On Saturday, 28 March 2015 at 09:04:51 UTC, Messenger wrote:
On Saturday, 28 March 2015 at 01:09:44 UTC, Laeeth Isharc wrote:
On Friday, 27 March 2015 at 11:33:39 UTC, Kagamin wrote:
Hmm... science exists only as long as we don't understand
something, then it disappears and only knowledge remains.
Looks like he talks about engineering, but calls it science.
One dismisses Knuth discussing the topic for which he is
rightfully exceptionally well known at one's peril. He may be
wrong, but one should agonize before being sure this is the
case and read widely and carefully about the topic first.
Often in our society people resolve cognitive dissonance by
dismissing the awkward perspective that causes such
discomfort, when one would reach a fuller perspective by
putting up with the discomfort for a while before attempting
to reach intellectual closure.
I don't believe he is making the confusion you suggest.
Without touching on what Kagamin said, one must also take care
not to fall to argumentum ab auctoritate.
Argument from authority was not a fallacy in the time this began
to be deployed. After the European Dark Ages, there simply was
not anyone alive of the ability, learning and discernment of the
best minds of the past whose works had survived, and during the
period of catching up (remember that as late as at the time
Gibbon wrote classical achievements in urban infrastructure were
way ahead of what we had in London - no sewers!)
This being said, I did not make anything tending towards an
argument from authority. I did suggest a man such as Knuth
probably understood well the difference between engineering and
science, and that in these sorts of cases where one is offended
by reading something because it causes cognitive dissonance, one
may benefit from suspending judgement temporarily and reading
more by other authors resonant with the offending piece to try to
make sense of the discomfort and either reject it on the basis of
a now deeper understanding, or integrate some or part of it.
Irritation triggers the growth of pearls, if one lets it.
I appreciate that many of us have better things to do. But I had
been thinking about why I find D appealing, and how I would get
this across to future partners, and had also been thinking about
various forum comments equating measurement with science, and so
I found this Knuth piece highly thought-provoking.
Because it goes against the grain of the prevailing tendency, I
shouldn't expect many to agree. But there is nothing wrong with
appealing to minority opinion, provided one does not become a
crank. In a sense that is in any case part of how I make a
living.
