
The Relativity of Wrong by Isaac Asimov (1989) - maverick_iceman
http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
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simulate
This essay reminds me of George Box's famous and often misused statement that
"All models are wrong, but some are useful."

A spherical earth model is useful and a flat earth model is not. Also, as
Asimov explains here, wrong is relative and a spherical model of the earth is
much less wrong than a flat earth model.

~~~
nitrogen
In fairness, a flat earth model is still useful for navigation within limited
distances.

~~~
13of40
In fairness, the vast majority of the models of the earth people use day-to-
day are flat. Case in point:
[https://www.google.com/maps/@43.0279156,-94.0814245,3z](https://www.google.com/maps/@43.0279156,-94.0814245,3z)

~~~
pdonis
This doesn't model the earth's surface as flat. It uses a distorted flat map
to model the actual curved geometry of the earth's surface. If the earth were
actually flat, the flat map wouldn't be distorted.

~~~
Natanael_L
The projection chosen IS the model, and we chose a useful one - and that
projection is flat. Is paper maps not models of the real world?

~~~
pdonis
_> The projection chosen IS the model_

Not if you're going to say the projection is flat. If the projection is flat,
and the projection is the model, then I should be able to lay a flat ruler,
appropriately scaled, between any two points on the flat map and read off the
actual distance between those two points. But I can't do that; and the model
knows I can't do that. The model tells me to take the coordinates on the map
of two points and plug them into a complicated mathematical formula if I want
to get the actual distance between them. So the model is _not_ flat in the
sense that matters--in the predictions it makes for distances between points.

~~~
zardo
>Not if you're going to say the projection is flat. If the projection is flat,
and the projection is the model, then I should be able to lay a flat ruler,
appropriately scaled, between any two points on the flat map and read off the
actual distance between those two points.

Is a constant distance metric part of the definition of flat? Why don't the
grid lines on the map count as an appropriately scaled ruler?

~~~
pdonis
_> Is a constant distance metric part of the definition of flat?_

Yes. Otherwise "flat" would have no meaning; we can always make a flat map of
any surface, if we are willing to allow the distance metric to be distorted to
any extent we like, so every possible surface would be "flat".

------
kemiller
Relativity, which was the original subject, was not just a refinement of what
we knew, it discovering that what we knew was just a special case of a much
weirder universe. Actually, so was round-earth, for that matter, relative to
the mental models available at the time. In both cases a rather abstract
notion with no immediate practical impact. It's NOT a case of just coloring in
the details, like the detailed measurements of the precise shape of the earth,
it's a revolution in understanding. Pre-relativity, the general consensus was
that we knew almost everything, save a few niggling details, like the black
body problem. But pulling on that thread revealed a whole world underneath.
Newtonian physics was, and still is, extremely useful. And there is certainly
a hierarchy of wrongness, but the point is the arrogance of believing yourself
to live closer to the end than the beginning.

~~~
bo1024
That's an interesting point. There are different ways to look at it. In terms
of a huge change in our understanding of the world, I agree. But I think
Asimov is thinking in terms of effectiveness of the model in explaining
observations and making predictions.

In say 2000 BC, a flat-earth and spherical-earth theory were probably both
about the same level of effectiveness in explaining observations and making
predictions about new observations. In the year 1800, Newton's mechanics were
extremely effective in making correct predictions. As technology advanced and
new observations were possible, some gaps were revealed. But even today,
Newton's mechanics are extremely effective and accurate for explaining and
predicting many observations in our world; just not all of it. Einstein's
relativity does a much better job, but also not perfect.

Now again, you can say that there is a huge fundamental difference between the
flat-earth and round-earth theories, or between Newton and Einstein, and I
agree, but here I think Asimov is just arguing from this "correctness of model
in explaining/predicting" perspective.

~~~
kemiller
So Asimov says this: "It seemed that in one of my innumerable essays, I had
expressed a certain gladness at living in a century in which we finally got
the basis of the universe straight."

Whatever misconceptions our English major has about how science works, this
strikes me as incredibly unlikely. If you believe in the law of accelerating
returns, then it's almost infinitely unlikely — that the number of scientific
revolutions yet to come is vastly larger than of those already past. So it's
certainly not correct to say that we had "got it wrong" before, as if each
attempt is like rolling the dice all over. It's also wrong (though, as he
says, not AS wrong) to say that we've "finally" got it "straight".

~~~
bo1024
I think that's a good point.

------
13of40
"...the Greek philosopher Eratosthenes noted that the sun cast a shadow of
different lengths at different latitudes (all the shadows would be the same
length if the earth's surface were flat)."

This is an interesting statement, because it means he had some idea of how far
away the sun was from the Earth. If it was, say, a thousand miles up, you'd
see huge differences in shadow length depending on where you were standing on
a flat earth. Since it's tens of millions of miles away, the difference is
negligible.

~~~
bladedtoys
Eratosthenes did not know the sun-earth distance and tentatively assumed it
was infinite for that measurement.

But then his successor Aristarchus under took to measure the sun-earth
distance as follows:

He looked at the angle the earth and moon form when the moon is exactly half
full. This would give the sun distance as a multiple of the moon's distance
using trigonometry.

He observed the earth's shadow during lunar eclipses. This gave the moon's
size in terms of earth size.

He knew the earth's size from measuring shadows at different latitudes on
earth and the distance between those sites.

Knowing the moons size vs apparent size, simple trigonometry gave him the
distance to the moon. And therefor also the distance to the sun.

Unfortunately his angle measuring techniques were primitive and he decided the
sun was 20x further from earth than the moon (rather than about 400x). But his
other figures are quite passable.

~~~
angersock
If he was only off by an order of magnitude, given the equipment at the time,
that's still quite impressive!

------
iamcreasy
I like to think what Michael Stevens(VSauce) said in his video[1] as a
continuation of Asimov's letter.

"Susan Haack compares knowledge to a crossword puzzle. Old answers interweave
with old one. They all reinforce one another. The clues are the question we
ask. And the way the answers fall into a predetermined grid...well, that's our
confidence that we are on the right track."

[1]:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNqNnUJVcVs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNqNnUJVcVs)

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EGreg
Science has built-in regression testing. We eliminate things that have been
disproven, and over time we refine our knoweldge. The main phenomenon I think
in the progress of science is how much we come to know that we can eliminate
as wrong. And that is why Karl Popper considered theories which make testable
predictions to be advancing science.

------
elevenE
Previous discussions:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1147968](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1147968)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9629797](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9629797)

------
jcoffland
Since there are infinite things about which we are wrong and only a finite
number of things we are right about learning one more thing does not make us
any less wrong. Take that Asimov.

~~~
mwfunk
The point is that we are wrong about everything to one degree or another.
Maturing intellectually is a never ending process of becoming less wrong about
the things we choose to study, but at no point do we ever cross a finish line
and become right about anything. As soon as you think you're right about
something, the only thing you can be certain of is that you're wrong.

~~~
sunshiney
I think a more accurate observation is that we always exist in a state of
incomplete understanding and we will never achieve full understanding. Wrong
and right connote a state of absolutes that are often relative and even if
not, their usage assumes there will be an end point to deeper levels of
understanding. I think not. :-)

