On Thu, May 28, 2009 at 2:23 PM, Jim Devine <[email protected]> wrote: > By the way, science does not always advance. It sometimes gets stuck > in cul-de-sacs or even goes backward (where "backward" is defined > later, with the benefit of hindsight) or gets involved in building > nukes and the like. Science can be corrupted, as in the pharmaceutical > industry or financial engineering.
I'd like to challenge you on this one. There do exist scientific disciplines that ALWAYS advance. Mathematics, for instance. Our body of knowledge of mathematics today is strictly greater than it was yesterday and so on. Or to give a more prosaic example: Moore's Law. CPUs become faster and smaller over time. At some point, this trend may plateau out. But there is no going back. Once we have learnt how to make smaller and faster chips, there is no reason ever to go back to old technologies. The new chips are better in a very specific sense: they can do everything the old chips can and more.. Indeed science is the only domain of human activity I can think of, of which this is true. But it makes it a bit tricky to counter the "eternal progress" narrative. -raghu. -- Jesus loves you ... everyone else thinks you're an idiot. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
