The scientific method is an iterative process of coming up with hypotheses about the world and testing them. I see articles about new hypotheses in physics every few months on news feeds, including attempts to obsolete the Standard Model and/or General Relativity. So far, none of them have been able to (i) explain more phenomena than existing theories, (ii) predict new ones, and (iii) actually be testable.
Such breakthroughs are really rare. Until then, most physicists are stuck with twisting and twiddling with existing theories, hoping that the existing holes can't be adjusted anymore to let their newly discovered peg pass.
The whole point of science is that you continually revise and update your theory based on new facts you acquire. That was the big revolution in thinking that the Scientific Revolution brought, as opposed to the worshipping of "ancient, immutable knowledge" championed by religions and by the study of the classics.
I take it by "as usual" you mean "for the first time since the 1970s"? We have precisely one reason so far to adjust the Standard Model (neutrino oscillation) and it's not a resolved matter of how to do that.
IANAP, but I understand those decayment asymmetries are very hard to insert into the standard model. They will either lead to more particles (that can be detected) or a much more complex model.
And when did that happen last? SM since C T parity breaking has not been modified and it has predicted many things including the Higgs boson, the holy grail of particle physics.
The standard model actually does not have a whole lot of wiggle room. Suggesting that it has suggests to me that the person asserting it does not have the foggiest idea what they are talking about.
Some people consider the standard model to be a tape job. It can be modified to fit the predictions. But will provide any insights? Thats not necessarily the case. Ability to predict does not equal understanding
IANAP, but IIRC the standard model was born from the electroweak unification effort and in addition to giving some order to the particle zoo, it predicted the Higgs boson. I think that's a pretty important win.
I think it’ll be rewritten in the next five to ten years. There are a lot of new ideas emerging now that some of these expectations have been fully destroyed, and on top of that since verifying Higg’s we’re starting to see bosons are much stranger thank quarks :)
