New efforts!

[Todogut]

I assure you my cinematic perceptions are at least the equal to your own.

Did you earn a college degree in Film Studies? I did. 4.0.

Citizen Cane

You mean Kane.

Marvel is oppressive, but its Marvel oppressive

You mean it is or it's.

... and its in retrospect

You mean it is or it's.

[Taceus Jiwede]

Did you earn a college degree in Film Studies? I did. 4.0.

You mean Kane.

You mean it is or it's.

You mean it is or it's.

Basically everything beyond 4.0 is irrelevant.  I don't see why correcting tiny spelling mistakes makes your point more valid.  If anything it makes people want to take it less seriously.

EDIT: Fixed

[MM3squints]

Basically everything beyond 4.0 is irrelevant.  I don't see why correcting tiny grammatical mistakes makes your point more valid.  If anything it makes people want to take it less seriously.

I have to agree. Sure grammatical errors can be a distraction for the argument, but, it shouldn't take away from the substance of the augment. If the only errors of an argument you can find negative is grammatical error, that shows you are scraping the bottom of the barrel to find try to find a reason (Any reason) to discredit the person you are arguing aginst.

[blacksly]

Basically everything beyond 4.0 is irrelevant.  I don't see why correcting tiny grammatical mistakes makes your point more valid.  If anything it makes people want to take it less seriously.

Word. Picking out a few spelling errors in a multi-paragraph post almost says "there was nothing wrong with the content, but I felt like nitpicking, so this is all I could find".

[Kassandros]

All of those were minor spelling and punctuation errors, not grammatical errors. No points of grammar have even come up.

[Noyjitat]

What the world really needs is a KOTR movie.   Ya I said it.

Unfortunately Disney took a shit on everything from the extended universe and flushed it into the abyss; denying it ever existed. Once swtor ends I'll doubt we'll ever get anything new from the extended universe ever again.

Even this new rebel 1 movie which is supposedly about the one that stole the plans to the death star. We already have that story in the dark forces game saga. You play the former imperial officer "Kyle Katarn" who turns mercenary stealing the deathstar plans and eventually becoming a jedi. Pretty sure awesome already established characters like him and Dash Rendar will be replaced by some other wannabee. 

[Noyjitat]

In the last star trek movie, they made starships irrelevant by creating overpowered personal transporters and then found a cure for death.  That's some pretty shoddy world building.

Can't compare the new starwars to the new startrek. The new startrek was so damn awful I was afraid when I heard jj was directing episode 7. I still enjoyed episode 7 however and only had a couple complaints. I'm glad he won't be directing the others because he could still do so much damage.

[Arcana]

Did you earn a college degree in Film Studies? I did. 4.0.

Then I assume something in your education would prepare you for demonstrating your criticisms with more precision than "its obviously icky."

You mean Kane.

I hope so; if I was thinking about some porn version called Citizen Cane I was probably distracted.

You mean it is or it's.

You mean it is or it's.

Actually, I intended to use the correct spelling, but possessive "it" is one of the ones I mess up far more often than normal.  Was your graduate degree in English composition?

I also find quoting college coursework as one would a resume item to be odd.  My college education is in engineering, not physics or, say, information systems which has been my profession for the past twenty-odd years.  Someone who tried to argue a point of science or information systems by quoting me their undergraduate college transcript would get at the very best a chuckle.  Most of what I know about movies comes from watching them, and talking to professionals.  The best conversations I've had are with ADs and especially APs.  APs give you all the best logistical grunt work stories in my opinion.

On a bit of a tangent, I notice my spelling getting worse ever since I upgraded monitors.  I used to have three 24" 1920x1080 monitors, and the text was pretty big on them.  Now I have two 32" monitors, and one of them is 4k.  My browser windows tend to end up on the 4k monitor, and I think the smaller type is affecting my spell-correcting. You wouldn't think that would happen, but it seems to.

[Nyx Nought Nothing]

Did you earn a college degree in Film Studies? I did. 4.0.

You mean Kane.

You mean it is or it's.

You mean it is or it's.

Okay, Arcana is a brilliant mathematician and an engaging and informative writer. That said, the only spelling error i see her make with any frequency is leaving out apostrophes. Which is an admittedly frequent, but minor at best, quirk. The 4.0 is the only part of your response that was actually relevant, and i do appreciate that you didn't imply that JJ Abrams' Star Trek films were more faithful to that franchise than Episode VII was to the Star Wars franchise. While i'm always dubious of anyone who uses argument from authority to defend their position i do agree that The Force Awakens was not the best Star Wars movie. In my opinion it was better than the prequels, but then i also think that the best Star Wars films were the ones where Lucas was not the director. IMHO YMMV OVICAC

The standard model of physics is incomplete. which is exactly what I'm getting at, there may be a whole bunch of things wrong with it and no one will know till they try to figure out the last bits and find out that it just doesn't add up any way you spin it.take dark matter and life for example, two things that definitely exist, scientists have some guesses but no conclusions. finding out what they are could change the whole model proving some things which were ascertained from other things to be mere guesses.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9j3heYZAk8




Edit: And i see Arcana has already commented on the nitpicking. Arcana, i wouldn't worry about it, in all honesty aopstrophes seem to be your only common recurring writing bugbear that i've noticed, and as recurring problems it's pretty minor. It's actually the only consistent writing quirk i've noticed in the time i've been reading your posts. (Since the days of Iokona posting on the original boards or so.)

[Zerohour]

the content in this thread has really degraded since the last time I checked for updates.  Are we arguing who has the higher GPA now?  I guess talking about ToHit debuffs and max end regen has run its course *finally*

we need a positive shot in the arm here

[HEATSTROKE]

Ive actually enjoyed the new Star Treks..

[Arcana]

i do agree that The Force Awakens was not the best Star Wars movie.

It is always difficult to judge when something is "the best" because the criteria for that tends to be either ambiguous or actually incompatible in an unstated manner.  Part of the problem is that not all films are made for the same reasons.  I think its safe to say that Requiem for a Dream wasn't made to be widely entertaining, and it isn't.  It was made to be challenging, and judging it based on how many people "like" it is probably an inappropriate standard.  Its not usually fair to judge a film based on whether it achieves a goal the filmmaker never intended to achieve.

The biggest complaint I've heard about TFA - one echoed by Lucas himself recently - is that its insufficiently "new."  That it relies too heavily on nostalgia and replicating the beats of A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back.  But I don't think that's an entirely fair criticism because it seems obvious to me that was intentional, and for a specific (set of) reasons.  They were trying to recapture the basic "feel" of the original trilogy, and also separate it from the prequels.  They also wanted to make it a launch pad for future Star Wars movies, both within the series and for ancillary projects.  It was important, therefore, to get the widest possible audience excited about Star Wars again.  It was not the place to take too many chances, and it doesn't.  Its a pretty safe movie.  I think it achieves what it intended to achieve, and I also think what it intended to achieve was a reasonable goal for the first Star Wars movie in over a decade.

I find it interesting in context that Disney has already announced the directors for episode 8 and 9; Rian Johnson and Colin Trevorrow.  I'm not the only one drawing a straight line from Abrams to Johnson to Trevorrow.  That batting order looks like: Commercial Launchpad, Edgy Story middleman, Gonzo Action Cleanup artist.  Who knows what the next two movies will look like, but it does feel like someone was thinking of making the first one with a relatively safe director that could make a good commercially successful movie, making the second one with someone known for more slower paced character driven plots, and the third one with someone that could merge big ideas with blockbuster action.  That feels like someone thinking about the pace of a trilogy story, and it frames Abrams choice and TFA itself in a context where its narrative choices make sense, at least to me.

[Angel Phoenix77]

Yes, most people working at Disney had nothing to do with SW:TFA; and JJ Abrams and Lawrence Kasdan are the credited director and screenwriter, respectively. However, if you can't perceive the obvious, palpable, icky degree of corporate influence by viewing the final product, then perhaps you should visit an optometrist.

Do you believe that what we saw on screen was the story that Lawrence Kasdan would have created on his own? SW:TFA was corporate film-making and design by committee. Kasdan cashed in on another big payday before retiring... not before getting his son, an aspiring screenwriter, a co-credit for the upcoming young Han Solo movie: Screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan is Done With 'Star Wars' After His Han Solo Movie.

I understand what you are saying. I feel episode 7 was utter trash, all I was a retread of A New Hope. That does not mean however, there were not good parts in it such as having more women in it. There were soooo many things wrong with it. From having what I see as the best character Phasma under utilized. And having the main character Rey pretty much being able to do anything, (spoilers) how is she  able to fly the Falcon despite never being in it. Finn being a former storm trooper having a since of wrong doing in killing yet 10 minutes later killing storm troopers by the bucket load. Having Rey and Finn being able to beat Kylo a force adept who received training. Speaking of Kylo I cannot stand how emo he is "oh no I will never be as good as Vader" better to destroy some equipment.

[Angel Phoenix77]

Ive actually enjoyed the new Star Treks..

I too enjoyed the first two, they were pretty good, however, the 3rd movie coming out I more or less feel meh about it.

[Abraxus]

It is always difficult to judge when something is "the best" because the criteria for that tends to be either ambiguous or actually incompatible in an unstated manner.  Part of the problem is that not all films are made for the same reasons.  I think its safe to say that Requiem for a Dream wasn't made to be widely entertaining, and it isn't.  It was made to be challenging, and judging it based on how many people "like" it is probably an inappropriate standard.  Its not usually fair to judge a film based on whether it achieves a goal the filmmaker never intended to achieve.

The biggest complaint I've heard about TFA - one echoed by Lucas himself recently - is that its insufficiently "new."  That it relies too heavily on nostalgia and replicating the beats of A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back.  But I don't think that's an entirely fair criticism because it seems obvious to me that was intentional, and for a specific (set of) reasons.  They were trying to recapture the basic "feel" of the original trilogy, and also separate it from the prequels.  They also wanted to make it a launch pad for future Star Wars movies, both within the series and for ancillary projects.  It was important, therefore, to get the widest possible audience excited about Star Wars again.  It was not the place to take too many chances, and it doesn't.  Its a pretty safe movie.  I think it achieves what it intended to achieve, and I also think what it intended to achieve was a reasonable goal for the first Star Wars movie in over a decade.

I find it interesting in context that Disney has already announced the directors for episode 8 and 9; Rian Johnson and Colin Trevorrow.  I'm not the only one drawing a straight line from Abrams to Johnson to Trevorrow.  That batting order looks like: Commercial Launchpad, Edgy Story middleman, Gonzo Action Cleanup artist.  Who knows what the next two movies will look like, but it does feel like someone was thinking of making the first one with a relatively safe director that could make a good commercially successful movie, making the second one with someone known for more slower paced character driven plots, and the third one with someone that could merge big ideas with blockbuster action.  That feels like someone thinking about the pace of a trilogy story, and it frames Abrams choice and TFA itself in a context where its narrative choices make sense, at least to me.

You just articulated everything I have been telling folks for the last two weeks when they ask me how I liked the movie. 

I would add that for those that noticed how little screen time Phasma got, and how Kylo still looked like he had a lot to learn about being a Dark Lord - that this is chapter 1 of a 3 part story where those characters, and those characteristics will be more fully explored in the upcoming chapters.  This movie was exactly what it needed to be.  A way to put the fans at ease, and let them know that they were watching a Star Wars movie like the ones they remember!  It also presented some new questions that it was in no hurry to answer (like why Rey got the hang of things so quickly), because they have two more movies to let that story, and those answers play out.

I would submit that at the end of A New Hope, we really did not know much about WHY things were as we saw them.  That took two more movies to fully play out.  Now, we have the retrospective luxury of being able to look back on the whole trilogy, and some expect this first entry into a new one to be much more self-contained.  Was it perfect?  No, but very little is.  Do I admit that it was somewhat derivative of the OT?  Sure, but that was not an inherently bad thing, and while it might have felt like they relied on it too much, I submit that they also introduced enough new possibilities, that I did not mind.  I am also convinced that, now that everyone is convinced that this trilogy is for real, they likely won't feel the need to do that in the next two chapters.  Was I entertained?  Yes, I was.  Am I hopeful that things will get even better as the next two chapters unfold?  Yes, I certainly am!

As someone who was there in the summer of '77, hitting that theater EVERY weekend for months straight (I remember that is where I was when the announcement of Elvis' death broke in August of that year), I remember the feeling that I had each time I left that theater, and this movie rekindled that to the extent possible for someone of my....experience.

Now, having said all of that, I return to pining away for the game I love.

[Joshex]

Actually, the Higgs boson is the final piece of the standard model.  With that, acknowledging refinements in the future, the standard model *is* complete, in that all of the components of the theory have now been experimentally verified to exist.

Its obviously not "complete" in that it doesn't explain all physical processes, but that's like saying your high school education is incomplete because you don't know everything yet.  No scientific theory will every be complete in that sense of the word.

Now, could there be "a whole bunch of things wrong with it"?  Not in the way you mean.  The standard model is a theory that makes very specific predictions.  Those predictions have so far been experimentally verified to high degree of precision.  Its unlikely at this point to be "wrong" in any way you mean - i.e. that experiments contradict it, particularly with the Higgs detected.  However, its always possible that the theory can be superceded by a better one; one that explains more or somehow explains the same thing more accurately.  Newton was a very good theory of gravity, and we still use Newton's equations today.  Today we understand that gravity isn't even a real force, its a manifestation of spacetime geometry.  However, that doesn't mean Newton was wrong in the sense you mean: every prediction Newton made in the past and was verified is still true today.  Where Newton and Einstein don't agree are in places Newton himself could not possibly have tested for.  In those places, Einstein wins, and Newton's predictions are wrong.  That's why we believe Einstein is "right" and Newton is "wrong" but in a larger sense we thought Newton was right, and now we know he was mostly right.  Once you experimentally verify a theory like Newton's gravitational theory, its extremely unlikely it will be proven to be totally wrong.  And for Einstein's theories to be accepted as better, they had to not only make predictions that Newton couldn't, they had to basically agree with Newton in all the older historical settings.  If Einstein couldn't reproduce Newton, his theories would be worthless.  Because we *know* Newton works, at least to within a degree of precision.  Einstein also works to that precision, but it goes further and works to an even higher precision, and also makes totally different predictions that aren't just numerically different than Newton, but phenomenologically different as well.

The jury is still out on dark matter, but all life we know of is made of matter and energy.  No life we've ever discovered violates the standard model.  Life doesn't contradict the standard model of physics in any way.  And I still have no idea what you mean by "some things which were ascertained from other things to be mere guesses."  Do you actually know what the inductive process of science is, or even what induction is, or even what is, is?

Well, what if including dark matter not only explained things better and more accurately but in the process KOed key parts of the currently accepted standard model making them entirely false? (that would make the current model unstable)

- that is the things that we thought were caused by things we thought caused them were actually caused by something different entirely.

a physics model can only be complete if it covers everything, explaining everything. Just because you have a scientific loop of data that has now met end to end doesn't mean you've filled in the center of the loop.

You mention gravity, I'm at least glad you didn't call it a force, but for scientists to say "it's caused by mass" is worse than saying "because; god" it explains nothing, it's like saying, "I know it's something about matter that does it, but I'm not sure what yet, I'll get back to you on that, maybe, but for now please praise me for my wonderful theory" how can the standard model be complete if one such core concept has not been explored to it's core?

if it were we would know what causes gravity and have "G-diffusers" like in StarFox to negate gravity. Imagine how stupid we've been spending millions upon millions of dollars on rocket design and fuel, not to mention risking the lives of those on board in the process of basically strapping them in the head of a missile when we could just turn on a G-diffuser and be ejected from earth expending much less energy and in the process negating g-force which causes no wear and tare on the craft no matter how fast it's traveling.

no wonder aliens wont make contact with us if they exist, we're backwards and crazy, we're pyromaniacs obsessed with the power of explosives! -man's first design of a motor? the internal combustion engine. "if it goes boom things move away from it, if those things are round they go further, and if they explode that makes it even better!", "hey sam lets find a way to create electricity in mass quantity, *nuclear explosion* OMFG IT'S AWESOME, PEOPLE WILL LOVE THIS!!" I mean thank God we have videogames, current theories say people play games to express their inner desires they would normally just bottle up because they aren't welcomed/possible in the world, just so happens a lot of videogames contain many goals to blow stuff up, I hardly think it's a coincidence.

aliens looking down "ok, crew? I can't see any of you because I'm face palming so hard, if you would all just come and poke me when you're done facepalming I'd be grateful." several minutes go by.. then the pokes come in mass hordes "ok every poke I received counts as a vote to pass-by earth, quarantine the quadrant, and forever ignore them as a species, all in favor?" *unanimous approval* "ok klorvel! put up the fake universe screen around the quadrant, can't let this explosive-happy gene escape and get into the universe now can we?"

what killed the dinosaurs? man's first answer? "it must be a big explosion, it's all I can think of", man's more recent answer? "ok ok, one explosion wouldn't do it, it must have been 2.. or 3.. well at least more than 1."

what if it wasn't an explosion at all? man's answer? don't be absurd, everything important functions from explosions! i men just look at the sun, it's all explosions!

how do you observe atomic component's components? scan them? Pfft! no, like that's gonna work, we need to blow them up first.

where did the universe come from? I don't know, it must have been a really big explosion.

ok jokes over. it is true though we seem to have this preconception that blowing things up is the best way to do everything. maybe it's because it's quick and has dramatic effects that people turn to it for everything.

I know I keep beating around the bush and keep playing with this topic without revealing specifics; I have my own scientific model that includes dark matter and life, even explaining gravity in detail, I'm just not sure where to whom and if I should release it. people in the scientific community might get defensive or might not appreciate being told their work was meaningless. some people would lose their jobs, and there is one big fact that will even rewrite the history books. so what I have to propose is a huge deal, just not sure I should.

[Arcana]

I understand what you are saying. I feel episode 7 was utter trash, all I was a retread of A New Hope. That does not mean however, there were not good parts in it such as having more women in it. There were soooo many things wrong with it. From having what I see as the best character Phasma under utilized. And having the main character Rey pretty much being able to do anything,

Spoiler for Hidden:

(spoilers) how is she  able to fly the Falcon despite never being in it. Finn being a former storm trooper having a since of wrong doing in killing yet 10 minutes later killing storm troopers by the bucket load. Having Rey and Finn being able to beat Kylo a force adept who received training. Speaking of Kylo I cannot stand how emo he is "oh no I will never be as good as Vader" better to destroy some equipment.

Abrams has said that some of the questions of the movie were always intended to be answered in other movies, just as A New Hope didn't answer all of them either but set up future stories downstream.  But as to the specifics you mention:

Spoiler for Hidden:

I did think that Phasma ended up being a far less important character than she was hyped up to be, but I think without that hype there's nothing wrong with that character's appearance (and also nothing particularly special about it either).  Its obvious that Rey has a backstory that hasn't been told yet, but most of her skills have explanations in the film.  Her mechanical knowledge comes from being a technology scavenger.  Her ability to use a light saber could be related to the fact that her interactions with the light saber hint at possibly having a previous history with them she might not remember, and also she's Force-sensitive: Luke seemed to wield his light saber intuitively in ANH when Kenobi makes him fight basically blindfolded.  The only really unexplained skill is her exceptional ability flying the Falcon, but then again no one questioned how Luke could fly an x-wing pretty well for the very first time in the attack on the Death Star.

As to Kylo, he was wounded earlier before that fight, and had to fight first Fin and then Rey in succession.  Even wounded, its not entirely clear he's trying to kill Rey: he actually at one point tries to tempt her to be his student.  Maybe he "lost" because he wasn't trying to kill her, and was in control of that fight for most of it, only "losing" at the end because he underestimated her.  Also, no one really quesstioned how Luke, with relatively small amounts of training, manages to defeat Darth Vader in their last fight.  Vader has multiple times the experience of Luke, and it doesn't even seem like Luke's training with Yoda focused on light saber duels: it was less about training to be a good fighter, and more about being in control at the critical moment when he fought Vader to prevent falling to the dark side.

I've always had a suspicion that Yoda wasn't concerned about Luke defeating Vader.  He even tells Kenobi's force ghost that "there is another."  I think he always knew that when Luke confronted Vader, the worst case scenario was not Vader killing Luke, it was Vader turning Luke.  I've always thought that was the importance of the cave on Dagoba: to teach Luke that the real enemy wasn't Vader, it was the possibility of becoming Vader.  Yoda was making sure that win or lose, Luke wouldn't turn.  What I think Yoda didn't consider was the possibility that Luke could be tempted by the dark side strongly enough to defeat Vader, and yet back away and not fully embrace it, which is ultimately what saves both him and Anakin.

[LaughingAlex]

I know the movie was in theaters for longer than a week but could we have spoiler tags on the topic of the new movie?  Thanks.

[pinballdave]

I know the movie was in theaters for longer than a week but could we have spoiler tags on the topic of the new movie?  Thanks.

I am with you on this. Too many plot details are revealed in an open forum. I don't care how smug you are in your interpretive skills. Rude is rude.

[Arcana]

Well, what if including dark matter not only explained things better and more accurately but in the process KOed key parts of the currently accepted standard model making them entirely false? (that would make the current model unstable)

We don't accept the standard model because its pretty.  We accept it because it works: because it makes predictions that experiments verify.  Its just extremely unlikely that some future piece of data completely tosses a part of it out, because Science relies on the fact that experimental verification works: that when you run a large enough number of experiments and they verify a theory, that strongly implies there's a significant element of truth to it.  If this wasn't a true statement about the universe, Science wouldn't work at all.

As I said, Einstein didn't overthrow Newton.  Einstein said Newton was almost right in most cases, but in others he wasn't and a different mental model of the universe was equally good at reproducing Newton's predictions and making correct ones in areas Newton doesn't.  There's always talk about someone "overthrowing Einstein" but that's all but impossible at this point.  A better theory might come along, but it won't "overthrow" Einstein, it will have to start by *replicating* Einstein, because Relativity has already made tons of predictions that have been experimentally verified.  A successor theory has to match Relativity first in those areas, and *also* do something Relativity doesn't.

To put it another way, even if one day we discover a particle that the standard model doesn't predict, that won't mean the standard model gets thrown completely out.  It would mean someone would have to come along and formulate a new theory that *includes* the standard model and also extends to those new particles.  It has to, because the new theory can't say some parts of the standard model need to be thrown out, because we've already verified those things actually exist.  The probability that someone is going to create a theory that says quarks don't exist is really really low, because all evidence we have says they do.  You can change the theory, but not the evidence.  You're going to have to explain why quarks appear to exist in every respect we've tested for, and yet somehow don't.  Good luck.

You mention gravity, I'm at least glad you didn't call it a force, but for scientists to say "it's caused by mass" is worse than saying "because; god" it explains nothing, it's like saying, "I know it's something about matter that does it, but I'm not sure what yet, I'll get back to you on that, maybe, but for now please praise me for my wonderful theory" how can the standard model be complete if one such core concept has not been explored to it's core?

That feeling was a great disturbance, as if millions of theoretical physicists cried out and then were silenced.

Scientists don't say gravity is "caused by mass."  The theory of general relativity states that the geometry of spacetime has a geometry that is influenced by the energy it contains.  Inertial objects not experiencing external acceleration move along geodesics within that geometry and the shape of those geodesics happen to be the trajectories you'd expect to see if gravity worked more or less like a force that acts roughly the way Newtonian physics would describe.

In other words, a relativistic theoretical physicist would actually say "gravity doesn't actually exist: its an illusion produced by curved spacetime."  You might say that's just mumbo-jumbo, but that statement makes very non-intuitive predictions about how the universe actually works that can be tested.  It says, for example, that in regions of spacetime that are positively curved due to "mass" that parallel geodesics converge.  The english translation is: time runs slower in areas where "gravity" is stronger.  That's a completely non-intuitive prediction of relativity and its only possible if spacetime is curved.  So we test that, and it turns out to be true.  What's more, the exact clock differential is precisely what relativity predicts.  What's more, this time dilation isn't something that can be tweaked to be whatever you want in relativity.  Its a consequence of the curvature relativity predicts which exactly matches the effects of "gravity."  When relativity is formulated in a way that replicates Newton for gravitational forces, it also happens to precisely match the time dilation observed in the presence of gravity (aka curves spacetime).  That's either an incredible coincidence, or a reflection of a deep connection between apparent gravitation force and the flow of time in the universe, and that connection is, according to relativity, due to curved space-time.

Ultimately, this is what Science is.  It uses math, but its not about math and numbers.  It is about constructing models of the universe that allow us to generalize what we know to make predictions about what we don't know.  And the key innovation of the scientific method is that rather than simply guess, it basically forces our guesses to work for their supper: before we trust relativity to tell us things about the parts of the universe we can't observe, we make it make non-trivial predictions about the parts of the universe we can observe, but don't yet know anything about.  Guessing tends to be wrong often enough that if the theory makes enough predictions that are all experimentally verified, we trust it more than just guessing.  The more verification over longer time, the more we trust it.  That's what Science is about.

To put it another way, Science isn't Sudoku, Science is casino gambling.  Most of the time, a casino gambler will lose money.  They might get lucky sometimes, but no one is lucky forever.  If you see someone winning money consistently at the blackjack table, you might start to think he has a system: maybe he's counting cards.  But if you see someone winning every single hand, hour after hour, day after day, year after year, then you know its not even that he has a system: he has to be cheating somehow.  Science is like that.  Science believes anyone can get lucky sometimes, but ultimately someone relying on luck is going to lose.  Someone with a system that has some truth to it will win more than they lose: they might be on to something.  Someone who wins every time, without limit, has to have the game rigged.  You no longer think that the odds of him winning tomorrow are based on probability.  You now think he's cheating, and since he's won every day for a year, he will still be winning tomorrow.  At that point, you have a Scientific theory: something that has won so many hands that its no longer about luck: it has to represent a fundamental truth of the game (that its rigged in that player's favor).

General Relativity has won billions of hands, in every casino in the world, for a hundred years.  Maybe its going to lose tomorrow.  Who's going to bet on that?  Anything is possible, but the smart money will be on GR tomorrow.  Maybe one day someone new will replace GR, and not only will he win every blackjack hand but *also* every poker hand, every roulette spin, and every roll of the dice.  When that happens, and it happens for long enough, we'll all start betting on him instead.  Until then, the guy with the hot hand today will probably go bust tomorrow, and take down everyone that bets on him.