MOTION MOUNTAIN

concepts, lies and patterns of nature 285
general statements are often daring and fragile whereas general lies are usually boring
and violent. The truth is fragile. True statements require the author to stick his neck out
to criticism. Researchers know that if one doesn’t stick the neck out, it can’t be an observation
or a theory. (A theory is another name for one or several connected, not yet
falsified universal statements about observations.)* Telling the truth does make vulnerable.
For this reason, theories are often daring, arrogant or provoking; at the same time
theyhave to be fragile andvulnerable. For many men, theories thus resemble what they
think about women. Darwin’sThe originofspecies illustrates the stark contrast between
the numerous boring and solid facts that Darwin collected and the daring theory that he
deduced. Boredom of facts is a sign of truth.
In contrast, the witch-hunters propagating ‘creationism’ or so-called ‘intelligent
design’ are examples of liars. The specific lies they propagate, such as ‘the world was
createdin October4004 bce’,are sensational, whereasthegeneral lies theypropagate,
suchas ‘therehave not been big changes in the past’, are boring. This is in full contrast
with common sense. Moreover, lies, in contrast to true statements, make people violent.
The worse the lie, the more violent the people. This connection can be observed regularlyinthenews.Inotherwords,
‘creationism’ and ‘intelligent design’ arenotonlylies,
theyarebadlies.A ‘good’ generallie,likeagoodphysicaltheory,seemscrazyandseems
vulnerable, such as ‘people have free will’. A ‘good’ specific lie is boring, such as ‘this
looks like bread, but for the next ten minutes it is not’. Good lies do not induce violence.
Feelings can thus be a criterion to judge the quality of lies, if we pay careful attention to
the type of statement. A number of common lies are discussed later in this chapter.
An important aspect of any ‘good’ lie is to make as fewpublic statements as possible,
so that critics can check as little as possible. (For anybody sending corrections of mistakes
in thistext, I provide a small reward.) To detect lies, public scrutiny is important,
though not always reliable. Sometimes, even scientists make statements which are not
based on observations. However, a ‘good’ lie is always well prepared and told on purpose;
accidental lies are frowned upon by experts. Examples of good lies in science are
‘aether’, ‘UFOs’, ‘creation science’,or ‘cold fusion’.Sometimesittookmanydecades to
detecttheliesinthesedomains.
Tosumup,thecentralpointsoftheartoflyingwithoutbeingcaughtaretwo:donot
divulge details, and allow some select group to earn money with your lies. Bevague. All
the methods used to verify a statement ask for details, for precision. For any statement,
its degree of precision allows one to gauge the degree to which the author is sticking
his neck out. The more precision that is demanded, the weaker a statement becomes,
and the more likely a fault will be found, if there is one. This is the main reason that
* In other words, a set of not yet falsified patterns of observations on the same topic is called a (physical)
theory.Theterm ‘theory’ will alwaysbeusedinthissenseinthiswalk,i.e.,withthemeaning ‘setofcorrect
generalstatements’.ThisuseresultsfromitsGreekorigin: ‘theoria’ means ‘observation’;itsoriginalmeaning,‘passionateandemphaticcontemplation’,summarizesthewholeofphysicsinasingleword.(‘Theory’,
like ‘theatre’, is formed from the root θέ, meaning ‘the act of contemplating’.) Sometimes, however, the
term ‘theory’ is used – being confused with ‘hypothesis’ – with the meaning of ‘conjecture’, as in ‘your
theory is wrong’, sometimes with the meaning of ‘model’, as in ‘Chern–Simons’ theory and sometimes
with the meaning of ‘standard procedure’, as in ‘perturbation theory’. These incorrect uses are avoided
here.Tobring theissuetoapoint:thetheoryofevolutionisnotaconjecture,butasetofcorrectstatements
basedonobservation.
Motion Mountain – The Adventure of Physics copyright © Christoph Schiller June 1990–November 2015 free pdf file available at www.motionmountain.net