Re: "Horganism"???? Perfect!!

[William Beaty <billb@ESKIMO.COM>]

On Tue, 14 Sep 1999, Jim Green wrote:

> Interesting!  This is precisely the views of physics at the turn of the
> century.  Yes, we couldn't quite explain the emission spectrum -- and yes,
> there was this weird photo-electric effect -- but this was thought to be
> relatively trivial and by and by some menial technician would find the
> answers.  But by and large physics was thought to be complete -- this, 100
> years ago.

The sad (and twisted) thing is that Horgan, in "The End of Science",
debunks the above idea, and says that physicists DID NOT think science was
at an end in 1900.  (This makes it OK for him to repeat the mistake, since
the original mistake has been made to un-happen?  What then will future
closemindedness-apologist historical-revisionists say about Horgan's book?
Will they claim that everyone of the present decade immediately rejected
it, and that there were no reputable supporters at all?)

Yes, the "Patent Office President" story is mythical; the one where the
head of the USPTO is going to quit, since there are no more good
inventions to patent.  But other evidence is not so easily ridiculed away.
Here's a bit I found later:

  "When I began my physical studies [in Munich in 1874] and sought advice
  from my venerable teacher Philipp von Jolly... he portrayed to me
  physics as a highly developed, almost fully matured science... Possibly
  in one or another nook there would perhaps be a dust particle or a small
  bubble to be examined and classified, but the system as a whole stood
  there fairly secured, and theoretical physics approached visibly that
  degree of perfection which, for example, geometry has had already for
  centuries."
       - from a 1924 lecture by Max Planck   (Sci. Am, Feb 1996 p.10)


 "We are probably nearing the limit of all we can know about astronomy."
  - Simon Newcomb, major US astronomer, 1888


 "The more important fundamental laws and facts of physical science have
  all been discovered, and these are now so firmly established that the
  possibility of their ever being supplanted in consequence of new
  discoveries is exceedingly remote.... Our future discoveries must be
  looked for in the sixth place of decimals."  Albert. A. Michelson,
  speech at the dedication of Ryerson Physics Lab, U. of Chicago  1894

These are not meant to be humerous.  These are meant to illustrate a
sickness which is at the core of Science: Horganism.  If this sickness did
not exist, then Kuhnian paradigm shifts could not occur, because there
would be no historical "sticking" forces, and there would be no
"stick-and-slip" revolution phenomena in the history of science.

As has already happened here, the typical response is to dismiss such
quotes as having come from a minority of crazy people.  If we tell
ourselves that the MAJORITY of physicists of the past were openminded and
knew that scientific revolutions were at hand, then we can convince
ourselves that closed-mindedness was never a factor in scientific
progress.  In hindsight we can revise history so that science is a bold
striding forwards, and not a shameful and foolish tussel between a
majority who wants to sit still, and a maverick minority who drags it
forwards screaming, as it desparately tries to cling to lampposts and
small cracks in the sidewalk.

 From a bit earlier (might be apocryphal):

 "So many centuries after the Creation, it is unlikely that anyone could
  find hitherto unknown lands of any value."

      - Spanish Royal Commission, rejecting Christopher Columbus' proposal
        to sail west.

My own contribution:

  Progress in science is something like climbing a mountain.  Only most
  mountaineers don't set up a new basecamp every ten feet, then leap
  out and attack anyone who tries to climb past them.


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