Hacker News Reader

Comment by fasteddie31003 | Hacker News Reader

The problem is that we cannot use the scientific method to be sure of past events. The correct answer to a lot of anthropology is "We don't know" which is the most scientific explanation. I expect most people have the same expectation of truth across different sciences. It is a difficult concept for many people in my experience that hard physics is more truthful than anthropology, which are both called sciences.

View on HN

I agree about the overall problem, but there are some empirical techniques we can use. Being able to extract and sequence DNA from preserved remains has been revolutionary. It's also amazing what we can do with pollen now. These don't solve the problem of reconstructing pre-historic culture, but they have helped us understand pieces of the picture better. They've been able to discredit some ideas that were widely held in the past.

And yet the more one learns in any scientific field, finds you answering more and more: "I don't know." The more you learn about anything the more you realize how little you 'know'. Only idiots are left with the certainty they are 'right.'

“We live on an island surrounded by a sea of ignorance. As our island of knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.”

John Archibald Wheeler

Or to quote Operation Ivy, “All I know is that I don’t know nothing!” I believe Socrates’ whole schtick was that people don’t know much except for maybe some super specific knowledge and he spent his life making a public spectacle out of proving this.

Yes, you can use the scientific method in the historical sciences. There are all kinds of methods that you can use to be more certain about things. (I'm no historian, so I cannot elaborate, sorry.) The level of certainty you can reach may often be different from the exact sciences, but some things can be very certain; no-one is going to deny that Julius Caesar existed, for example.

You’re not wrong, despite Wittgenstein’s Brown Papers, his criticism of Golden Bough—-people continue to refuse to acknowledge the limits of knowledge.

Here’s an author theorizing on why people go to festivals TODAY, instead of the obvious answer that they’re a fun social game he creates this entire abstract theory about worship and religion.

https://charleseisenstein.org/essays/girard-series-part-1-th...

Future humans will say the same thing about us for letting non-God billionaires have disproportionate control of our economic behavior.

“They sat around playing banal number games, trying to manipulate each other’s agency, pointing at some other typical human called “Jeff Bezos”, seeking to get rich like him not realizing he’s actually protected by their consent to then contemporary political arrangements. They played along with all of it!”

The only difference is they’ll probably have a perfect digital record of our acquiescence to laugh at over.

"Manipulating each other's agency" is a hell of a description of nonessential economic activity.

We're already, today, looking back at the utter failure of multiple attempts to impose alternative economic models, and the horrific human costs in lives and poverty until they turned back to free market economics or a mixed public/private model to save themselves.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com