I generally agree with and applaud the spirit of this post (as long as it doesn’t get too sanctimonious). If it had stopped there, we could all have our Kum Ba Ya moment and move on.
But it continues on and builds straw man arguments against fellow pilgrims in the search for truth—calling those “wrong” who merely disagree in their approach to a subject that is admittedly not completely understood. What is sad is that the cavalier dismissal derives, not from proof, but to a certain extent from ignorance of what they actually said. I fear that the comments about the Newton-Ampere-Weber model will not age well.
It is certainly true that falsified theories are wrong. But larger approaches are often partly right, albeit mistaken in particular details. Sometimes the math works, but reasonable disagreement exists as to the physical meaning.
If we don’t know, how can we call other approaches wrong?
I have been of the opinion for some 20 years or more that scientists are less objective than the average person. This is because they always overestimate their ability to be objective, because "we're trained as scientists!" They are observably more prone to groupthink, as the latest debacle made abundantly clear.
The only way it advances (other than one funeral at a time, as Plank is credited as noting), is for the rare individual who can actually think for himself, and has the testicular fortitude to voice it.
... to voice it, and weather the inevitable storm that follows. The abuse, the isolation, the mockery, the penury, the professional persecution, etc.
*pour encourger les autres*
Every honest and dishonest scientist knows exactly what will follow their voicing of the truth. That's exactly why so few do it.
Most scientists, like most people since scientists remain people in spite of their pretensions and delusions, are governed by our circumstances. The prevailing conditions in which we live.
The most valuable man, be he scientist or otherwise, is the one who concludes his circumstances to be intolerable and sets out to change them and refuses to be conformed to them.
"Scientists" at their core, having laid bare the core dilemma of man's mind and heart, are nothing but sophisticated prostitutes. By trading their curiosity - each man is born with - for a position of worldly "authority" based on HOUSE OF LIES promoted by THE CULT OF LIES.
Which in turn results in the promotion of certain ideas, not because they represent the truest understanding of GOD ALMIGHTY'S CREATION, but in order to promote PRIDE of each "owner" of the specific HOUSE OF LIES that's being promoted.
It starts - depending on the father of the child - usually very early by letting media lies being BRAINWASHED AND INDOCTRINATED into the children's heart and mind. Pinocchio - the original one - comes to mind, where it is still - in comparison to later versions - very clearly laid bare, where school still meant being shown HOW to think logically and not WHAT to think. Whereas I don't believe that you truly can learn ANYTHING in school apart from how to get ahead within THE CULT OF LIES by being BRAINWASHED AND INDOCTRINATED in order not to think for yourself and thereby becoming a useful idiot for the furtherance of the gospel of THE CULT OF LIES. WORLDLY POWER - mainly in the form of FIAT CURRENCY but also by promoting narratives by NOBEL PRIZES that threaten the least THE CULT OF LIES - is the main tool with the tiniest layer of sprinkles in order to cover up THE CASTLE OF LIES on which the specific claims are based. I could give evidence based examples of this but I am going to refrain from it as of now.
My experience is that the most arrogant are most often those who defend the status quo ante.
“It ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new. This coolness arises partly from fear of the opponents, who have the laws on their side, and partly from the incredulity of men, who do not readily believe in new things until they have had a long experience of them.”
What your article at its core is debating is - Do I believe that GOD ALMIGHTY/ YAHWEH/ I AM THAT I AM IS THE ONE AND ONLY SOVEREIGN and am I accepting HIS LAW?
Accepting GOD ALMIGHTY/YAHWEH/ I AM THAT I AM is the only way to NEVER (as long as one's own mind and heart are able to hold on to this FAITH) again to fall prey to HUBRIS anymore. Harder done than said. Which is why man has messed up GOD ALMIGHTY'S/ YAHWEH'S CREATION up the way he did ... since THE GARDEN OF EDEN.
Introducing GOD ALMIGHTY/ YAHWEH in one's own existence is not "the god of the gaps" as many Dawkinists use to claim but to accept the simple fact that the bigger the shoreline of the island of observed facts and possible (linear sequential) explanations of those observations the BIGGER the shoreline of ignorance being confirmed - which then by logical conclusion cannot become anything else but GOD ALMIGHTY/ YAHWEH/ I AM THAT I AM ... THE TRUE GOD OF THE GAPS ... by giving up the PRIDE, ARROGANCE, IGNORANCE, HYPOCRISY AND HUBRIS of man's mind (individually) to ever be able to have figured out THE OCEAN - GOD ALMIGHTY!
THE WAY THE TRUTH AND THE LIFE ONLY - THE ONE AND ONLY INCARNATION OF GOD ALMIGHTY AND SHEPHERD AND SAVIOUR THE LORD JESUS CHRIST AND THE HOLY SPIRIT FOREVER AND EVER - AMEN HALLELU-YAH - SOLI DEO GLORIA!
I had a similar epiphany with optical propagation in media. The simplified transmission model assumed a constant extinction coefficient. Going back to the basic math and physics was a hard reminder that propagation loss was a complex value and also frequency dependent. In real conditions, the medium is not uniform but acts stochastic with time. I'm still working pieces of this. It's not what we know, but how we examine at the edges of knowledge.
My previous attitude on the question, "How wrong is science?" would have been far closer to Asimov's in this essay. He argues (correctly) that science is usually mostly right.
I argue science is always partly wrong - and that’s the better perspective in today’s era of scientific hubris. Scientists who want to make significant discoveries need to cultivate Maxwell's thoroughly conscious ignorance and try to figure out where and how science is wrong.
I don't think that you're being arrogant, but being authoritative. There's a big difference. Being authoritative is trying to prove you're right, while being arrogant is not caring if you're right or not.
Spiritually speaking, we should all consider going back to "Shunya" or the "nothingness" every now and then for that next profound breakthrough discovery to reveal itself.
I generally agree with and applaud the spirit of this post (as long as it doesn’t get too sanctimonious). If it had stopped there, we could all have our Kum Ba Ya moment and move on.
But it continues on and builds straw man arguments against fellow pilgrims in the search for truth—calling those “wrong” who merely disagree in their approach to a subject that is admittedly not completely understood. What is sad is that the cavalier dismissal derives, not from proof, but to a certain extent from ignorance of what they actually said. I fear that the comments about the Newton-Ampere-Weber model will not age well.
It is certainly true that falsified theories are wrong. But larger approaches are often partly right, albeit mistaken in particular details. Sometimes the math works, but reasonable disagreement exists as to the physical meaning.
If we don’t know, how can we call other approaches wrong?
I have been of the opinion for some 20 years or more that scientists are less objective than the average person. This is because they always overestimate their ability to be objective, because "we're trained as scientists!" They are observably more prone to groupthink, as the latest debacle made abundantly clear.
The only way it advances (other than one funeral at a time, as Plank is credited as noting), is for the rare individual who can actually think for himself, and has the testicular fortitude to voice it.
... to voice it, and weather the inevitable storm that follows. The abuse, the isolation, the mockery, the penury, the professional persecution, etc.
*pour encourger les autres*
Every honest and dishonest scientist knows exactly what will follow their voicing of the truth. That's exactly why so few do it.
Most scientists, like most people since scientists remain people in spite of their pretensions and delusions, are governed by our circumstances. The prevailing conditions in which we live.
The most valuable man, be he scientist or otherwise, is the one who concludes his circumstances to be intolerable and sets out to change them and refuses to be conformed to them.
"Scientists" at their core, having laid bare the core dilemma of man's mind and heart, are nothing but sophisticated prostitutes. By trading their curiosity - each man is born with - for a position of worldly "authority" based on HOUSE OF LIES promoted by THE CULT OF LIES.
Which in turn results in the promotion of certain ideas, not because they represent the truest understanding of GOD ALMIGHTY'S CREATION, but in order to promote PRIDE of each "owner" of the specific HOUSE OF LIES that's being promoted.
It starts - depending on the father of the child - usually very early by letting media lies being BRAINWASHED AND INDOCTRINATED into the children's heart and mind. Pinocchio - the original one - comes to mind, where it is still - in comparison to later versions - very clearly laid bare, where school still meant being shown HOW to think logically and not WHAT to think. Whereas I don't believe that you truly can learn ANYTHING in school apart from how to get ahead within THE CULT OF LIES by being BRAINWASHED AND INDOCTRINATED in order not to think for yourself and thereby becoming a useful idiot for the furtherance of the gospel of THE CULT OF LIES. WORLDLY POWER - mainly in the form of FIAT CURRENCY but also by promoting narratives by NOBEL PRIZES that threaten the least THE CULT OF LIES - is the main tool with the tiniest layer of sprinkles in order to cover up THE CASTLE OF LIES on which the specific claims are based. I could give evidence based examples of this but I am going to refrain from it as of now.
My experience is that the most arrogant are most often those who defend the status quo ante.
“It ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new. This coolness arises partly from fear of the opponents, who have the laws on their side, and partly from the incredulity of men, who do not readily believe in new things until they have had a long experience of them.”
― Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince
Pride doesn't take well to vision
Yet with
out a vision the people perish
Indeed
Maxwell's "Thoroughly Conscious Ignorance" is reminiscent of Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464), who wrote "De docta ignorantia" ("On Learned Ignorance").
What your article at its core is debating is - Do I believe that GOD ALMIGHTY/ YAHWEH/ I AM THAT I AM IS THE ONE AND ONLY SOVEREIGN and am I accepting HIS LAW?
Accepting GOD ALMIGHTY/YAHWEH/ I AM THAT I AM is the only way to NEVER (as long as one's own mind and heart are able to hold on to this FAITH) again to fall prey to HUBRIS anymore. Harder done than said. Which is why man has messed up GOD ALMIGHTY'S/ YAHWEH'S CREATION up the way he did ... since THE GARDEN OF EDEN.
Introducing GOD ALMIGHTY/ YAHWEH in one's own existence is not "the god of the gaps" as many Dawkinists use to claim but to accept the simple fact that the bigger the shoreline of the island of observed facts and possible (linear sequential) explanations of those observations the BIGGER the shoreline of ignorance being confirmed - which then by logical conclusion cannot become anything else but GOD ALMIGHTY/ YAHWEH/ I AM THAT I AM ... THE TRUE GOD OF THE GAPS ... by giving up the PRIDE, ARROGANCE, IGNORANCE, HYPOCRISY AND HUBRIS of man's mind (individually) to ever be able to have figured out THE OCEAN - GOD ALMIGHTY!
THE WAY THE TRUTH AND THE LIFE ONLY - THE ONE AND ONLY INCARNATION OF GOD ALMIGHTY AND SHEPHERD AND SAVIOUR THE LORD JESUS CHRIST AND THE HOLY SPIRIT FOREVER AND EVER - AMEN HALLELU-YAH - SOLI DEO GLORIA!
I had a similar epiphany with optical propagation in media. The simplified transmission model assumed a constant extinction coefficient. Going back to the basic math and physics was a hard reminder that propagation loss was a complex value and also frequency dependent. In real conditions, the medium is not uniform but acts stochastic with time. I'm still working pieces of this. It's not what we know, but how we examine at the edges of knowledge.
"I learned my lesson." How do you KNOW? - contrary to BELIEVE, which innately has to include being possibly wrong.
My previous attitude on the question, "How wrong is science?" would have been far closer to Asimov's in this essay. He argues (correctly) that science is usually mostly right.
I argue science is always partly wrong - and that’s the better perspective in today’s era of scientific hubris. Scientists who want to make significant discoveries need to cultivate Maxwell's thoroughly conscious ignorance and try to figure out where and how science is wrong.
https://hermiene.net/essays-trans/relativity_of_wrong.html
He was partly right, but mostly wrong.
Newtonian Mechanics is "mostly right" - as a DESCRIPTION of how things behave on a macro scale.
As an EXPLANATION of why things behave as they do it is utterly and tragically wrong.
Accurate descriptions, aka models, theorems, formulae, etc are useful.
Accurate explanations are much harder to come by.
Finding a scientist who doesn't think/believe/pretend that his description is an explanation, even harder again.
On a long enough timeline, Reality is the Nemesis of every Hubris.
"On a long enough timeline, Reality is the Nemesis of every Hubris." Indeed!
I don't think that you're being arrogant, but being authoritative. There's a big difference. Being authoritative is trying to prove you're right, while being arrogant is not caring if you're right or not.
Spiritually speaking, we should all consider going back to "Shunya" or the "nothingness" every now and then for that next profound breakthrough discovery to reveal itself.
Thanks for this insightful article.
SOLI DEO GLORIA!