I'm careful enough about being in error that I constantly look for signs that I am more right and the Bushists are more wrong. Probably this is not common behavior -- most people just think they are right. They should do it my way.
Erich von Daniken is known for books 'showing' that ancient structures such as the pyramids required help from otherworlders. The arguments are logical and proceed from the false assumption that ancient people were stupid. Something like that premise corrupts even 'official' science.
Specifically, the assumption is that scientists of past eras were stupid enough to believe in things like epicycles, vitalism, etc., but scientists of this era are straight-'thinking' and finally have it right.
However, two examples:
* The usual derivations of special relativity make an arbitrary assumption that leads to the Twin Paradox. I verified for myself, a few years ago, that changing that assumption yields a special relativity without any Twin Paradox. Experimentation is required to know which sr, if either, is correct. Experiments have been run, of course, but not all think those experiments were done correctly; I have no opinion on that matter.
* Bell's 'theorem' is wrong. In John Bell's well known 'popular' paper about his 'theorem', Bertlmann's socks and the nature of reality, he explains his reasoning (for quantum mechanics) by analogy to a problem in statistics of heart attacks. However, in the heart attacks case his reasoning is wrong in an intuitive way. I found this a few years ago, and it shows that Bell wasn't thinking straight. In my experience, pointing this out to a prominent Bell's 'theorem' believer, I get back 'Okay, yes, Bell was wrong about that, but his "theorem" is right.'
In fact the main error in Bell's reasoning was found in the 1980s by the late physicist E. T. Jaynes. In the last several years other physicists have devised classical models of EPR experiments. EPR experiments are supposed to demonstrate certain difficult to comprehend 'facts' about quantum mechanics, but the connection between the experiments and those 'facts' is Bell's 'theorem'. But Bell's 'theorem' is wrong.
What wrongly believed 'facts' am I talking about? It is believed widely that quantum mechanics requires 'instantaneous' action at a distance, or 'non-locality'; this 'fact' is founded on Bell's incorrect 'theorem'. It is believed widely that there can be no reduction of quantum mechanics to a deterministic theory; this 'fact' is founded on Bell's incorrect 'theorem'.
The field of quantum cryptography is popular and well funded these days, and is supposed to give absolutely unbreakable ciphers; the absolute unbreakability of those ciphers, however, is founded on the assumption that there is no deterministic theory underlying quantum mechanics; and that assumption depends on Bell's 'theorem'. (The theory of quantum computing may also be affected; I don't remember well enough what that relationship would be.)
Scientists suffer from prejudices today similar to those of earlier times. Indeed, most likely the paper publishing culture of today makes it harder to overcome these prejudices than it was a hundred or more years ago.
Okay, what city goes next? How many cities do we have to lose before one realizes that more destroyed cities is what our broken form of 'democracy' will give us?
That we still tolerate George W. Bush after all this shows that we are not capable of ruling ourselves in this way: bathed in ignorance.
Do you know why Michael Brown is not being fired? Because he makes Bush feel important. That's what Paul O'Neill didn't do. He actually said things implying that Bush was not Jesus Christ II.
If the Republicans will not impeach Bush, demand the Republicans step down. If it's powerful enough a demand, they'll impeach Bush. That's what you've got to realize. If we demand Bush's resignation, we might get Michael Brown fired. If we demand Bush be impeached, we might get his resignation (it worked with Nixon). If we demand Congress be dissolved, we might get Bush's impeachment. These are facts the Democrats have forgotten -- indeed, they ask for less than they actually want.
And look where it has gotten us. A part of downtown Manhattan, destroyed. Almost the entire city of New Orleans, destroyed. We hadn't had a major city destroyed in this country since 1906 -- we forgot what it was like. It would have been better had we not forgotten. What city goes next?
No, I don't know what we do after that. So what? It's like marriage: you don't know what comes next, and if you do know you are wrong. You do it anyway. That's how this nation was founded, goddammit.
