If you can’t see it, it doesn’t exist. That’s an old philosophy, one that many scientists swallowed whole. But as Ziva David of NCIS would say, it’s total salami. After all, you can’t see bacteria and viruses, but they can still kill you.
Yet some scientists still invoke that philosophy to deny the scientific status of all sorts of interesting things. Like the theoretical supertiny loops of energy known as superstrings. Or the superhuge collection of parallel universes known as the multiverse.
It’s the same attitude that led some 19th century scientists and philosophers to deny the existence of atoms.Ernst Mach, leader of the anti-atomists, said atoms were a “mental artifice,” existing only in thought. “Atoms cannot be perceived by the senses,” he said.