Enthusiasm and Skepticism: Two Pillars of Science—A Nonextensive Statistics Case

Abstract

Science and its evolution are based on complex epistemological structures. Two of the pillars of such a construction definitively are enthusiasm and skepticism, both being ingredients without which solid knowledge is hardly achieved and certainly not guaranteed. Our friend and colleague Jean Willy André Cleymans (1944–2021), with his open personality, high and longstanding interest for innovation, and recognized leadership in high-energy physics, constitutes a beautiful example of the former. Recently, Joseph I. Kapusta has generously and laboriously offered an interesting illustration of the latter pillar, in the very same field of physics, concerning the very same theoretical frame, namely, nonextensive statistical mechanics and the nonadditive q-entropies on which it is based. I present here a detailed analysis, point by point, of Kapusta’s 19 May 2021 talk and, placing the discussion in a sensibly wider and updated perspective, I refute his bold conclusion that indices q have no physical foundation.