I mean, for various reasons I think this [faster-than-light neutrino] result will go away. But I don’t think it was wrong to present it, and it wasn’t wrong to try and find out if it was right. And what’s really important to remember is that new results don’t always make the old theory wrong. This is a really important and basic concept that’s often misunderstood. A lot of people are very critical here. They say, “Why are you doing science if you’re just going to find out it’s all wrong anyway?” But that’s just not how it works. Even if the results turn out to be true, it would tell us that Einstein’s theory is still right over a large regime. But we would then know that there are some deeper underlying differences that apply when you do these extremely precise measurements. Usually, when a new theory is shown to be right, it simply underlies the old one, which is now an approximation. It doesn’t mean we need to throw away the old theory.
— How a Physicist Sees the Universe: Messy and Sublime | Wired Science | Wired.com
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