61–70 of 294 posts
Did anyone else read "Minds I"? I loved that book, and come to think of it the 'soul searching' comments always had that note of humble fallibilism in there.
Ptolemy was wrong. But he was wrong with a large pile of actual measurements of celestial bodies, and a falsifiable theory. That made him wrong in the positive sense of wrong in the phrase "not even wrong", where wrong is just the first step of the ladder. I wish I could say the same about Freud, but that ladder is distressingly horizontal.
I think the right phrase here is not 'not even wrong' but 'wrong but for the right reasons' or 'all models are wrong, but some models are useful (possibly by being less wrong'
An important part of being able to truly ask oneself if they are wrong is the humility to seriously consider an alternative. The author's treating of ID research as a foregone conclusion, even with his acknowledgment that we could be wrong in the next paragraph, seems rather ironic. Isn't it this kind of hubris that he is precisely calling out?
Ptolemy was wrong. But he was wrong with a large pile of actual measurements of celestial bodies, and a falsifiable theory. That made him wrong in the positive sense of wrong in the phrase "not even wrong", where wrong is just the first step of the ladder. I wish I could say the same about Freud, but that ladder is distressingly horizontal.
There is a strong analogy in software engineering here. Often the first implementation is "wrong" in the sense that it doesn't resolve the inherent tensions in the system. But that doesn't make it useless - in fact, it's quite useful because it actually showed you what is important. Plus, the people who attempt the initial solution to a problem deserve special honor, even if their work is eventually tossed away, spec…
[fn] not kidnapping, but a logical (procedural) method like induction or deduction
> They will eventually discover that they’re wrong, and we will have yet further examples of evolution’s devious paths. In my terminology, their dogged search for skyhooks will uncover heretofore unimagined cranes. And precisely because their conclusions will be the opposite of what they hoped to discover, we will take them seriously. An important part of being able to truly ask oneself if they are wrong is the humil…
I do think Dennett is being rather sneering in his inclusion of ID in the essay at all. But he's not wrong that good work can be funded, and genuinely useful, and appreciated without malice, for misguided reasons.
> They will eventually discover that they’re wrong, and we will have yet further examples of evolution’s devious paths. In my terminology, their dogged search for skyhooks will uncover heretofore unimagined cranes. And precisely because their conclusions will be the opposite of what they hoped to discover, we will take them seriously. An important part of being able to truly ask oneself if they are wrong is the humil…
I've grown used to being corrected, to the point that it's a pleasant surprise to be told I might be right. What I notice more and more, is the "you're wrong" is used to buttress opinion masquerading as fact. If you preface "I think that.." to asserts it doesn't stop the "you're wrong" but it at least puts the discussion into the realms of conjecture about things, including facts, rather than simple asserts of facts…
On the topic of opinion masquerading as fact - if you check the dynamics there it quickly gets quite interesting. Political arguments are unusual if they involve an expert. On the big ones (economics, medical, military and technical policy) it is relatively rare to see an expert and doubly rare to find one who isn't pushing some sort of agenda. There tends to be a tiny pool of people doing a speaking circuit that tur…
[1] I find most policy debates I get into with friends have nothing to do with the policy at hand but rather more core political/philosophical questions underlying their thinking (e.g. do the ends justify the means or are they more individualist va collectivist)
I've grown used to being corrected, to the point that it's a pleasant surprise to be told I might be right. What I notice more and more, is the "you're wrong" is used to buttress opinion masquerading as fact. If you preface "I think that.." to asserts it doesn't stop the "you're wrong" but it at least puts the discussion into the realms of conjecture about things, including facts, rather than simple asserts of facts…
On the topic of opinion masquerading as fact - if you check the dynamics there it quickly gets quite interesting. Political arguments are unusual if they involve an expert. On the big ones (economics, medical, military and technical policy) it is relatively rare to see an expert and doubly rare to find one who isn't pushing some sort of agenda. There tends to be a tiny pool of people doing a speaking circuit that tur…
I'm not sure exactly what you're referring to, but I think it's pretty well understood that the growth of China is thanks to the market reforms in the 70s and 80s.
I've grown used to being corrected, to the point that it's a pleasant surprise to be told I might be right. What I notice more and more, is the "you're wrong" is used to buttress opinion masquerading as fact. If you preface "I think that.." to asserts it doesn't stop the "you're wrong" but it at least puts the discussion into the realms of conjecture about things, including facts, rather than simple asserts of facts…
On the topic of opinion masquerading as fact - if you check the dynamics there it quickly gets quite interesting. Political arguments are unusual if they involve an expert. On the big ones (economics, medical, military and technical policy) it is relatively rare to see an expert and doubly rare to find one who isn't pushing some sort of agenda. There tends to be a tiny pool of people doing a speaking circuit that tur…
Is it though? China's economic growth doesn't seem that far off (per capita) from that of South Korea or Taiwan.