
We Believe A Lot, But Can Prove Little  - wglb
http://rjlipton.wordpress.com/2011/01/19/we-believe-a-lot-but-can-prove-little/
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Jun8
Especially liked the quote "logloglog x goes to infinity with great dignity.",
I should have a t-shirt printed with that!

Two ideas come to mind:

* Do you believe that the difference between what we believe and can prove (in science, of course) will eventually go to zero (barring a small number of topics)? I am of this opinion. I also take the strong position that this expansion of science will eat away at other topics such as philosophy and religion, so as much as their dominion will be insignificant. Of course, I cannot prove this belief.

* This post shows the difference between, say, a theoretical mathematician and an engineer (or a person from any of the other disciplined who work on applied fields) so well. "Both his statements are technically false, but both have a grain of truth to them...", I find that most of the time this is adequate, if the idea works. Think of Heaviside using what would later be called the Dirac delta function, with a lack of rigor that made mathematicians shudder. But it worked.

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arethuza
I think you have to be careful using "prove" when talking about science rather
than maths.

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eru
You even have to be careful in mathematics.

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raintrees
The article is nothing like the conversation I had in my head when I read the
title. I think I have been spending way too much time with conspiracy theory
promulgators...

I find that when I start debating current issues in politics, religion,
weather, etc. I pull from a gestalt I have built with little ability to prove
individual facts.

