Years ago, my mate had a theory that "high end" Hi Fi turntables were, so good that they were rubbish. What he was saying that, the arms were so sensitive, you couldn't walk across the floor without them skating across the record. He was right
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The same applies to the new self service checkouts at Morrisons. One day the machine was just eating my coins without registering them. When the manager had opened up the coin mechanism, he found bits of fluff that had clogged it up. He maintained that the machines were state of the art, to which my reply was, "They're so good, they're rubbish" It's true.
The principal can apply to all sorts of stuff, String theory for example. It's so clever, it,s rubbish.
How can you measure how long a piece of string is without giving a value to something that is immeasurable?
Then there is Super String and M theory, D brane theory and 11 different dimensions.
It's at the point where more faith is required to believe it, than to believe in the supernatural.
Maybe science is a religion. It certainly punches above it's weight in my opinion.
I am quite convinced that aspects of modern science are just a form of legitimised gnosticism but maybe that's another story.
On a slightly different note, I was quite surprised when I looked up the definition of "technocracy" It appears that "Social sciences" are not included in the definition. I would disagree most strongly, since it is clear that the development of social science at the time of the enlightenment, most definitely became a tool by which the ruling elites, "managed" society. maybe the dictionary writers are not as insightful as one would have hoped.
Finally, finally, finally.... someone has diagnosed my problem...
ReplyDeleteI am just too clever, leading others think I am rubbish.
Thanks Pete. I feel I have found myself at last.
I know you're not rubbish DQS.. far from it.
ReplyDeleteYou may know that I live in Cambridge, the home of very clever stupid people.
There are many of them here. Particularly in the bio-techs.
They are so clever/dumb, they keep themselves in jobs by making drugs that make people feel worse.
Ah well now... you are pressing a few of my buttons as the saying goes. Many very clever people, some of whom I trained with, do spend a lot of time creating placebos with side effects, which can be sold for much more money than sugar pills; or just making new ways to do the same thing as old ways that are now out of patent protection. However... they do also make the new things that undoubtedly saved a young relative's life recently. Like everything else, it is complicated. And they get paid a lot of money, which they regard as clever of them. I don't think it's the people doing the chemistry that are stupid, but the system that funds it, driving the research towards making money rather than being useful, and the overlap between making money and being useful is very inexact. Someone once asked my why, with a PhD in organic chemistry from Cambridge University, was I not working for a big drug company. No matter how hard I tried I could not explain to them why I had not gone down that path. Maybe I was just too stupid to be clever.
DeleteI agree with your perspective Andrew. In my opinion, staying out is a good choice.
ReplyDelete