SisyphusRedeemed
1 HN recommender · recommended in 5 months, 2013–2026
27:02 · 108K views · May 26, 2011
A talk given at the 2011 Nammour Symposium at Sacramento State arguing that past generations were wrong about nearly everything, so we should expect to be wrong too. It tours the many surprising ways scientific beliefs have failed, drawing on pessimistic induction.
HN uses it as a reference for epistemic humility and how wrong even the smartest people have been.
5 comments from Hacker News
The first time he was tested, he dropped a small amount of weight and the second time he didn't. Neither test was only done by one scientist and the second test was a much larger fanfare with Indian defense/government researchers present. Bathing was also observed as was gargling (what he spit out was also measured). Even so - these "red flags" come from the same scientists that you don't trust. So, they should not support your cynicism in any way. What are we left with? - Not published in a journal. - Incomplete CCTV coverage. Also, it should be stated that according to many cynics, the CCTV coverage is incomplete because Jani moved out of view for moments at a time. He also received visitors and was allowed to take sun baths. Anyway, I'm not really here to debate this case. I am just being an anti-cynic because it's been shown time and again that even the smartest people in the world have been dead wrong about what they think they know. Here is a terrific video that sums up this point very well - this video
> No, and no one here is suggesting that, and neither is the article suggesting it. Yes, the article certainly does suggest that we need to "change [the] minds" of anyone who "believes" in conspiracy theories. (And if I'm not outright denying the possibility of a conspiracy the author considers me a "believer".) It's right there in the title and in the story of the moon landing. If you read the article, the author links to a study that allegedly proves that people who are open to conspiracy theories aren't being analytical enough and apparently that's somehow a problem for everybody and it needs to be stopped. It's as if the author thinks that they are able to accurately analyze every situation even though they weren't there (on the moon, etc) and that they have accounted for every possibility. He assumes that he has all the information. Clearly this is not the case. People who deal in hard sciences often behave like this. Perhaps the author should try analyzing their own propensity to be incorrect despite applying every analytical power that they possess because if one thing is certainly true, it's that humans generally have no idea how wrong they are - this video
">There was no scientific consensus in the 1970s that the Earth was headed into an imminent ice age. Indeed, the possibility of anthropogenic warming dominated the peer-reviewed literature even then...When the myth of the 1970s global cooling scare arises in contemporary discussion over climate change, it is most often in the form of citations not to the scientific literature, but to news media coverage." Please see my above reply citing over two dozen contemporaneous articles from reputable sources and scientists about global cooling ~50 years ago. Can you cite even a few articles or papers from the same era on the topic of global warming? So much for the consensus argument, but why are you using it anyway? Science has nothing to do with consensus. The Spencer Weart book you cite appears to be a "history of scientific discoveries that led to the current scientific opinion on climate change." I will give it a read, but I am reminded of this presentation: (You Have No Idea How Wrong You Are) this video
Am I the only person who doesn't think that science and religion are really at odds, except for in the minds of fools and the mouths of manipulators? Every major religion has the idea of "oneness" wherein the God/Godhead is portrayed as the ultimate underlying energy (or doer) within every existing thing. Where is the conflict? Atheists like to say "Why invent this idea of God without evidence?", but they can't name who "invented" religion or prove that it was even invented. We were told about it. Also, every existing thing clearly does exist. So there's your evidence. How helpful is that? Here are some more scientists, talking about the unknown: You Have No Idea How Wrong You Are - this video What We Still Don't Know: "Are We Real?" - [LINK]
You've touched on the whole problem with the "cancel culture" of today. Scientific and political beliefs often do not stand the test of time, but is it fair to blame the people of past eras for their misjudgements using the values of today? How do we know for sure when we're right about something? this video