I recently had a terse response from a list member on one of my discussion forums. She holds very strongly, it appears, to Christianity. I have no objection to her opinions, but she’d held out as fact many propositions which were quite debatable. I formulated a lengthy response, and received a very short missive in reply.
I just wanted to archive my response here, because so often I receive similar replies equating science to a religion, and I think that I stumbled across a line of reasoning that might help me quantify the difference in the future.
On 4/30/05, Bonnie….
Allow me to begin with a quote.
“Celestial navigation is based on the premise that the Earth is the center of the universe. The premise is wrong, but the navigation works. An incorrect model can be a useful tool.” — Kelvin Throop III
I’m afraid I dsiagree entirely with “true maturity is realizing that we are both right”.
1. “No True Scotsman” fallacy. Should I disagree with your definition of “maturity”, you could counter with “that’s not *true* maturity”. It makes the definition of the word “maturity” malleable to mean whatever you wish it to mean at the time. 2. The proposition that “maturity is realizing that we are both right”. Maturity is many things, including physical weight gain, height gain, the dropping of the testes and production of eggs by the ovaries, and the pruning of little-used neural connections in the brain to optimize operations. An individual is fully physiologically mature (including synaptic pruning) somewhere between twenty-five and twenty-nine. Emotional maturity is virtually impossible to quantify, though most of us (including me) routinely decide other people don’t have it.
So, unfortunately, I disagree completely that “true maturity is realizing that we are both right”. I would agree with, “respect for one another is realizing that we are both probably wrong.” I respect your opinion, but that respect does not imply reverence or inviolability from criticism. It is only from withstanding repeated scrutiny that opinions begin to resemble reality.
If you are a religionist (though you have not stated it), you have a model that works. I acknowledge its validity for you and I’m certain it’s useful.
However, do you think your model might be flawed? Could it be wrong?
Isaac Newton, for instance, figured out an excellent model for the interactions of mass. On a “human” scale, Newtonian physics works almost perfectly. One can predict many things, and be right the vast majority of the time.
Yet Newton’s model was subject to odd perturbations, and it took a great deal of time and testing to determine why. It could not handle extremely massive (planet-sized) or tiny (atom-sized) objects. For very massive or high-velocity objects, Einstein discovered the Theory of Relativity, and repeated testing over the last ninety years has verified its validity. For very tiny particles, in 1900 Planck theorized on the existenced of “quantization”, and “quantum mechanics” or “quantum physics” was founded. Thirty years later, physicists began experimenting on the theory, and finding that it held true.
We use both Relativity and atomic quantization daily. If you are sitting at a computer, you are using the results of Quantum Theory. The speed of light used as a constant in mathematical equations underlies the signal theory used to beam a signal to your television.
If confronted with incontrovertible proof that your chosen model is wrong, would you change your opinion on it?
It’s not something I want an answer for, really. There’s an apt quote for that, as well.
“To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead.” — Thomas Paine
Sincerely, — Matthew P. Barnson