An IOU dated Infinity is bad enough, because it preempts any discussion of whether the science is on the wrong track.
Sometimes, science is on the wrong track. Consider, for example, the efforts to turn lead into gold, which dominated the discussion of chemistry for centuries. Acknowledging complete failure to turn lead into gold meant starting to learn what elements are. What if they just kept saying, “Science will discover the answer someday!” Or made laws forcing kids to learn their rubbish at school, Darwin style? They’d still be explaining today why that grey stuff really is gold.
But another problem is, the currency in which we get paid if infinity ever arrives, is worthless. Recently, in cosmology, there’s been a war on the concept of knowing reality. See here for Leonard Susskind (“But a funny thing has happened along the way. Susskind now wonders whether physicists can understand reality.”) And here, Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow claim “ The way physics has been going, realism is becoming difficult to defend.”
Well, if they think science can’t understand reality, why should we finance their directions in science? Should we not rather seek another approach? Design, perhaps, with a focus on information theory?
Otherwise, infinity arrives and they owe us an infinite amount – in Hawkingbucks, an unvalued currency not backed by anything real.
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