HERETICAL THOUGHTS ABOUT SCIENCE AND SOCIETY - By Freeman Dyson
At the Wesco Annual Meeting, Charlie Munger said that we should listen more to Freeman Dyson and less to Al Gore. Here’s a good article to start on that path (thanks for the link, Bud). I think the first paragraph is very applicable to investing as well. The public prefers to hear investors and economists on TV (i.e. CNBC) that sound like they know what is going to happen. They make predictions and draw out models, and then end up strongly believing in those models. Very few people seem to go on the financial news stations and say "I just don't know."
1. The Need for Heretics
In the modern world, science and society often interact in a perverse way. We live in a technological society, and technology causes political problems. The politicians and the public expect science to provide answers to the problems. Scientific experts are paid and encouraged to provide answers. The public does not have much use for a scientist who says, “Sorry, but we don’t know”. The public prefers to listen to scientists who give confident answers to questions and make confident predictions of what will happen as a result of human activities. So it happens that the experts who talk publicly about politically contentious questions tend to speak more clearly than they think. They make confident predictions about the future, and end up believing their own predictions. Their predictions become dogmas which they do not question. The public is led to believe that the fashionable scientific dogmas are true, and it may sometimes happen that they are wrong. That is why heretics who question the dogmas are needed.
As a scientist I do not have much faith in predictions. Science is organized unpredictability. The best scientists like to arrange things in an experiment to be as unpredictable as possible, and then they do the experiment to see what will happen. You might say that if something is predictable then it is not science. When I make predictions, I am not speaking as a scientist. I am speaking as a story-teller, and my predictions are science-fiction rather than science. The predictions of science-fiction writers are notoriously inaccurate. Their purpose is to imagine what might happen rather than to describe what will happen. I will be telling stories that challenge the prevailing dogmas of today. The prevailing dogmas may be right, but they still need to be challenged. I am proud to be a heretic. The world always needs heretics to challenge the prevailing orthodoxies. Since I am heretic, I am accustomed to being in the minority. If I could persuade everyone to agree with me, I would not be a heretic.
We are lucky that we can be heretics today without any danger of being burned at the stake. But unfortunately I am an old heretic. Old heretics do not cut much ice. When you hear an old heretic talking, you can always say, “Too bad he has lost his marbles”, and pass on. What the world needs is young heretics. I am hoping that one or two of the people who read this piece may fill that role.
- Links
Google’s New Phone Service Bridges Cell and Wi-Fi Gaps (LINK) [It might be interesting to read this post from Benedict Evans last year first: Railways and WhatsApp.] David Ogilvy’s 1982 Memo “How to Write” Offers 10 Pieces of Timeless...
- The Great Debate: The Storytelling Of Science (official) - Parts 1 & 2
The Origins Project at ASU presents the final night in the Origins Stories weekend, focusing on the science of storytelling and the storytelling of science. The Storytelling of Science features a panel of esteemed scientists, public intellectuals, and...
- The 60-year Job: Freeman Dyson
Found via Paul Kedrosky. The distinguished quantum physicist, who worked with Einstein at Princeton, tells Charles Nevin three things he's learnt ... Thank you very much for your friendly invitation. I am delighted to share with Her Majesty the distinction...
- Freeman Dyson On Charlie Rose
A conversation with theoretical physicist and mathematician Freeman Dyson: VIDEO .................... Related previous posts: HERETICAL THOUGHTS ABOUT SCIENCE AND SOCIETY - By Freeman Dyson The Civil Heretic- ...
- Vaccinate Yourself Against 2014 Predictions With Silver Medals
Its prediction season! What will the market do? What will happen in economics? In the world? No one really knows but there sure are lots of people ready, willing, and able to give authoritative sounding predictions on what will happen in 2014. I follow...