The history of science records a great many examples of multiple theories, each supported by evidence. When that happens in an experimental science, such as physics, the multiplicity of theories motivates the design of experiments that can rule out one or more of the theories.
The
EPR paper is a famous example. In 1927, Heisenberg published his uncertainty principle. In 1934, Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen (EPR) published a competing theory that postulated hidden variables. Both theories were consistent with the evidence known at that time.
Although most physicists favored Heisenberg's theory, EPR's hidden variables were not definitively ruled out by evidence until well after
Bell published his theorem in the 1960s. Bell's theorem showed how
the idea of hidden variables could be subjected to quantitative tests, which began in the 1970s and continued to the present day. In 2022,
the Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to three of the experimentalists who hammered nails into the EPR theory's coffin.
This reminds me of a line of argument that goes something like this:
Were you there when that fish walked onto land and became an air-breathing mammal? Did you actually see it happen? No? So all you have is a theory. There are other theories. We can pick which authority we think is most likely correct. I hold with Genesis. It's been right about everything so far, and there is no better authority than the Creator Himself.
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