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True – at Least for Now
Jul
I was thinking about the pace of change I am now living in. Time definitely seems to be speeding up. In my early school years, June took so long to get behind me before opening the door for 2 months of fun.
Wikipedia (often an exciting starting point) says this about the scientific belief about the earth’s shape.
In the 3rd century BC, Hellenistic astronomy established the roughly spherical shape of Earth as a physical fact and calculated the Earth’s circumference. This knowledge was gradually adopted throughout the Old World during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages.
I’m not sure how many years the belief that the earth was round took to become generally accepted, but it was hundreds of years.
Let me bring in peanut allergies to the discussion just because I can. There is no doubt they are real. That has stood the test of time. But the cause of this upswing in this specific allergy has shifted from one truth to the next.
A researcher in 2001 compared the allergic rate in Jewish children in the UK to Jewish children in Israel, where it was much lower. Israeli children started eating Bamba, a peanut-based snack, as soon as they could eat solid food. Could early peanut exposure help explain the difference?
Now, many things that were true last year have proven to be untrue this year.
In 1960 Thomas Kuhn, a Viennese scientist and philosopher, proposed the phases of shifting truth to another truth in ‘The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.’
Phase 1 involves accepting normal science while conducting experiments to confirm the current science.
Phase 2 involves finding an anomaly but labelling it as an outlier – a statistical and acceptable variation.
Phase 3 involves the increasing volume of anomalies.
Phase 4 involves the revolution – acceptance of the new truth.
Phase 5 involves starting over at Phase 1.
Please give this a bit of a think. What truth have you noticed change over time during just your lifetime? Can you track the change using the phases I’ve outlined? Can you think of a current truth that you are confident it too will shift to another truth some years away?
I’m curious about your thoughts. Please share your bit of a think in the comment section below. It will come to me for approval before posting.
Photo by Michael Carruth on Unsplash
This Blog was inspired by a Wired magazine article
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There was a time when as kids we had to wait an excruciating hour after eating a meal before we could go swimming. “They” said there was a risk of getting a cramp and G-d forbid drowning. Who came up with this nutty idea? I’d call this phase 4.
Good one. Thanks.
I, too, remember negotiating with my parents moments after eating a hot dog, to be able to go into the lake above my ankles.