum medium view. Paul Dirac and others showed that photons and other quanta are logical consequences of an ether or quantum medium.) The odds of a theory being correct should reflect not only what is known about the theory but also the possibility that any theory could have a flaw or weakness that has not been apparent. This possibility has been factored into the following odds.

1. The likelihood that photons are propagated through a medium (as opposed to moving through the cosmos via some other means): >80%

2. As a consequence of 1. above, the likelihood that relativity theory is consistent with how our universe works: <20%

3. The likelihood that the quantum medium view is consistent with how our universe works: >75%

Readers who are unfamiliar with the quantum medium view will have good reason to question the odds in 1. above, but the odds should seem reasonable when the view is understood and it is realized what a wide variety of phenomena the view explains. If, after studying this web site and understanding the quantum medium view, the reader has reasons for higher or lower odds, I would like to know the reasons and the odds that the reader suggests. The reader's reasons and odds will be factored into periodic revisions of the above odds.

     Because space and time are fundamental aspects of physics and nature, science should know with more certainty whether space and time are categorically different aspects of nature, as Plato, Newton, Kant and most other great thinkers of the past believed (and as the quantum medium view shows), or whether they must be merged into spacetime, as the postulates of relativity theory require. Greater certainty will only result from realistic assessments of the likelihoods of the alternative views.
Peter Allport