post by Andrew Verdesca
If you were to look at the world 100 years ago, it would look very different. Antibiotics hadn’t yet been developed, smoking was not linked to cancer, proteins were believed to be the method for transmitting genetic material instead of DNA… The list goes on and on. Science has a history of constantly adapting its most prevalent theories to adapt to experimental data. Which is good, buy and large. I mean, imagine a world where people still believed that smoking was good for you. But one of the consequences of this adaptability is the rapid obsoletion of information. In short, what you learn today, particularly in science class, could be proved wrong at any time.
If you were to look at the world 100 years ago, it would look very different. Antibiotics hadn’t yet been developed, smoking was not linked to cancer, proteins were believed to be the method for transmitting genetic material instead of DNA… The list goes on and on. Science has a history of constantly adapting its most prevalent theories to adapt to experimental data. Which is good, buy and large. I mean, imagine a world where people still believed that smoking was good for you. But one of the consequences of this adaptability is the rapid obsoletion of information. In short, what you learn today, particularly in science class, could be proved wrong at any time.
This
recently manifested itself when Cambridge scientists announced that they had
observed DNA in a quadruple-helix in human cells. Ever since Watson, Crick, and
Rosalind determined sixty years ago that DNA in cells was arranged in two
complimentary strands in cells, the idea of a DNA double helix has remained
generally unquestioned. The possibility of a quadruple helix of DNA has been
explored by science, but it’s never been observed in cells until now. This
so-called “G-complex” (four guanine molecules) is most often seen during DNA
synthesis, implying that it has a role in DNA synthesis.
In
his book, The Half-Life of Facts, Samuel Arabson argues that the half-life of
truth is just 45 years. This means, that in 45 years,
half of what you now consider to be fact
will be proved untrue. Since the 1960s, overall scientific knowledge has
grown by the steady rate of 4.7% per year. The growth of scientific knowledge
has largely helped to dispel many of these delusions, but it has also
inadvertently created some of its own.
In 2011, for example, a study in Nature reported that a team of researchers over 10 years was able to accurately reproduce the results of only six out of 53 landmark papers in cancer research. Statistician John Ioannides concludes, “For many current scientific fields, claimed research findings may often be simply accurate measures of the prevailing bias.”
In 2011, for example, a study in Nature reported that a team of researchers over 10 years was able to accurately reproduce the results of only six out of 53 landmark papers in cancer research. Statistician John Ioannides concludes, “For many current scientific fields, claimed research findings may often be simply accurate measures of the prevailing bias.”
Speculations about inaccuracy aside, I leave
you with this. How long do you think it will be before the current Pingry
curriculum is out-of-date? What do you
think the half-life of truth is, and why?
OK. Fair. Most of what you know now is not true. But I do not think that matters. It is not as though 45 years from now you are going to find out that your Mom is actually an alien. What you are more likely to find out is that the two favorite bouncy balls you have are not both green. ONE HAPPENS TO ACTUALLY BE CHARTREUCE! I dont know how to spell chartrouse.
ReplyDeleteThere was a philospher named Nietzsche who had a very hard time spelling his own name. He also wrote an essay about how our language dictated what we know. He basically said language, English for us, has certain rules. For example nouns and verbs make up a complete sentence. Because of that, the way we think is biased. Meaning that someone who speaks Malayalam might think differently than we do.
I guess for a lot of my issues the question I return to is, how the hell does this change my everyday life?
Should I go on a philosophical rant cursing Sophia, and boycotting thought in genera? Should I hold a small funeral for truths that were held to be self-evident.
Nope most of the time I am just going to wake up and eat cereal. Which is what I would do if it turned out that everything I believed was right.
Truth doesn't change, simply our understanding of it does. The truth is the same. We are changed by it.
ReplyDeleteThe curriculum changes every year, so every year the curriculum adapts to facts that have been disproven. Things are being disproven and discovered every day and that has been going on since the beginning of time, starting with prehistoric mammals. One day they found out that mammoths tasted better than sabertooth tigers, and they started eating those instead. I'm sure that as technology advances, the half-life of truth will become shorter and shorter, but will never reach total knowledge.
ReplyDeleteMathematically, this would be symbolized by lim(x-> ∞) 1/x = 0. Meaning that in an infinite amount of time we will have discovered all that we know, but until that time has reached, new problems will constantly be created and the human race will implode trying to find the answers to all these problems.
Instead, we should do as the ancient Chinese philosopher Laozi suggested. Governments should withdraw from society and let the people follow the Dao, or the natural way. Things will eventually even out on their own, just like when an apple fell on Newton's head.
Truth does not have a half-life because for an object to have a half-life that object must be constant. For instance, uranium has a constant half-life regardless of whether it exists in the universe or not. In other words, even if uranium were not to exist, it would still have a constant half-life. As I said previously, since the half-life of truth depends on the moment of time and the amount of technology, it is a misnomer to say that truth has a half-life.
ReplyDelete