[Ian]
They only added the qualifier "conventional" after you've discovered
it's not the "actual" scientific knowledge - with hindsight.
[Arlo]
You know, I was going to say that this is evidence of an S/O distinction
in our culture, but I wonder if a more accurate comparison would be to
two of Peirce's methods for fixing belief. That is, "conventional" in
some way refers to belief established through "authority" (or even
"tenacity", I suppose) and "actual" points to empirical methodology?
In this sense, what begins as "empirical" among the people actually
involved in the examinations radiates out as "conventional" to people
not so involved but who (pragmatically) accept the conclusions of the
empirical investigators as "truth". So the same idea, say the
composition of moon rocks, would be "empirical" to some but
"conventional" to others, and the empirical crowd is always the first to
alter/update/revise, which creates a "gap" between those involved and
those (again, pragmatically) accepting the authority of those involved.
In this case, its not that "conventional" is always, ipso facto,
"wrong", its just at times we see this lag.
This reminds me of a bit by comedian Lewis Black about "milk", basically
saying that because the "empirical" crowd reversed decision on the
health benefits/concerns of milk, that the "conventional wisdom" is all
amok, no one really knows if milk is good for you or bad for you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXS5GBuk-GQ
Or maybe its just the coffee talking...
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