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Emile comments on Rationality Quotes June 2012 - Less Wrong
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-- Carl Sagan, 1987 CSICOP Keynote Address
I don't think that the idea that politicians don't change their position has much basis in reality. There are a lot of people who complain about politicians flip-flopping.
When a politician speaks publically, he usually doesn't speak about his personal decision but about a position that's a consensus of the group for which the politician speaks. He might personally disagree with the position and try to change the consensus internally. It's still his role to be responsible for the position of the group to which he belongs. In the end the voter cares about what the group of politicians do. What laws do they enact? Those laws are compromises and the politicians stand for the compromise even when they personally disagree with parts of it.
A scientist isn't supposed to be responsible for the way his experiments turn out.
And if you take something like the Second Vatican Council there's even change of positions in religion.
Yes, politicians flip-flop, and they take heat for it. And religious organizations do revise their doctrines from time to time.
But they don't like to admit it. This shows itself most clearly in schisms, where it's obvious at least one party has changed it stance, yet both present the other side as the schismatic one (splitters).
Thus even though they have changed, they do not "update"--or they do, but then they retcon it to make it look like they've always done things this way. (Call it "backdating," not updating.) This is what the superstates do in 1984.
Coming up with real examples is trivial. Just find a group that has ever had a schism. That's basically every group you've heard of. Ones that come to mind: Marxists, libertarians, Christians, the Chinese Communist Party. Triggering issues for the above groups include the nature of revolution, the relationship between rights and welfare, the Trinity, the role of the state in the economy...
How many scientific papers contain the lines: "In the past the authors of this papers were wrong about X, but they changed their opinion because of Y"?
None, because journals are really careful about proof-reading.
Do you mean:
1) Because journals are really careful about proof-reading and there are no errors in journal articles?
2) Because journals are really careful about proof-reading, they delete every sentence where a scientist says that "I've been wrong in the past"?
3) Some other way in which careful proof-reading removes the possibility that "I've been wrong in the past" appears in a journal article?
It was grammar nitpicking. "The authors where wrong".
I had guessed it must be something like that, but I failed to see the typo in the grandparent and changed my mind to the parent being some different joke I didn't get or something. (I've retracted the downvote to the parent.)
Also "this papers".
In short, not nearly enough.
Inspiring, but not true.
In what respect is it not true? I've certainly observed it. I haven't observed it every day, but most scientists in the world are not under my observation.
If Sagan had actually looked for it happening in politics and religion, he'd have found plenty of examples. Especially in the latter.
If it really does happen in politics and religion at a comparable rate, then the quote is certainly misleading, but I rather doubt that that is the case. Sagan did not say that it never happens in politics or religion, only that he could not recall an instance.