Certainty
Contents
Full Title or Meme
A little vagueness is less likely to cause irreparable harm than absolute certainty.
Context
We live in an age where we are giving increasing amounts on control to automatic processes. We need to step back to be sure that a hasty automation is not a grievous mistake.
Bertrand Russel [1] (Philosopher, U of Cambridge)Everything is vague to a degree you do not realize till you have tried to make it precise, and everything precise is so remote from everything that we normally think, that you cannot for a moment suppose that is what we really mean when we say what we think.John Tukey[2] (Statistician, U. of St. Andrews)
Far better an approximate answer to the right question, which is often vague, than the exact answer to the wrong question, which can always be made precise.Clarence Darrow at the end of the Scopes Monkey Trial where Wm Jennings Bryan had tried, unsuccessfully, to prove the absolute literal truth of every word the Bible.[3] Clearly Darrow believed that certainty was in science.
To him, the Bible should be read like any other great book. Portions of it are sublime and inspired. ... I believe that the Universe acts as it has always acted in accordance with immutable laws. And that what ever may be at the back of that Universe, it has never violated these universal laws.
Problem
Findings during the 21 century have shown that both the laws of the universe and the laws of living things may well be Emergent Behavior such that if the universe were restarted, it would look nothing like what we see around us today.
Physical Laws
Biological Laws
In the 21st century "Biology is undergoing a quiet but profound transformation. Several aspects of the standard picture of how life works-the idea of the genome as a blueprint, of genes as instructions for building an organism, of proteins as precisely tailored molecular machines, of cells as entities with fixed identities, and more-have been exposed as incomplete, misleading, or wrong. In How Life Works, Philip Ball explores the new biology, revealing life to be a far richer, more ingenious affair than we had guessed. Ball explains that there is no unique place to look for an answer to this question: life is a system of many levels-genes, proteins, cells, tissues, and body modules such as the immune system and the nervous system-each with its own rules and principles. How Life Works explains how these levels operate, interface, and work together (most of the time). With this knowledge come new possibilities. Today we can redesign and reconfigure living systems, tissues, and organisms. We can reprogram cells, for instance, to carry out new tasks and grow into structures not seen in the natural world. As we discover the conditions that dictate the forms into which cells organize themselves, our ability to guide and select the outcomes becomes ever more extraordinary. Some researchers believe that ultimately we will be able to regenerate limbs and organs, and perhaps even create new life forms that evolution has never imagined. Incorporating the latest research and insights, How Life Works is a sweeping journey into this new frontier of the life sciences, a realm that will reshape our understanding of life as we know it"--[5]
Solution
Never trust a person that starts with the answer and then works backwards to discover the problem.
References
- ↑ Bertrand Russel The Philosophy of Logical Atomism (1918-19) Lecture 1: Facts and Propositions http://www.visakanv.com/blog/precise/
- ↑ John Tukey Ann. Math. Stat. 33 (1962)
- ↑ Brenda Wineapple, Keeping the Faith
- ↑ Tim Palmer, The Primacy of Doubt: From Quantum Physics to Climate Change, How the Science of Uncertainty Can Help Us (2022-10-18) ISBN 978-1541619715
- ↑ Philip Ball, How Life Works - A User's Guide to the New Biology 2023 The University of Chicago Press
