FluffyC comments on The Useful Idea of Truth - Less Wrong

77 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 02 October 2012 06:16PM

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Comment author: FluffyC 26 February 2013 08:41:32PM *  3 points [-]

One: Protons and neutrons aren't oppositely charged.

Two: You're using particle physics as an example of an area where experiment is the final arbiter; you might not want to do that. Scientific consensus has more than a few established beliefs in that field that are untested and border on untestable.

Comment author: RationalAsh 07 April 2013 08:15:40AM 0 points [-]

Oh Whoops! I mean protons and electrons! Silly mistake!

Comment author: Dentin 26 February 2013 09:24:47PM 0 points [-]

Honestly, he'd be hard pressed to find a field that has better tested beliefs and greater convergence of evidence. The established beliefs you mention are a problem everywhere, and pretty much no field is backed with as much data as particle physics.

Comment author: FluffyC 26 February 2013 09:33:29PM 0 points [-]

Fair enough; I had wanted to say that but don't have sufficiently intimate awareness of every academic field to be comfortable doing so. I think it works just as well to illustrate that we oughtn't confuse passing flaws in a field with fundamental ones, or the qualities of a /discipline/ with the qualities of seeking truth in a particular domain.

Comment author: Rixie 05 April 2013 12:59:02PM 0 points [-]

Press the Show help button to figure out how to italisize and bold and all that.

Comment author: Desrtopa 05 April 2013 01:04:05PM 0 points [-]

Was this intended to be a response to a different comment?

Comment author: Rixie 05 April 2013 01:20:54PM 0 points [-]

No, it's just that FluffyC used slashes to indicate that the word in the middle was to be italisized, so she probably hadn't read the help section, and I thought that reading the help section would, well, help FluffyC.