https://scitechdaily.com/are-we-on-the-brink-of-a-new-age-of-scientific-discovery/amp/
No, no we're not.
One very important thing to understand is that science isn't magic. Whereas magic hopes to twist some unknown powers and bend them to your will, science hopes to look at the natural world and describe it accurately and precisely. If you can accurately and precisely describe what's going on in the world, then you can use that information.
In different levels of school science is taught almost like a mage art, with arcane characters and equations without ever really explaining the most important part of those equations: the fact that the equations don't twist reality, they describe it. And every time that we find that those equations are wrong, we change the equation or get rid of the equation altogether.
Unlike most fields, if you find out that the textbook is wrong about something then you change the textbook. This is why science in its pure form isn't a religion because it can't afford to be dogmatic.
One example of this is quantum mechanics. Quantum physics are lately used as gibberish so that snake oil salesman can sell ridiculous ideas or products. The reason though is that quantum mechanics is absolutely unintuitive. Take the Bohr model of the atom. In our Newtonian view of the world, we might be able to Intuit that the electron orbits the nucleus and that there's a bunch of details about that that are very understandable. They may be very understandable, but they are also wrong. There are things like discrete energy states that don't generally exist in the macro world, there's only so many different orbits, and according to our understanding when an electron switches between orbits there's no in between. We can't even know for sure exactly where that electron is if we want to know how fast it's going. If we know both then there's only so much we can know. Depending on how you try to restrict and measure an electron you can get it to behave in a number of different ways and you can have the same demo flight first behave like a stream of particles and later on behave like a waveform. There are so many things that are completely unintuitive about the quantum mechanic world, and some of the most famous and influential scientists in history hate and in some cases refuse to believe in quantum mechanics because it runs counter to their previous view of the world. Regardless, the data says that this is true, we can prove that it's true, so it's true. Whether we like it or not. That's The power of science.
The worst thing in the world for true science is a strict adhesion to and requirement for orthodoxy. For millennia, the ancient Greek conception of the world as consisting of some combination of air fire earth and water stuck around despite being arbitrary and useless, and that adherence to orthodoxy in some ways probably held back science. It wasn't until people open their minds to the idea that these orthodoxies were wrong that we saw an explosion in scientific development. When you look back in time the last 200 years contained the vast majority of what we would consider modern science.
We are presently living in an age of extreme orthodoxy. If you don't follow the orthodoxy, your political opponents will find you and get you fired from your job. They'll try to get you kicked out of your house. They'll try to get you kicked out of your city. They'll try to track you down no matter where you go and get you kicked out of any conventions or talks at you're planning to give. At this moment in time, we are living in an incredibly dangerous age.
Science requires a free people who are willing and able to dispute orthodoxy. Right now we're in an age where orthodoxy is king, and if you dare violate our orthodoxy your life will be effectively ended. Until we reach another age of freedom we will not be having a golden age of scientific discovery.
No, no we're not.
One very important thing to understand is that science isn't magic. Whereas magic hopes to twist some unknown powers and bend them to your will, science hopes to look at the natural world and describe it accurately and precisely. If you can accurately and precisely describe what's going on in the world, then you can use that information.
In different levels of school science is taught almost like a mage art, with arcane characters and equations without ever really explaining the most important part of those equations: the fact that the equations don't twist reality, they describe it. And every time that we find that those equations are wrong, we change the equation or get rid of the equation altogether.
Unlike most fields, if you find out that the textbook is wrong about something then you change the textbook. This is why science in its pure form isn't a religion because it can't afford to be dogmatic.
One example of this is quantum mechanics. Quantum physics are lately used as gibberish so that snake oil salesman can sell ridiculous ideas or products. The reason though is that quantum mechanics is absolutely unintuitive. Take the Bohr model of the atom. In our Newtonian view of the world, we might be able to Intuit that the electron orbits the nucleus and that there's a bunch of details about that that are very understandable. They may be very understandable, but they are also wrong. There are things like discrete energy states that don't generally exist in the macro world, there's only so many different orbits, and according to our understanding when an electron switches between orbits there's no in between. We can't even know for sure exactly where that electron is if we want to know how fast it's going. If we know both then there's only so much we can know. Depending on how you try to restrict and measure an electron you can get it to behave in a number of different ways and you can have the same demo flight first behave like a stream of particles and later on behave like a waveform. There are so many things that are completely unintuitive about the quantum mechanic world, and some of the most famous and influential scientists in history hate and in some cases refuse to believe in quantum mechanics because it runs counter to their previous view of the world. Regardless, the data says that this is true, we can prove that it's true, so it's true. Whether we like it or not. That's The power of science.
The worst thing in the world for true science is a strict adhesion to and requirement for orthodoxy. For millennia, the ancient Greek conception of the world as consisting of some combination of air fire earth and water stuck around despite being arbitrary and useless, and that adherence to orthodoxy in some ways probably held back science. It wasn't until people open their minds to the idea that these orthodoxies were wrong that we saw an explosion in scientific development. When you look back in time the last 200 years contained the vast majority of what we would consider modern science.
We are presently living in an age of extreme orthodoxy. If you don't follow the orthodoxy, your political opponents will find you and get you fired from your job. They'll try to get you kicked out of your house. They'll try to get you kicked out of your city. They'll try to track you down no matter where you go and get you kicked out of any conventions or talks at you're planning to give. At this moment in time, we are living in an incredibly dangerous age.
Science requires a free people who are willing and able to dispute orthodoxy. Right now we're in an age where orthodoxy is king, and if you dare violate our orthodoxy your life will be effectively ended. Until we reach another age of freedom we will not be having a golden age of scientific discovery.
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