--- In [email protected], ruthsimplicity <no_re...@...> wrote: > > http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm > > "The young specialist in English Lit, having quoted me, > went on to lecture me severely on the fact that in every > century people have thought they understood the universe > at last, and in every century they were proved to be wrong. > It follows that the one thing we can say about our modern > "knowledge" is that it is wrong. The young man then quoted > with approval what Socrates had said on learning that the > Delphic oracle had proclaimed him the wisest man in Greece. > "If I am the wisest man," said Socrates, "it is because I > alone know that I know nothing." the implication was that > I was very foolish because I was under the impression I > knew a great deal. > > My answer to him was, "John, when people thought the earth > was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was > spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking > the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth > is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together." > > The basic trouble, you see, is that people think that "right" > and "wrong" are absolute; that everything that isn't perfectly > and completely right is totally and equally wrong. > > However, I don't think that's so. It seems to me that right and > wrong are fuzzy concepts, and I will devote this essay to an > explanation of why I think so."
While it is an entertaining rap, and Issac gets *part* of it right (that all assessments of "right" or "wrong" are relative), he then goes on to make an assumption based in ego -- that "my" (his) view is "more right" than others. He thus bases his final statements on an assumption of *his* relative importance. For anyone who ever knew him or met him, this comes as no surprise. In my youth I was a science fiction addict, and attended many conferences in which the authors were present. I have to say that out of all of them, it is a close tie as to whether Issac Asimov or Harlan Ellison was the biggest, most insufferable egomaniac. :-) The man didn't wear his ego on his sleeve. His sleeve wouldn't have been BIG enough for his ego. :-) We are talking the man who had an ongoing, compulsive "contest" with Bob Silverberg as to who could publish the most books. Last time I checked, both had written and published well over 300 books, and at *every* conference they would trot out the statistics and the "loser" would get all glum and go home and dash out five more books so that he could be the "winner" at the next conference. It was ludicrous. So my "take" on his quote is that it is a manifest- ation of EGO, pure and simple. Asimov, *unable to see past his own ego*, assumes that it is somehow more "important" and "valid" than those who weigh the relative value of one theory vs. another, and that as a result his assessment of that value "wins." But he's doing this TO PUFF UP HIS EGO, *not* out of any sense of really trying to determine "right" or "wrong." He and the flat-earthers are in EXACTLY THE SAME POSITION, *given what they have to work with*. The people in the past who worked with only what they could see with their naked eyes, came to a decision about the nature of the shape of the earth. Later, given better instrumentation and more input, others came to a different decision. Both were "right," *given the inputs*. But Asimov chose his example to put down those who were working with less input as "lesser" than he was, when in fact if he had been living back in flat-earth times, I can assure you he would be JUST as much a raving ego- maniac about his "certainty" that the earth was flat. Asimov makes a good point -- the assessment of "right" and "wrong" are fuzzy. THAT is what one should come away with as the result of reading his quote, not that their sense of "right" is "better" than someone else's.
