KnowledgeAndConsistency

Doing science, a teacher (David Ost) argues, is like a solving
a crossword puzzle: where words interlock and cohere, one's confidence
grows that the emerging answers are correct ... but when crossing
words clash and contradict it's necessary to erase, backtrack, give
up on otherwise-cherished hypotheses, try alternatives ... until
things click and one suddenly sees the unanticipated meaning of subtle
clues. Nature is like that. Simple theories explain many phenomena,
but as those theories are stretched they begin to break down.
Newtonian physics works amazingly well --- until at high speeds or
in microscopic realms or near strong gravitational fields it begins
to crumble. The same goes for knowledge in every area.

Wednesday, February 07, 2001 at 07:28:25 (EST) = Datetag20010207

TopicScience

(correlates: UndividedAttention, SuspectTerrain, ScientificRevolutions, ...)