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See Wronger Than Wrong by Isaac Asimov, which is about this exact argument: >When people thought the Earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the E
by glenstein 3y ago
See Wronger Than Wrong by Isaac Asimov, which is about this exact argument:
>When people thought the Earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the Earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the Earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the Earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together.
>According to John Jenkins,[4] who reviewed The Relativity of Wrong, the title essay of Asimov's book is the one "which I think is important both for understanding Asimov's thinking about science and for arming oneself against the inevitable anti-science attack that one often hears – [that] theories are always preliminary and science really doesn't 'know' anything."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Relativity_of_Wrong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Relativity_of_Wrong
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wronger_than_wrong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wronger_than_wrong
- silent_cal 3y agoI agree with Asimov. And the point stands, that you are almost certainly wrong.
- glenstein 3y agoBut how wrong? And more importantly, do you understand why that is an important question? Dismissing the achievements of present-day science by appealing to the wrongness of the past -- to imply we are just as wrong now as we were then-- is to exhibit the very form of ignorance that Asimov was criticizing.