Member
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMFPe-DwULM
This is so brilliant and really explains exactly why it is so difficult to explain in "simple" terms complex theories and concepts. Some things can not be explained simply. You need to have a basic understanding of complex ideas to even have the ability to comprehend certain ideas (like magnetism).
Video converted to a link
Last edited by Sticks; 2010-Dec-31 at 04:02 PM. Reason: correct purple link
Established Member
Inspirational. Thanks.
Moderator
Please do not embed video into posts. Thank You.
Also Moved thread to OTB as the Q&A forum is for asking and answering questions on the Mainstream of Astronomy
Rules For Posting To This Board
All Moderation in Purple
Member
Cool, I was wondering if it was ok to post that there. Curious...why no embedding videos? Wouldn't you want your users staying here as opposed to going off site to YouTube?
Its not like its a major strain on the server and has zero impact on bandwidth usage locally.
Any idea on the reason, or is it one of those web 1.0 grandfathered rules which has no legit reason anymore but kept cause its always been that way?
(VB 4.* is optimized for video embedding and minimizing server load)
Moderator
If you have any questions on forum rules then raise them in the Feedback Forum.
To answer these questions, not everyone reading the board can see your video and not everyone reading the board has the bandwidth.
It's best to post a link with a brief description of the video.
Rules For Posting To This Board
All Moderation in Purple
Member
Aye Aye Captain
Order of Kilopi
Very grateful that this was posted. I only just saw this but I am a fan of all things Feynman. He's brilliant at explaining unfamiliar or difficult concepts., and generally a wonderful thinker. He also reminds me a lot of my father, his mannerisms, the little forearms flicks for emphasis, and his approach to answering anything. Plus the hair, kind of.
Anyway, cheers Jax!
Order of Kilopi
Depressing.
He's basically saying that from the position of the general population, science will always occupy the position of a religion. There are some things you just have to accept as true, and assume that the High Priests know what they are talking about. Which means that, from the general public's point of view, religion and science will always be interchangeable.
Order of Kilopi
The difference is, with science, the individual can learn enough to understand it, where religion will always remain in the realm of the imaginary, since there's no factual basis for it in any event.Originally Posted by parallaxicality
Basically he's telling the idiotic world at large to get off their butts and get with the program. I'd get tired of spoonfeeding mental midgets simplified analogies after a while, myself.
Order of Kilopi
Wow. Way to disparage the entire human race.
Not everyone can do this. I have an IQ of 147 but long ago realised that there was a certain level of scientific understanding I wouldn't be able to go beyond, particularly electromagnetism. That's just the way it is.
Order of Kilopi
I don't believe it takes a stratospheric IQ to understand these concepts. Heck, mine's barely in the 120's, and I can wrap my head around it to some degree with a lot of effort. The problem isn't that people are intrinsically stupid, they ARE intrinsically lazy. Most people would look at some of the conversations going on here and simply dismiss them as irrelevant to their everyday life and not give a whit. Its not that they lack the mental machinery, its their attitude. If its not putting food in their mouth or a roof over their head, most people can't be bothered to put forward the effort to understand.
Even in the first world, the subsistence survival mentality still reigns supreme.
Order of Kilopi
What's wrong with trying to survive? Science has always existed at the very rarified end of civilsation. Like philosophy and literature, it is a luxury of the indolent. People have to have priorities. If it wasn't for a million people contributing to his survival, by growing his food, mining his power, and building his house, the average scientist would die in seconds.
Order of Kilopi
Nothing wrong with surviving, until you're jaded to the point of dismissing everything else in life except surviving as worthless.
Order of Kilopi
But how unjaded should they be? Enough to fully comprehend magnetism?
Bad Post-Doc
And, of course, it's apparently okay to be jaded enough to dismiss the part of the world which is ignorant in your own personal field.
_____________________________________________
Gillian
"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"
"You can't erase icing."
"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"
Order of Kilopi
Maybe my IQ isn't high enough, but I don't understand your reasoning in those posts, parallaxicality.
It's simple, the point about science and religion being the same thing is false. There's little further that can be said without skirting the rules.
He's saying nothing of the sort. He's simply saying that at some point, if people want to understand something they need to make an effort to do so. Science can't always coime to them in a neat oversimplified analogy, sometime the person (and their knowledge base) must move towards it. Actually, that's generally a good idea. What he says highlights why there are so many misconceptions about science, it points out (somewhat) why a little knowledge can be misleading.
It also touches on degrees of accuracy in an answer. It's not that a simplified answer is necessarily entirely wrong, but one needs to appreciate how simple any given answer may be. Some things can't just be boiled down to a passing answer to a pedestrian you cross in the street, particularly when it's something that takes years to truly understand.
Noithing about that equates to religion. That seems more like a copout for not understanding. (That's generally when that line pops up - I'm not having a go directly at you, so please don't take offence.)
Order of Kilopi
My point is that if that is true, then scientists shouldn't complain when people say that science and religion are equivalent, because from their point of view, they might as well be. Not in principle, obviously, but in practice. Feynman is being unreasonable if he expects the non-scientific majority to school themselves to his level.
Order of Kilopi
That isn't the way I interpreted what he is saying at all. Rather, he says that you can get a simple answer (like poles repel, opposite poles attract) but you can always ask "why" and go to another level. But then you can ask "why" again. And again. At some point you are going to get to a level where you don't understand the answer. Beyond that you are going to get to a level where the only answer is "we don't know (yet)".
But there is no reason to accept the answer that you don't understand as if it comes from a High Priest; if you want to, you can study (for a few hours or several years, whatever it takes) until you understand that. But then you can ask "why" and you are off for another 20 years of learning!
But the point is, in principle, you can learn what the "high priests" have learnt - and check their results - or maybe even extend them.
On the other hand, you can be lazy (like me). I have studied some science. I have done some of the basic experiments so I understand the techniques involved and have seen the traces of fundamental particles, etc. But I soon get out my depth. At one level, I can understand enough of what is being said to validate it myself. Beyond that, I do, to some extent, have to take it on trust and just go with the poor analogies. But I always know there are other people more capable than me who will be testing and retesting these ideas in detail. So it doesn't just rely on the word of these "high priests" - they spend their lives trying to prove themselves and each other wrong (or they should be doing so, anyway).
ETA: And there is nothing special about science in this respect. I can ask my builder or car mechanic or accountant more detailed questions but at some point I will have to admit that I don't know what they are talking about. I can go study more about it. Or I can decide that what they have said so far makes sense, so I will take their word for the more advanced stuff (or go get a second opinion)
Order of Kilopi
The difference is that in Feynman's examples, at every step he added more detail that built on what he said before. OK, the explanations get more complex and more mathematical, but at no point does he say "you just have to take my word for this". (He might say, "if you don't understand the math, you will have to take my word" but that is very, very different.)
Order of Kilopi
I'm not sure why it's different. Math is in many ways a far greater barrier between the learned and the populace than Latin.
Order of Kilopi
I wanted to avoid taking this analogy too far because of BAUT rules, but as long as we stick with this being a comparison between a hypothetical non-existent religion and science then...
The difference is between "you must believe this because I say so (whether you speak Latin or not)" and "this is how it works out, I'm sorry you don't have the math ability right now but if you want to ask someone else who does, they will be able to work it out the same way, or if you are able to learn the math in future then you will be able to work it out for yourself".
i.e. the difference between an argument from authority and an argument which can (in principle, at least) be tested/validated/disproved.
Order of Kilopi
OK. Here is a much better analogy. Instead of your High Priest, lets look at High Peter, the mountaineer (or so he claims).
High Peter tells you that he has knowledge of the way the world looks because he has climbed the mountain and seen for himself. You ask him if you can climb the mountain to see this truth for yourself. He says you don't have the special equipment or climbing skills needed so you will just have to trust him.
But then you meet High Dave who also says he has been up the mountain. But he tells you a completely different story of the way the world looks. You ask if he will take you up the mountain and he says you can't go because the locals won't let strangers climb the mountain so you will just have to trust him.
So then you meet a fine man who starts to explain how the world works. But it quickly becomes quite complicated as you ask more questions. You ask how he knows this and he says that he and many others have been exploring the mountain and this is the best story they have managed to piece together so far. You ask him if he can take you up the mountain. Sure, he says, lets see how far we can go. So you follow him up the lower slopes. As you go, he explains the best route and the traps and what you can see from each level. At some point he says, "OK here we will need some climbing equipment". He lends you some of his and you get a bit further. Then he says, "now we need some very specialized equipment and advanced climbing techniques". You try but find you can't get much further. But he carries on, and for a while you can see him, follow what he is doing and appreciate his descriptions of what he can see. After a while he disappears into the mist and you can only get bits of what he says. But you know he is following a well tested route and are sure that, if you could learn these advanced techniques, you could get up there with him.
When you meet him again later, he points out that there are large parts of the mountain that are unexplored, that it seems to go on endlessly, there may be better routes and views they haven't found yet, and that there may even be other mountains they don't know about. You meet others coming down the mountain and they tell you, largely, the same stories that the he did. They differ in their routes or opinions of the right way to go next, but it all hangs together as a coherent description of the world.
You realise that High Peter and High Dave could never have climbed this mountain (or certainly haven't given any evidence they did). So you decide it is worth taking on trust what all these people who really have climbed the mountain say; given that you have been part of the way yourself.
Last edited by Strange; 2011-Jan-19 at 11:39 AM. Reason: spelling
Order of Kilopi
Bravo Strange! Very nicely done.
Established Member
Thanks, Strange, that is an impressive analogy. It can also be extended to encompass those who can't be bothered to get out of their chairs and who take the word of anybody spouting something they like the sound of.
Order of Kilopi
The non-scientific majority would be unreasonable if they expect to get a Feynman-level understanding without first getting a Feynman-level education.
Everything they get before that is lies-to-children.
Bad analogy, both can be learned, and these days teaching of mathematics is a lot more available than teaching of Latin was back then.
The barrier is not in access but in the willingness to spend the time required.
__________________________________________________
Reductionist and proud of it.
Being ignorant is not so much a shame, as being unwilling to learn. Benjamin Franklin
Chase after the truth like all hell and you'll free yourself, even though you never touch its coat tails. Clarence Darrow
A person who won't read has no advantage over one who can't read. Mark Twain
Order of Kilopi
But then isn't it every mans right to know all without the effort involved in learning? I thought this was America! Isn't this America? I thought this was America! (silly South Park reference - forgive me those who are above such childish humour)
Established Member
Maybe not everything can be explained in laymans terms...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wHKBavY_h8
Order of Kilopi
I think the professor in that skit was spot on.
Order of Kilopi
I tend to be of the opinion that people do not live long enough to study it "all" as individuals and something do have to be simply taken on faith in science. A biologist can make great discoveries without understanding how exactly the batteries in his equipment stores and releases power. A chemist doesn't need to understand that a microbe has been creating his "discovery" for a million years. An astronomer doesn't need to know what happened in 1066 to know that Halley's comet is very important.
You just can't do it all yourself. I think that is called being pragmatic.
Solfe
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'That was tops! Who's not good at math? I was all, "Four!"' - Finn, Adventure Time.
Established Member
This must be the Best analogy I've ever read.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote