Captain Martin criticizes science.
(i) Scientists made simplifying assumptions in order to handle problems.
Reply: Sure, but this way of handling problems works.
(ii) However Martin says that:
"'...the assumptions were obviously false.'" (p. 252)
Example: Newton's "inertia." No body moves "'...only by its own inertia...'" (ibid.) because it always influenced by something else.
Reply: Of course. "Inertia," like the whole of mathematics, is an abstraction that helps us to understand and act on concrete reality.
(iii) He adds that kinetic energy is motion, that potential energy is position and that there is no need to talk about "energy" in any absolute sense.
Reply: Now we run into my almost total ignorance of physics. However, "E = MCsquared" has practical consequences so it is helpful to talk about "E."
(iv) Martin acknowledges that energy, inertia, entropy and force are useful mathematical constructs but adds that it is semantically wrong to identify equations with reality.
Reply: But who does identify equations with reality? There are different philosophical theories of the nature of scientific theories. I listed three philosophical theories in an answer to an exam question but cannot remember them all now. But one philosophical theory is that scientific theories are just ways of talking about reality and nothing more.
But Poul Anderson would have known all this. He was just enjoying writing about a magician who used theories about science to criticize science.
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