Science is Conservative
A discovery in science, or a new theory, even when it appears most unitary and most all-embracing, deals with some immediate element of novelty or paradox within the framework of far vaster, unanalysed, unarticulated reserves of knowledge, experience, faith, and presupposition. Our progress is narrow; it takes a vast world unchallenged and for granted. This is one reason why, however great the novelty or scope of new discovery, we neither can, nor need, rebuild the house of the mind very rapidly. This is one reason why science, for all its revolutions, is conservative. This is why we will have to accept the fact that no one of us really will ever know very much. This is why we shall have to find comfort in the fact that, taken together, we know more and more.
Notes:
It only reveals a very narrow part of reality, and we must accept that we cannot understand most of it, but we can know more and more.
Folksonomies: science discovery
Taxonomies:
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/society/unrest and war (0.244683)
/society (0.189535)
Keywords:
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Entities:
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Concepts:
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Reality (0.843341): dbpedia | freebase
Cognition (0.841193): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Theory (0.837965): dbpedia | freebase
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Epistemology (0.801600): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Scientific method (0.751433): dbpedia | freebase
Science (0.720243): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Science and the common understanding