http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2001/as...
Science works by coming up with a nullifiable hypothesis, then seeing how it holds up as evidence is gathered. When you see contradictions, you adapt your model. I think you're missing the middle step, where you see contradictions.
These phenomena are also attempts to fix the old model because they didn't produce the correct predictions. Physicists are doing exactly what the OP would like them to do.
Paradigm shifts are also very hard. Your current models predict a lot of things very very accurately. Just look at all the stuff we've built. A new model has a lot to live up to if we want to use it.
As far as black holes, we have not 100% direct evidence of them, but we do have many independent and very strong lines of indirect evidence. For example, we can see stars in orbit around an incredibly massive object at the center of our galaxy (Sgr A*) that is not luminous. There are no models that make sense for anything that could be so massive and so dark. Black holes are the only theory which fits all the evidence we have, that's how science works.
Biology has followed a much better path over the past century, and biologists are rapidly building up an extremely thorough understanding of how biological systems work without relying heavily on algebraic models. Physics fails to provide explanations for even the most basic physical phenomena like motion. It's effectively just assumed to exist as a law because some authoritative physicist said so and all other models rely on it.
To put it differently, biology can't answer why paraplegics can't walk without first answering how people walk. You can't explain walking if you can't explain motion. Unless the biologists have been holding out on us, they don't have an explanation for motion that would satisfy us any more deeply than you do. Thus, if physicists can't explain something as basic as motion, then biologists can't explain something as simple as why paraplegics can't walk.
As for the supposed superiority of biology, I offer up this essay that has resonated with me (especially Fig. 3 at the end): http://protein.bio.msu.ru/biokhimiya/contents/v69/pdf/bcm_14...
Biologists might be making great strides, but they have quite a long way to go.
So tell me please: Why are people like Brian Greene able to obtain the funding to make TV series like http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/physics/fabric-of-cosmos.html and get public speaking engagements like https://secure2.convio.net/ata/site/Ecommerce/3120701?VIEW_P..., when they should be getting the popular attention of a Usenet crackpot?
Don't be ridiculous.
And how many dragons and white walkers and Cylons are featured by Nova specials, the Discovery Channel, and get pop-sci articles written up in Scientific American?
Well, since 100% of "proofs" that the basic assumptions of modern physics are wrong over the last century have, in fact, come from crackpots it's a pretty good working assumption.
I'm convinced that the physics community isn't interested in the slightest in new ideas.
Uhh, nope, the physics community is extremely interested in new ideas. We sit around generating 'em all the time. We're not especially interested in outsiders who come to us with claims that they've proved some fundamental physics result, though, for the same reason that we're not particularly interested in Nigerian princes who email us offering us millions of dollars in return for assistance in moving money out of the country: those things just tend to have a ridiculously high failure rate.
If I weren't interested in new ideas, why the fuck would I be a physicist? For the chicks?
If ever someone bearing all the hallmarks of a crackpot does come up with a fundamental new advance in physics, though, I'm convinced that this will eventually bubble to the surface. No such luck for the real Nigerian prince though.
As an example to how bad things have become in the realm of physics, it's safe to say that the vast majority of thinking adults believe that black holes exist, because so much major media has told them so. But when you look deeper you find that there's no definitive evidence
Sure. That's also true if you replace "black holes" by "zebras". Do zebras exist? I've never seen one! I mean, I have, but it could easily have been a carefully dyed horse.
I think the level of evidence for black holes is not quite as strong as the evidence for zebras, but I think it's reasonably congruent with the level of confidence among physicists that they exist.
Oh, please, which ones?
Maybe the crackpots that challenged the notion that light is a wave and never behaves as a particle
Or maybe the idiot that thought that massive objects can bend light.
And yes, Albert Einstein was considered an idiot and a crackpot. After all, he was just a patent office clerk.
"Uhh, nope, the physics community is extremely interested in new ideas". BS. No, the majority is not interested in that. They're interested in grants and the status quo
They only 'accept' the new ideas when the evidence is overwhelmingly in the favor of the new idea and they'll look like idiots if they don't accept it.
You may call it skepticism, but I call it cowardice. And it's very easy to hide behind the skepticism veil, but guess what, it doesn't bring a Nobel home.
You say that like it's a bad thing.
Without preponderance of evidence, the former would be more correct, but the latter is more prevalent.
It's very easy to reject things that need more research. Then IF it's researched more thoroughly and inconsistent with the theory THEN rejection is in order.
But instead, several research lines are rejected because of politics, 'playing it safe', etc
As an example to how bad things have become in the realm of physics, it's safe to say that the vast majority of thinking adults believe that black holes exist, because so much major media has told them so. But when you look deeper you find that there's no definitive evidence. Sites like the Chandra X-Ray Observatory admit that, deep in their FAQ, but in words that many people can misconstrue as a technicality. When I point out in physics discussions that that there's no definitive evidence of black holes, I'm automatically labeled a crackpot, especially by the working physicists. One of my books suggests that this is a grant problem, as in black holes bring in a lot of grant money, so physicists must be careful to pretend that black holes are a definite reality in nature.