Thomas comments on Rationality quotes: May 2010 - Less Wrong

3 Post author: ata 01 May 2010 05:48AM

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Comment author: Thomas 01 May 2010 06:10:52AM 8 points [-]

Science must have originated in the feeling that something was wrong.

-Thomas Carlyle

Comment author: djcb 02 May 2010 11:31:46AM 1 point [-]

It's a nice quote, but I would rather think that science originated from the fact that people noticed correlations between things, and then some exceptionally bright people noticed increasingly non-obvious correlations, say in medicine or planetary positions.

I can see the 'something is wrong' part in more recent science, i.e., people experimenting, wondering 'hmm, that's funny,.. not what I expected'. Many scientist might discard such findings, but sometimes some lucky soul found something that is both 'wrong' and not an error of measurement, and discover something new.

Comment author: knb 02 May 2010 06:40:37PM 0 points [-]

Do you know what text that quote is from? I just started reading the Latter-Day Pamphlets.