Sublime

Karl Popper wrote “A theory is part of empirical science if and only if it conflicts with possible experiences

The physicist Richard Feynman once said, “Learn by trying to understand simple things in terms of other ideas—always honestly and directly.”

Yes, there are effectively certain truths of science. General Relativity may be overturned by some future physics—albeit not in any way that predicts the Sun will orbit Jupiter; the new theory must steal the successful predictions of the old theory, not contradict them. But evolutionary theory takes place on a higher level of organization than atom

It is a way of thinking, the best approach yet devised (if still an imperfect one) for discovering progressively better approximations of how things really are.

Historically, censorship has not worked out well for atheists, or for religious, racial, or sexual minorities—and there’s no reason to believe that Theory contains a magic ingredient that might make censorship work differently.

One of the greatest programmers in history, who did indeed understand every component of the computer from the software down to the chip, Niklaus Wirth, wrote “the belief that complex systems require armies of designers and programmers is wrong. A system that is not understood in its entirety, or at least to a significant degree of detail

We forget—or we willfully ignore—that our models are simplifications of the world. We figure that if we make a mistake, it will be at the margin.