My personal lesson was that eloquence, confidence and status can often be bad predictors of accuracy. While I knew it in principle, these striking examples helped me bring it closer to the gut level. ymmv.
“The law that entropy always increases holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature. If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell’s equations — then so much the worse for Maxwell’s equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation — well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation.”
— Arthur Eddington
A theory is the more impressive the greater the simplicity of its premises, the more different kinds of things it relates, and the more extended its area of applicability. Therefore the deep impression that classical thermodynamics made upon me. It is the only physical theory of universal content which I am convinced will never be overthrown, within the framework of applicability of its basic concepts.
Interestingly, amid the “it will never work” examples, the linked page actually offers one example of a failed “it will work” prediction.
Automobiles will start to decline almost as soon as the last shot is fired in World War II. The name of Igor Sikorsky will be as well known as Henry Ford’s, for his helicopter will all but replace the horseless carriage as the new means of popular transportation. Instead of a car in every garage, there will be a helicopter.… These ‘copters’ will be so safe and will cost so little to produce that small models will be made for teenage youngsters. These tiny ’copters, when school lets out, will fill the sky as the bicycles of our youth filled the prewar roads.
Some of these seem unfalsifiable. Seneca on technology vs. philosophy, the moral objections to street lighting, and possibly Colombe’s objections to mathematical astrophysics.
The dangers are obvious. Stores of gasoline in the hands of people interested primarily in profit would constitute a fire and explosive hazard of the first rank. Horseless carriages propelled by gasoline might attain speeds of 14 or even 20 miles per hour. The menace to our people of vehicles of this type hurtling through our streets and along our roads and poisoning the atmosphere would call for prompt legislative action even if the military and economic implications were not so overwhelming…
And, indeed, there has been much legislative action concerning internal combustion engine-powered vehicles...
So, what lesson should we learn from these cherry-picked predictions?
About all I can say is, ‘try to avoid predictions out to infinity’. Over a few years or millennia, most of those were awful good predictions...
My personal lesson was that eloquence, confidence and status can often be bad predictors of accuracy. While I knew it in principle, these striking examples helped me bring it closer to the gut level. ymmv.
— Arthur Eddington
— Albert Einstein
This one’s still going strong...
I wonder if there are more predictions of the kind “it will work/happen soon”.
ETA For example, Principia Mathematica. It turned out it’ll never work.
Interestingly, amid the “it will never work” examples, the linked page actually offers one example of a failed “it will work” prediction.
I don’t know, “It’ll Work: Another Collection of Failed Predictions” just doesn’t sound as inspiring.
Some of these seem unfalsifiable. Seneca on technology vs. philosophy, the moral objections to street lighting, and possibly Colombe’s objections to mathematical astrophysics.
And, indeed, there has been much legislative action concerning internal combustion engine-powered vehicles...