
When Science Went Modern - allthings
https://hedgehogreview.com/issues/the-cultural-contradictions-of-modern-science/articles/when-science-went-modern
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whatshisface
> _when relativity theory and quantum mechanics not only overturned the
> achievements of Galileo and Newton but also challenged our deepest
> intuitions about space, time, and causation._

Causation stayed the same from Galilean to Lorentzian relativity. It remains
as a touchstone of things working as expected.

~~~
acqq
Yes. All these historians inspired by Kuhn's construction of the "revolutions"
are completely missing what the discoveries are, and are misusing the words
like "overturning." There are also a lot of philosophers that also simply
don't understand what they talk about.

The Newtonian Laws are still good enough for most of the common calculations
of the effects of gravity, where they aren't enough we are using the
improvements by Einstein, but technically these are still the _improvements_
for the calculations in the extreme ranges. So it's not that it's practical to
say that what Newton is "overturned" when one still needs his very formulas
every day.

~~~
licebmi__at__
Not really. The explanations of reality are entirely different thus reaching
different conclusions (even if the different conclusions only happen on
extreme events). That's what the historians mean when talking about
overturning theories. It's not really surprising that Newton and Einstein
explain most experimental data, otherwise, one of them would be a crappy
theory.

To put a simple example, geocentric model not only was at least as accurate
for calculations of celestial bodies positions than initial heliocentric
models, but it was actually simpler, but it's easier to say the model was
overturned because the difference in the explanation is obvious.

In Newton/Einstein case, the difference is on the underlying concepts (the
most obvious, the speed of light limit), but it's really easy to see that even
if equations approximate on some range, they're not equivalent.

~~~
acqq
If these narrations were first introduced in the internet posts on HN and the
“fine” historians would post under the title “Newton overturned” their post
would be flagged at least as a clickbait. Because we use the same Newton
formulas today for the same kinds of calculations for which Newton used them:
to calculate the motions of the planets in the Solar system.

For all the observations and measurements available at Newton's time, his
formulas were enough. Once we managed to measure some extreme behaviors like
the constant speed of light in different directions (by Michelson), something
better was needed for these extreme cases which would still get _the same
results_ for all previous existing observations! That's exactly how Einstein
presented his work at the time.

So the new formulas are improvements, and except for the extreme cases the new
formulas produce the same results like Newton's.

All that talk about "overturning" is just trolling, and Kuhn is the chief one,
"par excellence". Or as 'whatshisface' correctly named, it's the plain "false
narrative." The only one from those mentioned by Kuhn who was ever actually
"overturned" was Aristotle, but nobody can call him a scientist, for he is the
one who didn't like experiments to learn something or prove his thoughts. Kuhn
specifically tried to come to the terms with Aristotle's work and then
projected his confusion to everything else in his "seminal" work. And that was
accepted and even more bastardized by every "philosopher" or "historian" who
reads only other "philosophers" and "historians" but never tries to understand
the topic about which he writes. It turned out to be the basis for "everything
is relative, including the scientific conclusions and the truth is also
relative because those who don't understand the topic will not accept the
arguments" which is as deep as "math is hard let's go shopping." I definitely
share Feynman's opinion that the "philosophy of science is as useful to
scientists as ornithology is to birds." (Yes, I feel anger when I write about
said "historians").

So contrary to Aristotle, there were enough ancient Greek thinkers who did
make real scientific conclusions:

Just an example: around 2200 years ago

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hipparchus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hipparchus)

Hipparchus estimated the distance to the Moon in the Earth radii to between 62
and 80 (depending on the method he used, as he intentionally used two
different). Today's measurements are between 55 and 64.

Also around 2200 years ago (note the pattern, a lot was done before Brian was
born), some 240 years Befowe Bwian, Eratosthenes measured the Earth's
circumference to almost exactly to what we know today (if I remember, when one
honestly checks what he claimed, his error was only around 5%). Etc.

Claudius Ptolemy was of course also not wrong and his calculations were
scientific: his formulas also worked for the measurements available to him,
exactly because one can write formulas using different origin of the
coordinate system. It's the Church and its dogmatic behavior that made big
fuss with the claim that the Earth is "special" (because specially treated by
the magic deity). And Aristotle also noted that the speed of Earth rotation
would be "too big" because it would produce too much wind, if I remember. But
in this case that was a bit of scientific-like reasoning, as he also had to
have an idea about the approximate circumference of the Earth and he had to
calculate the speed with which the surface rotates (sitting in our chairs, we
still move a thousand miles per hour only due to the Earth's rotation). I say
scientific-like because the word "science" simply didn't exist in the time of
Aristotle.

------
unimployed
I will interpret the label of modern to mean that current science is somewhat
directionless on many fronts overwhelmed with an explosion of conflicting
theoretical findings that are difficult to verify or disprove or categorize
their utility meaningfully—progressing at a snail’s pace as a result. Or
perhaps this more accurately is post-modern science.

