Roger,
Bob Dylan put your quandary into the following words:
"You know they refused Jesus too,"
the next line responds,
"Well, you ain't him."
eric
Paradigm shift is always difficult. There is a natural conservatism in
>scientists such that, if current understanding explains 95% of observations,
>it may be deemed preferable to stick with what you know and live with a 5%
>exception rate.
>
>Things are complicated further by the fact that there exist, undeniably, a
>number of eccentrics who make it their business to come up with abstruse
>alternative science which they then attempt to promulgate. Sometimes these
>heresies are obviously unsound, sometimes they are so unintelligible that
>they cannot be easily refuted. Either way, taking the effort to try and
>refute them is inevitably time wasted. So the usual practice is to try and
>avoid them.
>
>As a result, anyone who comes up with a bright idea that totally overturns
>conventional understanding is likely to find that most workers assume that
>he's one of the eccentrics, on the grounds that the number of unsound
>heretics is much greater than the number of truly inspired revolutionaries.
>This is the easiest approach, and often turns out to be correct as well.
>Wegener is always cited as the heretic who was vindicated in the end, but
>most of us could cite plenty of Wegener-wannabes who were quite justifiably
>panned.
>
>How to counteract the possibility of overlooking something of real value is
>tricky, especially when in some cases the arguments are genuinely above most
>people's heads.
>
>Needless to say, the above remarks are intended in a purely general sense.
>
>Roger Musson
Eric Essene
Professor of Geology
Department of Geological Sciences
2534 C.C. Little Bldg.
425 E. University Ave.
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor MI 48109-1063 USA
fx: 734-763-4690
ph: 734-764-8243
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