Memory, Hugos, and Thorns

[countrycousin]

Recently, several of my FL have posted the Hugos meme
Partial list:
stoutfellow  http://stoutfellow.livejournal.com/184143.html
sebastian_tombs  http://sebastian-tombs.livejournal.com/210595.html
kd5mdk  http://kd5mdk.livejournal.com/134564.html

I started reading SF before there were Hugos; my greatest unfamiliarity is at this end.   I won't post the list here - I might some day.  But the list brought an issue to mind that connected with something else.

One story I knew I had read in serial for was They'd Rather Be Right, from 1955.  But it doesn't seem to be the story I thought it was.  Back around then, someone, I thought it was Clifton, wrote a story that went thusly:

A group of top scientists is assembled and shown a movie.  The movie shows a demo of an anti-gravity machine.  But there is an explosion, and the machine and inventor are destroyed.  The scientists' task is to recreate the machine.  One of the assembled crew gets quite upset; he is convinced that the whole movie is a hoax.  He obstructs, and leaves the project.  Our hero thinks and thinks and goes fishing and scrambles around and builds a giant anti-grav machine that is not at all like the one in the movie, but it gets off the ground.  At the end of the story the project assigner, who had shown the movie, troops in with the actor who had played the blown-up inventor and admits that the movie was indeed a hoax.   There was a sequel to this story, where our hero, in true Campbell fashion, goes on to use the mental powers he was driven to develop in story one to do all sorts of strange and wonderful things (one was a gambling device which project assigner from story one recognizes as demonstratring that our hero "really understands" what goes on inside an atom, but which sounds a lot like the ping-pong and air device that some bingo games use.)   That was what I thought They'd Rather Be RIght was.  But descriptions I looked at make me think my memory was off.

OK, what brought that on?  This did.  (Story of mathematician who, as grad student, "accidentally" solves previously unsolved problems.)

That occurred, with no chicanery (other than showing up late for class), fifteen years before the story I recall was written.

One of the thorny issues that was part of the subtext of the SF story was the ethical correctness of the ploy of the project assigner.   (For one thing, in the story, the person who was certain the movie was a hoax suffered mental damage IIRC.)  The assigner's reasoning was that everyone knew that the problem couldn't be solved; he had to create a credible skepticism in order to get any reasonable progress.   More of "end justifies the means".  Actually, perhaps it does, if one is willing to take responsibility for all of the consequences resulting from using the means.  For example, no one will trust technical project managers.  (That, of course, has happened - cf Dilbert.)

More consideration of when to use faith and when to use scientific/mathematical knowledge.  The latter are based on skepticism.  One can never prove a scientific law correct; one can only prove it wrong.  Those that survive today are those that haven't been proved wrong yet.  Mathematics does a bit better - there are rules of reasoning that will lead to more mathematical truths.  But these rules are accepted because they haven't been proved wrong yet - other mathematical truths have been accepted in the past until someone successfully demonstrated a problem with them.

Faith occurs when one has a belief for which incomplete scientific basis exists.  (Well, faith also exists in the form of beliefs that directly contradict established scientific knowledge, but I'm firmly ignoring that can of worms.)  One needs faith to successfully operate in this world.  Team-building exercises exist to help team members develop faith in the capabilities of the team, the other members, and themselves.  Faith in battle outcome can have a stronger effect on the actual outcome than material advantage.  People who work toward short-term goals often do so based on a faith that these short-term goals will lead toward long-term goals.  And they have faith that these long-term goals are, in some way, good goals to work toward.

The process of science depends a lot on faith.  We have faith in our fellow scientists, faith that they do their utmost to work correctly and report accurately.  We don't expect perfection; we expect skepticism.  But working at the edge of knowledge provides opportunity enough for error; sloppiness and falsehood destroy the process.

Recently, a scientist formerly at a local university was sentenced to jail time.  He asked to have no jail time. I'd have cheerfully given him a life sentence.  Which in some respect he got - he'll never be trusted in that area again.  There have been too many of those instances, recently.  Poehlman's work involved hormone replacement treatment; it has severe risks and possible benefits.  Is falsifying data in such an area to achieve fame and fortune morally less serious than designing a product that is known to be harmful to be more addictive, particularly to children?  (yeah, I'm referring to tobacco)

Enough of a ramble.

Comments

[countrycousin.livejournal.com]

hmm - let me further say, that, as an article of faith, I believe we -all of us- are better off in general making decisions based on true information rather than on false. One could no doubt prove that under suitably restrictive assumptions. :<) But in real life, it is an article of faith - one not shared by most successful politicians. Interestingly, I believe that is because, as a tested practice, politicians find they are more successful the more they can successfully control the information their constituency receives. (Other segments of society find that, too.) We, as a society, try to build in penalties for release of false information. As an article of faith, I think societies that are more effective at doing that are better societies. I suspect a good social scientist could say that a lot better, with less reliance on faith. :<)

[carbonelle.livejournal.com]

Agreed.