The difference is maths. E.g. Einstein proved his theory of gravity mathematically, THEN it was proved via empirical observation.
We don't have a way to mathematically prove a drug for depression a psychological phenomena.
We don't have a way to mathematically prove a drug for depression a psychological phenomena.
You can't "mathematically prove" a theory agrees with reality except by reconciling it with experiments (possibly indirectly through links to previous theories), so the only difference here is that a non-ad-hoc mathematical theory of depression medication doesn't appear to be feasible, not that physics has some magic alternate method of proof.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_proof
You're missing the point of what I said w/ the Einstein example. He proved it via maths. Whether or not it was empirically validated is irrelevant. It was true mathematically
Today, this cannot be done with fields like medicine and psychology. No one can create a mathematical proof for a cure for cancer, make a treatment based upon that proof, and have it work on the first try
> Whether or not it was empirically validated is irrelevant. It was true mathematically
If you mean it was a self-consistent theory, note that there are infinite physically incorrect theories which are "true mathematically". It is true mathematically in the same way number theory is "true mathematically", but you don't see anyone assume that we can describe gravity with prime number theory. If you mean it was mathematically proved consistent with previous physical theories backed by evidence, we're back to the experimental link, and also there are infinite physically incorrect theories which would agree with Newtonian mechanics and special relativity. If you mean he proved it satisfied some properties we expect from physical theories because they've been consistently upheld (e.g. energy conservation), there's an infinite number of wrong ones there too.
Mathematical convenience has been an excellent guide in physics, particularly fundamental physics (electromagnetic waves, antiparticles, and the Higgs Boson were all the results of positing things for mathematical convenience), but it is not a substitute for verifying novel experimental predictions. Nobody taken seriously in the physics (or mathematics for that matter!) community thinks it is, not even the often decried string theorists.
My point is this: Something is true whether one accepts it or not. E.g. the earth was proven to be round before anyone actually went around it.
Another example is climate change deniers. To them there's no proof of; 1) Climate change; 2) That it's man made.
Another example is people who believe the earth is 10,000 years old (I'm not joking millions of ppl believe this). They will deny any evidence you put in front of them.
That's the beauty of maths. If you can prove it mathematically, it's true. Whether or not you believe it is irrelevant.
As for the existence objective reality, that's another thing that seems hard to prove conclusively. I'd suggest looking at some of the basic epistemology surrounding modern science (e.g. Popper[1]) for some thoughts on this.
As an interesting aside, while it's true that mathematical proofs (idealizing here and assuming incorrect proofs are never accepted by the mathematical community, because they on occasion are) are absolute statements of truth, they may not be stating precisely the truth you expect. Thanks to Godel[2], we know that it is not possible for any consistent mathematical theory rich enough to talk about addition and multiplication of natural numbers to prove it's own consistency. As a result, we may have a proof that 2+2 != 5, but that actually doesn't exclude the possibility that there is a proof of 2+2 = 5. In fact, his result shows we will never be able to prove such a thing does not exist (since it would imply the consistency of our mathematical system). So our absolute truths from proofs of X are actually of the form ZFC implies X, where ZFC is the background theory which is generally taken to underly modern mathematical works unless otherwise specified. So things are not so clear cut even here.
[1]: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/popper/ [2]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%27s_incompletenes...
It seems you're more interested in dicing up and attacking what I said, instead of what I mean.
I'll re-articulate it for you once more: We don't have a way to mathematically prove a drug for depression or to explain psychological phenomena. The studies in the article are talking about those which rely on empirical observation.
Go home.
How many problems have you worked through in GR? Have you gone through the proofs that GR recreates Newtonian gravity in the low-energy limit? If not, don't go around talking about how Einstein proved GR was a true description of reality with naught but mathematical proof when he didn't think he did that.
Physics has the same requirements for empiric evidence as the life sciences, it's just that we work within regimes where we can apply fundamental, empirically validated mathematical theories directly. If you don't believe me, go ask another physicist.