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I'm not sure I understand why you think I can't name a group of critical dissenters that I think are right. For example I do believe that the "dissenters" who criticise string theory (google "not even wrong string theory" ) are at least correct in their "political" arguments that the focus on string theory funding might has painted us into a corner and held back scientific progress. Note I am not a particle physicist so don't know enough to judge any "unifying theory" as correct or incorrect. Similarly the people looking for a theory underneath quantum theory might be correct (I'm more sceptical about this, but again not enough of an expert to judge), and the Copenhagen interpretation is not everything.

So no science is not finished and yes our understanding of science still progresses. However, two things first it does not need "sceptical dissenters" to progress science. There are many areas in science where there are many "known unknowns" and where there isn't an established theory.

Moreover, even acknowledging that there are areas where "sceptical dissenters" might be right and change the established understanding, those will not come from a direction of questioning and ignoring the scientific method.

In other words someone ignores the scientific method he/she is not a legitimate dissenter.

But you need to be more specific ("butter bei die Fische" is the German expression), what are legitimate dissenters and how do you judge them as legitimate?



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