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I think the new ideas get accepted when either the old guard die, and/or an undeniable technology gets created by use of the new idea.
by raziel2701 5y ago
I think the new ideas get accepted when either the old guard die, and/or an undeniable technology gets created by use of the new idea.
- teddyh 5y ago“A new scientific truth does not generally triumph by persuading its opponents and getting them to admit their errors, but rather by its opponents gradually dying out and giving way to a new generation that is raised on it. […] An important scientific innovation rarely makes its way by gradually winning over and converting its opponents: it rarely happens that Saul becomes Paul. What does happen is that its opponents gradually die out, and that the growing generation is familiarized with the ideas from the beginning: another instance of the fact that the future lies with the youth.” — Max Planck, 1948
- auggierose 5y agoFuck. I don't have that kind of time.
- pfdietz 5y agoI don't think this is accurate. Sometimes the facts are so plain that the new truth wins (or, at least, the old truth dies) quickly without much fuss. Perhaps the earliest example of this was the destruction of the Ptolemaic view of the solar system by Galileo's observation of the phases of Venus. This was a "killer fact" that rapidly (after 1611) led to abandonment of that venerable theory, even by its supporters (although Clavius would die soon after). Sales of the standard texts on Ptolemaic astronomy, Sacrobosco's Sphere and Peuerbach's Theoricae novae planetarum went into immediate terminal decline. A more recent example is the Big Bang's success over the Steady State model. The cosmic microwave background radiation was such an overwhelming piece of evidence in favor of the former that only cranks persisted with the latter (including unfortunately Hoyle, admittedly.)