July 23, 2004
THE ACCEPTED WISDOM IS ALWAYS WRONG:
How Could the Consensus of Experts Be Wrong? (Sallie Baliunas, 07/22/2004, Tech Central Station)
My colleagues are wrong, thought P, a famous physicist. So, too, are their lecture notes, exam problems, journal articles and textbooks, which have forwarded the bad ideas to students. They, in turn, would next engrave nonsense in the minds of their students. [...]Planck agonized about his break with classical physics, "I can characterize the whole procedure as an act of despair, since, by nature, I am peaceable and opposed to doubtful adventures." Planck's willingness to allow facts to lead him, rather than prevailing opinion, ultimately secured for him the Nobel Prize in physics in 1918, and the honor of founding quantum physics, without which there would be no lasers, microscopic computers, or nuclear medicine to destroy cancers.
Planck's shattering of consensus so that knowledge could advance led him to comment on humans practicing science, "This experience gave me also an opportunity to learn a fact -- a remarkable one, in my opinion: A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up familiar with it."
Hence, next time the phrase "a consensus of scientists" is invoked regarding a scientifically complex matter, but unaccompanied by hard-won, reliable facts, demand evidence. It is the only way to know nature.
In the words of the French physicist Bernard D'Espasgnat:
Physicists [though we could substitute "scientists" generally] are like all other men. When, by and large, an allegory seems to be running well, their tendency is, bit by bit, to hypostatize the concept and never question it among themselves--and before their students--as if that concept were, really, the ultimate thing.
And, of course, all science is just allegory. We just happen to be living at a moment when the materialist allegory is on its death bed. Ludwig Feuerbach said that:
The old world made spirit parent of matter. The new makes matter parent of spirit.
But the new world always had a vital counter-culture--chiefly in the form of Christianity and the great British skeptics (Hume, Oakeshott, etc.)--which refused to yield and which may be on the verge of restoring the old world. Posted by Orrin Judd at July 23, 2004 10:47 AM
THE ACCEPTED WISDOM IS ALWAYS WRONG
All generalities are false.
Posted by: David Cohen at July 23, 2004 12:12 PMMore like "all generalities have exceptions."
>But the new world always had a vital counter-
>culture ... which refused to yield and which
>may be on the verge of restoring the old world.
And what would be the advantages and disadvantages of "restoring the old world"?
Posted by: Ken at July 23, 2004 12:30 PMDon't forget that Orrin will get to indulge his witch-burning fetish.
Speaking of accepted wisdom being wrong, look for the accepted wisdom of the Supply Side, Deficits Don't Matter school of economics to go down in flames in the coming decade.
Posted by: Robert Duquette at July 23, 2004 1:38 PMRobert:
That's a perfect example. Conventional wisdom insists debt is bad, even though the leading nation of the free world--first Britain, the America--has had an enormous one for four hundred years now.
"No Man whatever having lent his Money to the Government on the Credit of a Parliamentary Fund has been Defrauded of his Property . . . The Goodness of the Publick Credit in England, is the reason why we shall never be out of Debt. . . . Let us be, say I, a free Nation deep in Debt, rather than a Nation of Slaves owing Nothing."
-Anonymous English pamphleteer (1719)
"Conformity with Truth."
Wonderful. Too bad no one knows what it is. Even worse, far too many are willing to kill for their particular version of it.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at July 23, 2004 3:12 PMJeff:
Yes, that was the final nail in the coffin of the Age of Reason. Folks hoped that in a purely material world some arrangement of right reason would yield perfect results. Instead, it has been revealed that the operation of extra-material spirit (free will--truly free of any material force or law) makes reality too chaotic for such visions too be imposed. Darwin's great insight was that Nature might work like the human economy. His great blindness was to try and remove the souls from the system.
Posted by: oj at July 23, 2004 4:07 PM"His great blindness was to try and remove the souls from the system."
Where on earth did you get that idea?
He gave his best shot at describing the processes behind Natural History. If he is right (albeit very likely incomplete) then no immaterial deus ex machina is required.
Too bad for you. But if you think that removes souls (whatever the heck that means--have you gone polytheistic on us?) from the system--since Darwinism is utterly silent on how the game got going--you are sorely mistaken.
Besides, Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle put scientific determinism to rest.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at July 23, 2004 7:20 PMDarwinism is driven by intelligent decision making within species and never results in speciation.
Posted by: oj at July 23, 2004 9:29 PMBaliunas is wrong about how science works, and so is Kuhn.
It helps to get your facts straight before your strap on the 7-league boots and stride through history.
In fact, with darwinism for instance, opinion changed almost completely within 3 years of publication of 'Origin.' It is not the case that almost all the scientists alive in 1859 were dead by 1862.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at July 24, 2004 3:14 PMOpinion had changed decades earlier, that's why Darwin was accepted--he said what they wanted to hear.
Posted by: oj at July 24, 2004 4:17 PMOJ:
That's right; although I accept evolutionary theory, it's a matter of record that theories about humans somehow advancing from animals were being discussed long before Darwin. It was big in the 19th century, and even Darwin's grandfather had proposed a version. I think the first guy to propose the idea was Anaximenes.
Towards the end of his life, Julian Huxley was asked why his fellow scientists had been so eager to accept evolution, and he reportedly responded that the theory offered to explain the world without God, thus removing one strong objection to licentious sexual behavior.
Posted by: Matt at July 24, 2004 9:05 PMSpecial creationism was dead before Darwin was born. But there were numerous alternative theories offered before 'Origin' and the scientists of the day did not rush to embrace any of them.
So that shoots down both Orrin and Julian Huxley.
Michael Ruse did a good study of the switch.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at July 24, 2004 9:54 PMThe plethora of new theories is the point--his was the best of the bad lot so all hopped on board, but the desire to find a godless theory was rampant.
Posted by: oj at July 24, 2004 11:16 PMMainly because the Godful theories were utter nonsense, which anyone armed with the scientific method and a knowledge of geology could see.
Posted by: Michael Herdegen at July 25, 2004 3:49 PMTo the contrary, the God theory holds up rather well.
Posted by: oj at July 25, 2004 3:58 PMOne mark of a good theory is productivity.
The God theory scores zero there.
The God theory exists only outside science. There are not Godful research laboratories pursuing fruitful (or even unfruitful) inquiries without reference to natural selection.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at July 26, 2004 12:32 AMThere are no fruitful scientific endeavors based on Darwinism. Natural selection is just breeding theory and that pre-existed Darwin by centuries
Posted by: oj at July 26, 2004 7:10 AM