Grampa Simpson (apparently) on Philosophy and/of Physics

So I see this link from Arts & Letters Daily which says physicists shouldn't be meta-physical and should be strictly Popperian instead. And it seems so very quaint and old-fashioned and grandfatherly, and all I can think is that, as Abraham Simpson once waxed poetic about when trying to convince Burns that he could help bust the Union like they did in the '30s, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on 'em. Give me five bees for a quarter, you'd say. And I hear they used to put an onion on their belts, which was the style of the time -- so all I can think is, first, I'm totally losing my sentence structure here so please forgive me, and but second, that this guy's real Grampa-ish.

And here's Burton Richter, circa 2006, saying stick to the facts people. Don't stray into the realm of imagination or idea-formation or contemplation or creative analysis or beauty or fascination or awe or wonder or difficult intellectual debate. And, yes, I don't know former Stanford physicist Burton Richter from the Richter Scale--holy cow, wait, he's not the Richter scale guy is he? (No, a quick click to Wikipedia tells me it was Charles, from the '30s...whew) - and I'm not a physicist, but with the accompanying picture of Richter--clearly posing as a physicist--and the tone and the argumentative direction of 'these young whipper snappers don't do physics like we did in the good old days' I had to wonder if this was a real editorial (you could almost see him laying down a 'why you little non-Popperians...'). And so, you know, what's all this then? If he's gonna be cranky cuz kids today just don't do physics like they used to, or are supposed to, or dear Sir Popper told us (seventy years ago!!!), then what's all that for?

So, Popper is the scientists' favorite, and Popper is rightly recognized as a giant of 20th century philosophy of science, and I see that, I know that. But I mean, for crissakes, would anyone claim that we should be doing genetics the way we did it in the 30s? By tying an onion to your belt and calling bees quarters? Neils Bohr is a giant of 20th century physics, but we don't stick with the Bohr atomic model to the hilt do we? And if we don't, we don't think less of Bohr do we?

Does anyone think that the status of biology or chemistry or physics or ecology or astronomy is predicated on deference to the early 20th century status of those fields, and on those claims alone? Why are we allowed to have faith in scientific progress, but think everything else stays the same? The field of the philosophy of science has grown beyond belief over the second half of the 20th century, and Popper is rightly read in all intro courses to the field. But that's at the beginning of the course, not the culmination. Popper was fine, and I actually like Popper (STS people don't generally say that), but saying physics is no good now because the kids don't do it the way Popper said, well, that's just insipid.

(Also, for those who actually read the linked editorial, you'll note that it isn't as bad as I'm painting it. I mean, it isn't entirely good - his reasoning doesn't seem well worked out, or consistent - but it doesn't deserve this much attention. I wanted to try reading just the first paragraph, writing this post, then actually reading the entire article. A novel approach, reading the whole thing. But why delete all this now? How often do you get to antagonize physicists undeservedly?)