Friday, June 16, 2006
JSH: Politics
As I consider this factoring idea using the square root ambiguity I find it amazing some behavior displayed by two sci.math regulars who stepped in with mathematics when they thought they could dismiss my ideas, but quit posting math when I pushed back a bit, also, of course, I reminded them that factoring is a BIG DEAL, so they needed to be careful.
But why not finish out the equations as I described?
I suggest to you that they never cared about what was mathematically correct, but were playing a political game to win political points on the newsgroup.
You people believe in consensus.
To you a mathematical argument is true because everyone agrees it's true.
I think you're stupid for that belief.
People get together and believe all kinds of dumb things.
A LOT of math people can get together and all be blinded one way or another, declare an argument to be a proof when it's not, and go home happy as hell.
That's human nature.
People are limited. Human beings can convince themselves of just about anything, and fight to the death over it, even when it's wrong.
People can fight to the death, over wrong ideas.
And you people think your system of having some people look over some complicated stuff actually can be relied on to work?
Either you're very stupid, and unwilling to learn lessons of history, or you're so naive that, well, I think for many of you, you are NOT stupid, and NOT naive, but know full well that with today's system, a person could have a full career as a mathematician, and never actually have a single proof.
But instead, have a lot of people who signed off on math-ese and complex arguments that were crafted to LOOK like proofs in a system that is about human judgement—not mathematical truth.
But why not finish out the equations as I described?
I suggest to you that they never cared about what was mathematically correct, but were playing a political game to win political points on the newsgroup.
You people believe in consensus.
To you a mathematical argument is true because everyone agrees it's true.
I think you're stupid for that belief.
People get together and believe all kinds of dumb things.
A LOT of math people can get together and all be blinded one way or another, declare an argument to be a proof when it's not, and go home happy as hell.
That's human nature.
People are limited. Human beings can convince themselves of just about anything, and fight to the death over it, even when it's wrong.
People can fight to the death, over wrong ideas.
And you people think your system of having some people look over some complicated stuff actually can be relied on to work?
Either you're very stupid, and unwilling to learn lessons of history, or you're so naive that, well, I think for many of you, you are NOT stupid, and NOT naive, but know full well that with today's system, a person could have a full career as a mathematician, and never actually have a single proof.
But instead, have a lot of people who signed off on math-ese and complex arguments that were crafted to LOOK like proofs in a system that is about human judgement—not mathematical truth.
# posted by James Harris @ 08:13 
