BenTheMan,
I hope I do not appear unpleasant from this discussion with you. So I will try my best to stay focused on the issue.
So this is really a simple example of how QM theory becomes bootstrapped onto itself. You say:
QUOTE:
"[Smoot] talked about measuring the blackbody radiation in the universe (the CMB). Planck's formulae tell us that it should be 2.7 K, the exact number we measure."
However, all that we measured was a thermal radiation curve. No temperature measurement was made. Yet you speak like Planck's formula was "exactly" verified. There are two sides of an equation to verify. Only one side was measured in this case. However, once the CMB measurements are made and an official "temperature" is announced, then the "confirmation bias" researchers who need money will certainly come up with "independent" ways to verify the 2.7 K result. I would only be impressed if the "temperature" measurement was made first, then Planck's formula verified it. This is not the case.
Now the fine structure constant. It is defined from the "fine structure" hydrogen spectrum on one side, and the constants k,e,hbar, and c on the other. In my view, these five quantities do not give 13 decimal place accuracy.
So what happened? Well it all started with Sommerfeld. His relativistic corrections to Bohr's model gave the "fine structure" spectrum and defined the "fine structure constant". Imagine. The defining theory had nothing to do with "local reality". (Unless you still believe that Sommerfeld was correct). Here is another example of a famous theory that was experiment matched. I do not think anyone thinks that Sommerfeld's theory has anything to do with anything. Yet it is the defining theory and is very close to experiment.
However, the experimental data was set, and now we have research grant money available to do theories that are not based on "local reality" to try and see if a better match with experiment can be achieved. So we had Bohr, Sommerfeld, Schrodinger, then Pauli, then Dirac, then the Lamb Shift, etc. These theories are not based on "local reality", and typically they are based on energy terms that are strictly additive and do not interact. And based on experimental data that is already in, so one knows what one is looking for.
This is how I see it happening. Unfortunately, physics is capitalistic these days, and not immune from being guided by the availability of research money and the "successful" matching of theory with experiment.
Don't get me wrong. Science is evolutionary to a point, then it is occasionally revolutionary. If this New Theory is correct, nothing will be able to stop it.
Andrew A. Gray