Length: 527 Words Reading Time: 2 Minutes
“If you want to be wrong, then follow the masses.” This quote is from Socrates. Socrates was the wisest of men because he knew that he did not know.
I believe that his quote is close to the mark. Why? Because so much of what we term conventional wisdom in today’s world is wrong. The Internet and the 24/7 news cycle generate more information than any individual can understand, assess, and internalize. Much of it is hearsay, urban legend, or just not true. Mark Twain once opined (and I paraphrase): “An untruth can get around the world before the truth can even get out of bed” or something like that. You get my drift.
I have found in my life that it pays to do one’s homework and check sources so that you get your facts right. So much of what we think we know is not true.
Let’s take a look first at examples of conventional wisdom of the past in the scientific world, and then we will look at some cases that we see today. These past examples of conventional wisdom were eventually proved incorrect.
There was a time when most scientists (whom we expect to know better) believed in the phlogiston theory of combustion, the existence of an ether to propagate light, a steady-state universe, and a geocentric theory of the universe. In time, all these ideas were proved wrong. History is replete with many other examples.
Recent conventional wisdom can be wrong as well, despite all the information we have at our fingertips. For example, I remember the weeping and gnashing of teeth regarding the Y2K problem as the Millenium approached, Paul Ehrlich’s book, “The Population Bomb,” the mini-ice age predictions in the 1950s (?), and the end of oil. All turned out to be wrong.
We have issues aplenty in America today, but one stands out above all the others, and that is climate change. Will this too be proved wrong when we have a much better understanding of climate models and their interpretation? From my vantage point, I do not trust mathematical models of any kind. I write this because humans construct models, and humans are fallible. Remember, the reliability of any model is less than 100% and so is the knowledge of the model creator, and when we multiply these two factors together to get total reliability, the resulting reliability is dramatically reduced.
I remember seeing a phrase in my reading that has guided my thinking regarding forecasting, to wit: All predictions are guesses, and they are usually wrong. That is true in many, if not most, cases.
Where does this take us? Let me leave you with four thoughts to ponder:
1. The motto of the Royal Society, which is “Nullius est verba” or “Take the word of no one.”
2. Murray Oxman’s excellent dictum: “Never ask a sheep for directions.”
3. Winston Churchill’s great quote about truth: “The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, and ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is.”
4. Do your own homework and read widely across the key issues of the day
