I have come across the following picture many times. The picture involves a historical argument: There have always been explanation-seeking questions that appeared to refute a theory. Yet, the theory turned out to be successful. Conclusion: We can ignore certain explanation-seeking questions that appear to refute current beliefs. Despite the good intentions, the argument is […]

In this post, I analyze the assumptions about science that are implicit in this picture. 1. Scientific advance can be measured in one dimension. It is not entirely clear what this dimension is supposed to be (and how the aggregate from the contributions of different science is calculated), but the picture suggests that scientific advance […]

The following caption of Ricky Gervais analyzing the difference between science and religion (taken from here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOi2AgNfQCg) is widely used in memes around the internet. I appreciate that Ricky Gervais speaks for science and does so in an eloquent and intuitively compelling manner. However, I want to make some (critical) comments on the topic: First […]