"There I was thinking that the scientific method involved falsifiable hypotheses - so how are they going to prove or disprove their respective beliefs?"
????
Scientists think out of the box, they speculate. They talk. They debate, they argue, they get ideas from one another.
Then they get an idea of 'what might work' and possibly form rough experiment to see 'if it makes sense'. Then if things look good, or they figure a few other things out, they might do a more formal experiment in the context of demonstrating the validity of the theory, and possibly try to get it published.
Or, maybe experiments are not possible, or too expensive, so they write their crazy speculations down for others to think about, riff on, and possibly do some experiments later in time.
That's science.
It's a ton of speculation.
I don't understand why you think these things are 'beliefs' and that speculative discussion is not part of the process.
FYI Einstein mostly only ever 'talked and speculated' about stuff.
????
Scientists think out of the box, they speculate. They talk. They debate, they argue, they get ideas from one another.
Then they get an idea of 'what might work' and possibly form rough experiment to see 'if it makes sense'. Then if things look good, or they figure a few other things out, they might do a more formal experiment in the context of demonstrating the validity of the theory, and possibly try to get it published.
Or, maybe experiments are not possible, or too expensive, so they write their crazy speculations down for others to think about, riff on, and possibly do some experiments later in time.
That's science.
It's a ton of speculation.
I don't understand why you think these things are 'beliefs' and that speculative discussion is not part of the process.
FYI Einstein mostly only ever 'talked and speculated' about stuff.