Question

No physicist has ever ‘seen’ an electron. Yet, all physicists believe in the existence of electrons. An intelligent but superstitious man advances this analogy to argue that ‘ghosts’ exist even though no one has ‘seen’ one. How will you refute his argument?

Answer 1

Hint: Science including physics doesn’t conclude a theory by just being acceptable because something else is accepted similarly. Every conclusion in Physics involves various steps which have to be followed and scrutinized thoroughly for proof.

Complete answer:
Physics and all other branches of science work with a common motto – to derive, prove and apply theories and hypotheses in the most scientific method so that they do not suffer any allegations in future. Every conclusion in Physics is after thorough cross-check and experiments done by brilliant minds all around the world. The scientists are a community who study things and its behaviours from observable experiments.
We need to look back at the time when J.J Thomson discovered the existence of electrons. He and his assistants worked on a series of experiments after which, the cathode-ray tube experiment gave him astonishing results which revealed the possibility of existence of negatively charged particles in a neutral atom. The scientist after his ground-breaking discovery had to undergo world-wide scrutiny to finally get acceptance from the world scientific community.
Later on, many experiments including Rutherford's scattering experiment gave stronger evidence to the existence of charged particles in the atom. For sure, no one has seen this particle, which was later explained by Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle.
On the other hand, the theories on the existence of ghosts are created by the human folk for experiences or incidents which they couldn’t find a reason for yet.
The not ‘seen’ part of electrons and ghosts are. Thus, no way relatable.

Additional Information:
The ancient people, even some of the modern folks believe in the ghost stories as they couldn’t be satisfied with another possible explanation.

Note:
The validation of a scientific discovery or proof involves a hypothesis, an experimental proof, a theoretical proof, absence of allegations and valuable observations and inferences. It takes sometimes, hundreds of years for a theory to be proved, like the existence of gravitational waves.