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Comment by short_sells_poo | Hacker News Reader

"Bob was right, I was wrong. The use of that discretionary time was a courageous thing,"

This is such a powerful statement from Rob Kirschner. It is science at it's best. Someone (rightfully) opposing an experiment, being incorrect and admitting, without reluctance, shame or regrets that they were wrong.

At the time, Bob's idea was by all available information questionable. But it was right for him to persevere, it was right that he had to face and overcome opposition and it is right that the opposition gracefully admits that Bob was right :)

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This interview with Kirshner is a good read as well: https://www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral... And a reminder that science is not generally moved forward by strokes of brilliance, but by a whole bunch of people grinding at the fuzzy edge until the picture becomes a little more clear.

Spectacularly appropriate metaphor - thanks for that.

Kuhns distinction between normal and revolutionary science might be interesting to you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_Science

Great quote. Also unintentionally (I think) humorous, given the manufacturing problem with Hubble referred to in the article was slightly inaccurate grinding of the lens' edges.

Reminds me of Malcolm Gladwell's "pull the goalie" podcast. https://medium.com/the-post-grad-survival-guide/lessons-for-...

I think it's a good lesson to learn, in general, that intuition and popular choices are often wrong or at least sub optimal. But I suspect that the popular sub-optimal path is taken for pragmatic reasons. More specifically to teaching, I have recently being putting together lesson plans for coding/robotics workshops and I suspect part of the reason for a less experimental experience is that it is easier to plan than a less on-rails teaching experience. This makes me think that at least part of popular wisdom is simply that the sub-optimal popular choice might be good enough given insufficient resources to implement the truly optimal choice.

Not to make a reddit comment, your comment is insightful but can also be summed up with: "nobody ever got fired for buying IBM".

The path of least resistance is definitely a draw, and there is incredible business value lost pursuing it.

"Bob was right" would be a good framed reminder

As an Aussie, this hilariously augments a phrase used commonly here: "Bob's your uncle"

(meaning roughly: "and there it is" / "and there you have it")

Even more hilariously, I have an uncle Bob.

Also used in the UK. Bob can be an auntie too.

If you want to confuse a non-native English speaker (like an American) "<do thing> and Robert's your mothers brother"

Sounds exactly like something Jinyang would say.

And of-course, Erich is a lying person. :D

I seem to remember back in the 1990s reading a research paper about a theorem proover that used the phrase "And Bob's your uncle" to indicate success. A query was initiated by typing "Is that a fact".

Is "Praise Bob" still a thing?

Well, now that I’ve literally just now returned to this mess of a planet I would sure hope so!

I suppose; it's certainly better than stubbornly holding one's ground after one is proven wrong.

But I think the courage Bob showed in the first place is much more praiseworthy. He actually had to put his butt on the line for this, admitting someone was right after the fact does not usually require that.

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