“History is the accepted lie. This is true of scientific as of any other lie; the conventional lie holds. Every history of scientific discovery we read represents a conventionally accepted fiction which some misguidedly regard as true for all time but which the more intelligent realize is a fiction accepted for convenience.”
how does science progress? “It can progress only when and because certain patent fictions or lies are universally and conventionally accepted as truth; that temporarily ends controversy in that sector and the synthetic pattern thus create, called scientific truth, does prove useful for many practical purposes. But cessation of controversy usually occurs because the dispute has exhausted the disputants and nobody is left who cares to waster energy calling anyone else a lawyer. There are no final truths; there are even no final facts. There are simply things that appear to be true under certain rigidly controlled conditions and usually some important condition has escaped control. There are only hypotheses, theories, fiction, and conventional lies.”
From Doubt.
how does science progress? “It can progress only when and because certain patent fictions or lies are universally and conventionally accepted as truth; that temporarily ends controversy in that sector and the synthetic pattern thus create, called scientific truth, does prove useful for many practical purposes. But cessation of controversy usually occurs because the dispute has exhausted the disputants and nobody is left who cares to waster energy calling anyone else a lawyer. There are no final truths; there are even no final facts. There are simply things that appear to be true under certain rigidly controlled conditions and usually some important condition has escaped control. There are only hypotheses, theories, fiction, and conventional lies.”
From Doubt.
