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> As Feynman put it, "Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts." The lived experience of a recent Nobel prize winner is illustrative here. > In April

> As Feynman put it, "Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts." The lived experience of a recent Nobel prize winner is illustrative here. > In April 1982, Shechtman spotted an odd atomic arrangement through his electron microscope at Johns Hopkins University: A crystal of aluminum and manganese arranged with pentagonal symmetry. It was thought to be impossible — five sides do not a perfectly repeatable structure make. The laws of nature held that the atoms in a solid could be arranged in an amorphous, blob-like pattern, or organized with symmetrical periodicity into crystals. Shechtman saw something that fit neither category. https://www.popsci.com/science/article/2011-10/chemist-accused-quasi-science-wins-nobel-quasicrystal-discovery/ https://www.popsci.com/science/article/2011-10/chemist-accus... You would think a scientist holding physical proof from an electron microscope that atoms can arrange themselves in a way that had not been previously recognized would be able to share the discovery without being targeted by the "experts". > He told his colleagues what he’d seen and they laughed him off, he said in an interview earlier this year. He was eventually asked to leave his research group for “bringing disgrace” to its members, he told the Ha’aretz in April. Two years later, he finally published his findings, yet the skepticism remained — and it remained bitter, as the AFP explains it. The famous American chemist Linus Pauling once declared at a conference: “Danny Shechtman is talking nonsense. There is no such thing as quasicrystals, only quasi-scientists”. https://www.popsci.com/science/article/2011-10/chemist-accused-quasi-science-wins-nobel-quasicrystal-discovery/ https://www.popsci.com/science/article/2011-10/chemist-accus... Nope. He was attacked by world famous scientific "experts" including a double Nobel laureate and fired from his job, despite presenting proof that what he was reporting was real.

ithkuil 3y ago
And the beauty of science is that despite all that human drama and our inability to live up to our best standards, the _is_ a fact of the matter that eventually people will recognize, given enough time and false starts. You can forget a scentific knowledge and somebody in the future may stumble in the same thing. The same can't be said of other human activities
- hnfong 3y ago
  Do you have any proof of what you said? The GP has given evidence of some instances where people who claim to be scientists obstruct the investigation of truth. You merely gave an assertion. Appeal to emotion. Isn't there a possibility that we are much more ignorant than we thought, the scientific process much worse than you'd thought, and the instances in which we "eventually" realized the truth are just the tip of an iceberg, of which those cases merely reflect survivorship bias, and that there are many more cases in which the truth never came to light? You have to be an extreme optimist to look at the history of science to claim that there is a "beauty" in the persecution of those who seek truth, only because eventually in a couple of cases, the truth was eventually discovered. Perhaps there is a beauty eventually, but are you seriously going to say to those people who have lost their reputation and job that it's "beautiful" that the system is doing that to them, because maybe in a couple decades they would be vindicated assuming they aren't already forgotten? This attitude is really sick, and honestly, a bit psychopathic.
  - hnfong 3y ago
    PS: Also, what does "The same can't be said of other human activities" mean? Even the worst of superstitions and persecutions eventually stopped. The Romans eventually stopped feeding Christians to lions. The Catholic Church eventually realized burning witches wasn't a good idea. Germany renounced Nazism. Europe eventually realized colonialism was a bit sus. Americans eventually abolished slavery. Things do fix themselves, even outside the realm of science. Is there a similar "beauty" in those systems as well? What is so special about the modern scientific process, in which you seem to admit it has flaws, just like religious and political systems, that allows it to realize the truth unlike the others?
    - ithkuil 3y ago
      I just meant that other human endeavours are less constrained by facts and thus we explore the space of possibilities in many many arbitrary ways. If you shun a cultural reformer it's unlikely that a thousands of years from now people will spontaneously recreate the same culture. Yes, there is some degree of convergent evolution even between cultural artefacts, but I think it's fair to say that science is more objective and can as a whole survive individuals not living up to it's standards

ithkuil 3y ago

And the beauty of science is that despite all that human drama and our inability to live up to our best standards, the _is_ a fact of the matter that eventually people will recognize, given enough time and false starts. You can forget a scentific knowledge and somebody in the future may stumble in the same thing. The same can't be said of other human activities

hnfong 3y ago
Do you have any proof of what you said? The GP has given evidence of some instances where people who claim to be scientists obstruct the investigation of truth. You merely gave an assertion. Appeal to emotion. Isn't there a possibility that we are much more ignorant than we thought, the scientific process much worse than you'd thought, and the instances in which we "eventually" realized the truth are just the tip of an iceberg, of which those cases merely reflect survivorship bias, and that there are many more cases in which the truth never came to light? You have to be an extreme optimist to look at the history of science to claim that there is a "beauty" in the persecution of those who seek truth, only because eventually in a couple of cases, the truth was eventually discovered. Perhaps there is a beauty eventually, but are you seriously going to say to those people who have lost their reputation and job that it's "beautiful" that the system is doing that to them, because maybe in a couple decades they would be vindicated assuming they aren't already forgotten? This attitude is really sick, and honestly, a bit psychopathic.
- hnfong 3y ago
  PS: Also, what does "The same can't be said of other human activities" mean? Even the worst of superstitions and persecutions eventually stopped. The Romans eventually stopped feeding Christians to lions. The Catholic Church eventually realized burning witches wasn't a good idea. Germany renounced Nazism. Europe eventually realized colonialism was a bit sus. Americans eventually abolished slavery. Things do fix themselves, even outside the realm of science. Is there a similar "beauty" in those systems as well? What is so special about the modern scientific process, in which you seem to admit it has flaws, just like religious and political systems, that allows it to realize the truth unlike the others?
  - ithkuil 3y ago
    I just meant that other human endeavours are less constrained by facts and thus we explore the space of possibilities in many many arbitrary ways. If you shun a cultural reformer it's unlikely that a thousands of years from now people will spontaneously recreate the same culture. Yes, there is some degree of convergent evolution even between cultural artefacts, but I think it's fair to say that science is more objective and can as a whole survive individuals not living up to it's standards