Phil_Goetz comments on Crisis of Faith - Less Wrong

57 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 10 October 2008 10:08PM

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Comment author: Phil_Goetz 12 October 2008 03:12:00PM 1 point [-]

I think Einstein is a good example of both bending with the wind (when he came up with relativity)

I'm not sure what you mean by bending with the wind. I thought it was the evidence that provided the air pressure, but there was no evidence to support Einstein's theory above the theories of the day. He took an idea and ran with it to its logical conclusions. Then the evidence came, he was running ahead of the evidential wind.

You do know roughly what I mean, which is that strenuous effort is only part of the solution; not clinging to ideas is the other part of the solution. Focusing on the strenuous effort part can lead to people making strenuous effort to justify bad ideas. Who makes the most strenuous effort on the question of evolution? Creationists.

Einstein had evidence; it just wasn't experimental evidence. The discovery that your beliefs contain a logical inconsistency is a type of evidence.