{"id":5114,"date":"2020-01-31T05:00:39","date_gmt":"2020-01-31T13:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/?p=5114"},"modified":"2020-01-26T11:20:26","modified_gmt":"2020-01-26T19:20:26","slug":"mark-reads-the-science-of-discworld-iv-chapter-12","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2020\/01\/mark-reads-the-science-of-discworld-iv-chapter-12\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Reads &#8216;The Science of Discworld IV&#8217;: Chapter 12"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the twelfth chapter of <i>Judgment Day<\/i>, we discuss what counts as evidence in scientific theory. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read <i>The Science of Discworld IV<\/i>.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>I think I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve said a variation on this before, but I dig that these <i>Science<\/i> books are getting me to rethink very, very basic things that I thought I understood. Chapter twelve largely unpacks the notion of evidence and scientific theory. And while this series has addressed theory plenty of times before, it hasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t done so quite like this. Why does the world of science use the term \u00e2\u20ac\u0153laws\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in a way that doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t mean the same thing as it does in legal\/political circles? How is something a law if it isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t something that applies in every situation and context? Well, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a fantastic definition of the concept of a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153law\u00e2\u20ac\u009d early in the chapter:<\/p>\n<p>What we call \u00e2\u20ac\u02dclaws\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 seem to be recurrent patterns in the physical world, which we can approximate very closely using mathematical equations, in limited contexts.<br \/>\nThat summary is just a single sentence! Incredible! Within it, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s room for something vital to scientific theory: change. Because maybe the patterns stop being recurrent or they disappear entirely. Maybe we someday are unable to approximate it with equations. And there are contexts where the law doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t apply! All this is wonderful, as change is a <i>good<\/i> thing. I also think that, in general, the authors are optimistic about science and its applications, but I also recognize that some of my cynicism comes from the time I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m living in. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so much anti-science these days, and then there are people working within the scientific community who are gleefully biased, twisted \u00e2\u20ac\u0153evidence\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to their own end. But at heart, I agree with Jack and Ian: scientific laws should be for the kind of rules that are \u00e2\u20ac\u0153deepest and best supported,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and they also should be <i>immensely<\/i> malleable. However, a point was made!!!<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>But people <i>like<\/i> certainty, and many seem unable to understand why informed doubt is a strength. This opens up a huge opportunity for the storytelling ape, who insists on courtroom drama and the struggle between prosecution and defence.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This is referenced in the final line of the previous chapter. The people of Ankh-Morpork were more interested in the fight than the actual results of the tribunal. And look at the three examples the authors provide! All of those issues were spun into ridiculous dramatic affairs, and more often than not, actual evidence was immaterial to any real decisions made. Shit, that climate change example using Richard Muller\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s about-face on his own skepticism feels so strange to read in 2020. (Still feels weird to type that year, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all.) Because that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what should happen when we are confronted with the reality of climate change! We should publicly renounce our previously bad takes and policies! And instead, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re all living in an existential hellscape in which our world\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s livability clock is ticking down and\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 well, you get the point.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>So, let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s talk about the Higgs boson again! I actually think the pianology analogy was brilliant. I understood the experiment way better this way than in the previous chapter that addressed the LHC? Seriously! In particular, I got the whole way of testing for the presence of the Higgs boson by seeing what else was there. (Or what company it keeps.) Plus, lots of wordplay, so that was a bonus. But the greater point at work throughout this chapter is that the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153truth\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is hard to come by. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve <i>basically<\/i> proven that <i>a<\/i> Higgs boson exists (there might be four more), and there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a basis to move forward. But scientific laws are susceptible to exceptions, and THAT ISN\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T A BAD THING.<\/p>\n<p>I admit to feeling a bit lost once the chapter got into quantum mechanics and Ohm\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s law, though I think I understood the general point of why they were included here: Humans have a tendency to resist things that are not easily explained or organized, and that happens a lot when we are missing new information, information that we didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know how to observe. (Like quantum mechanics without chaos theory.) All of this is\u00e2\u20ac\u201dI\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m guessing here\u00e2\u20ac\u201da direct lead-up to what is going to happen at the tribunal. What sort of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153evidence\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is going to be presented? How will the Omnians ignore it or manufacture their own? That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what this seems to be building up to, right?<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/youtu.be\/wwlXtO8wZyA<\/p>\n<p><b>Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n<p>&#8211; <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.markoshiro.com\/blog\/2019\/5\/7\/the-anger-is-a-gift-trade-paperback-is-out-today\">The paperback edition of my debut, ANGER IS A GIFT, is now OUT!<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong><strong>If you&#8217;d like to stay up-to-date on all announcements regarding my books, <a href=\"http:\/\/eepurl.com\/ey636\">sign up for my newsletter<\/a>! DO IT.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the twelfth chapter of Judgment Day, we discuss what counts as evidence in scientific theory. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read The Science of Discworld IV.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[451],"tags":[463,248,564],"class_list":["post-5114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discworld","tag-mark-reads-discworld","tag-terry-pratchett","tag-the-science-of-discworld-4"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5114\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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