demagogue on 11/7/2012 at 18:24
People can attribute religious significance to whatever they want to. Some people make coffee ritualistically, or garden or take a walk in the woods as a quasi-religious thing to tap into nature. People study quantum physics or general relativity or cosmology with a kind of religious wonder. So I don't know why not the Standard Model -- which is pretty much just the cutting edge of quantum physics. It may be "just a theory", and an untidy one at that, but it's also the most successful and expensive human artifact ever constructed -- and one not dedicated to making people fat or screwing them out of their savings or making terrible life decisions or destroying the environment like most other human institutions or artifacts are -- and it explains aspects of our universe to an astounding level of accuracy, so much you'd have to spend billions of dollars and wait years with a staff of 1000s to even find the most minor deviations.
You don't have to try to learn it with a sense of awe and wonder at the universe -- in fact one can live their life and not have a sense of wonder and awe for anything a die a bitter jaded human being if they want -- but you can, and I think it's as well spent on that as anything.
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Edit: I'll put it another way... I think when people have a sense of wonder at the universe, it's best expressed through some discipline, not just some nebulous "oh that tree is amazing. What a grand universe we live in!" But if you're studying these physics theories, or any great theory out there, I think it only brings that sense of wonder to life as you get deeper into it. It's not like it has to make them mystical or other-worldly or beyond criticism or even true in any special way, just that I appreciate the discipline and work to study something great and closer to the truth than a knee-jerk opinion.
I think a similar thing goes for great art or music and the discipline of good technique too. And after reading a few books, I appreciate the SM in particular and something special compared to what else is out there. As it is now, if you want to get as close to anything like the "Truth" of the universe as humans have ever gotten in their 100K year long sojourn, the SM has a special place. This is the leading edge of so much sacrifice and dedication humans have spent to understand our universe. When the ancients looked up at the stars and wondered "why", they were dreaming of a theory closer to this than what they could ever imagine. It's of course not there but where else are you going to look to get closer? I appreciate Superstring theory too, but it's just not there yet...
Edit2:
Quote:
But like previous models it has flaws (e.g. hierarchy problem), it doesn't predict some other notable observations (e.g. matter/anti-matter asymmetry and neutrino properties) and it is at odds with some of our other models (e.g. the standard cosmological model).
... Implying that thinking about how to deal with the flaws & gaps & tensions isn't part of the discipline that makes studying the SM interesting & meaningful, or that the extra-SM observations and models can't be studied with a sense of wonder as well.
