[OT] Five Simple Rules

[Mirimir]

On 06/27/2016 06:36 PM, Cecilia Tanaka wrote:
> Most of all know about my love for fun subjects, like Law, comics, music,
> open data and Astronomy.
> 
> Below, a small excerpt of Neil deGrasse Tyson's last speech in the new
> "Cosmos" series.  It is really beautiful and inspiring not only for
> researchers, but for everybody who wants to search for truth.
> 
> "How did we, tiny creatures living on that speck of dust, ever manage to
> figure out how to send spacecraft outer among the stars of the milky way?
> Only a few centuries ago, a mere second of the cosmic time.  We knew
> nothing of where and when we were.  Oblivious to the rest of the cosmos, we
> inhabited a kind of prison, a tiny universe bounded by a nutshell.
> 
> How did we escape from the prison?  It was the work of generation of
> searchers, who took 5 simple rules to heart.
> 
> Question authority.  No idea is true just because someone says so,
> including me.  Think for yourself.

Also, think about why they're saying that. What's the game?

> Question yourself.  Don't believe anything just because you want to.
> Believing something doesn't make it so.

I've wasted time on pet ideas, for sure :(

> Test ideas, by the evidence gained from observation and experiment.  If a
> favorite idea fails a well designed test, it's wrong.  Get over it.

Yes. And if something can't be tested, forget about it. That includes
theories with so many free variables that they can fit any result.

> Follow the evidence, were ever it leads.  If you have no evidence, reserve
> judgement.

That's how we get breakthroughs.

> And perhaps even the most important rule of all, remember you could be
> wrong.   Even the best scientist have been wrong about somethings.  Newton,
> Einstein, and ever other great scientist in history.  They all made
> mistakes.  Of course they did, their were human."

There is no truth. You can only know what's probably not true.