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Categorical statementsCategorical statementsPosted Jul 27, 2010 23:48 UTC (Tue) by jejb (subscriber, #6654)In reply to: Realtime Linux: academia v. reality by fuhchee Parent article: Realtime Linux: academia v. reality
> In plain English, it is a problem if leaders regularly make categorical
> statements about the future, and then flip-flop. It means that any > particular statement / prediction has a credibility cloud over it. This > makes planning more difficult, never mind the unnecessary social friction.
Actually, I'm afraid history really doesn't support this view.
Stevenson was told by all medical authorities that people would suffer seizures if they travelled at more than 30mph, so the Rocket was a stupid idea.
Max Planck despised Ludwig Boltzmann's statistical mechanics because of the challenge it gave to classical thermodynamics. He went as far as to attack Boltzmann both verbally and in print for the heresy. Planck was ultimately forced to use statistical mechanics to solve the ultraviolet catastrophe and lay the basis for quantum mechanics ...
Einstein famously and vehemently denied the conclusions of the EPR paradox with his "spooky action at a distance" comment. He recanted very reluctantly when the Bell inequalities proved it.
I could go on, but you get the idea.
Great discoveries are made by challenging the accepted and laid down "facts". The corollary to this is that if no-one lays down the "facts" to be challenged, the human instinct for contrariness doesn't get aroused as much as it should and some of our brilliance sinks into the mire of mediocratic reasonableness.
Being wrong is a recoverable error. Never daring to be wrong is an opportunity missed and a life never lived
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Categorical statements Posted Jul 28, 2010 2:15 UTC (Wed) by fuhchee (subscriber, #40059) [Link]
I don't think your analogy works the way you intended. My comment is equivalent to cautioning those who told Stevenson about seizures, or Max Planck for his accusations of "heresy", or Einstein about his vehemence. One should be more humble.
"The corollary to this is that if no-one lays down the "facts" to be challenged, the human instinct for contrariness doesn't get aroused as much"
Now this "corollary" needs somewhat more evidence to convince that naysayers are a necessary (or necessarily positive) factor in innovation.
Categorical statements Posted Jul 28, 2010 15:29 UTC (Wed) by jejb (subscriber, #6654) [Link]
> I don't think your analogy works the way you intended. My comment is equivalent to cautioning those who told Stevenson about seizures, or Max Planck for his accusations of "heresy", or Einstein about his vehemence. One should be more humble.
I'm failing to see your point. I gave Einstein and Planck as examples of people who made categorical negative but wrong statements and later admitted they were wrong (without, incidentally, incurring a "credibility cloud"). You seem to now be saying that it's OK for the likes of Einstein and Planck to do this, but everyone else should be humble?
> Now this "corollary" needs somewhat more evidence to convince that naysayers are a necessary (or necessarily positive) factor in innovation.
A corollary is a logical deduction from a proposition. If there's enough evidence to support the proposition then, ipso facto, there's enough to support the corollary.
If you think the proposition needs more evidence, there's enough in google to supply virtually any amount of it going back to the beginnings of recorded history.
Categorical statements Posted Jul 28, 2010 15:46 UTC (Wed) by fuhchee (subscriber, #40059) [Link]
> You seem to now be saying that it's OK for the likes of Einstein and
> Planck to do this, but everyone else should be humble?
You misread. "cautioning" is not saying "it's OK".
> A corollary is a logical deduction from a proposition.
Well, thanks for the lesson, but it doesn't quite work here. This "corollary" is your main point, and it is supported by exactly three historical anecdotes. By the way, in none of those stories has there been any indication that the "should-have-been-humbler" people performed a useful service in naysaying. IOW, there has been no argument that without those "laid-down-wrong-facts", the discoveries would not have been made.
If you can't make that argument stick, perhaps your original argument/corollary is not quite as logically sound as you believe it is.
Categorical statements Posted Jul 28, 2010 15:50 UTC (Wed) by egk (subscriber, #50799) [Link]
Although this does not have much bearing on the general discussion, it should be said that the story about Einstein seems very doubtful. He died in 1955 and Bell's paper only appeared in 1964. Moreover, Bell's work is theoretical: it could not "prove" anything about the real world, except the fact that something was testable, in principle. Einstein, if he had been alive, could very well have said that he expected experiments to go one way instead of another. And the actual experiments came quite a bit later.
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