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Originally Posted by PhilS  No, you're wrong. It was beaten to death three years ago (at least).
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More like thirty years, if you ask me.
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Since then, the topic has been cut up into little pieces, burned, rolled over by a steam roller, rung through a shredder, dynamited, and had acid poured on it. It is not dead. It will never die.  |
You are right, of course.
Well, humans as a species only learned to gain useful knowledge by systematically discerning between real evidence and non evidence around three or four hundred years ago. Our schools teach nothing of it even today. Our "science" education concentrates on what scientists have discovered instead of
how it was discovered, which is the really important part.
It is hardly surprising that most people take advantage of technology but know virtually nothing of how it comes about, nor that what little they do know is often largely wrong. So of course beliefs that rest on little or no actual evidence are still widespread among us. I place headphone "burn in" in that category and occasionally try to help by chiming in on what I regard as the rational side.
But given the general situation in society today we can expect little success in the near term, and such things to continue without end until we start to educate ourselves and our children about what is, and is not, actually evidence.
Fortunately for society as a whole enough of us have become educated to allow actual progress to happen despite the obstacles. Whether that will be enough to allow us to survive in the face of widespread irrationality will be, in my estimation, a near thing. But then I am old and cynical.
