is what separates men from animals. But I refuse to assert that for finality. Who knows? There might come a time that it could be proved wrong. And I suppose, they are starting to disclaim such premise in the recent findings that even dolphins and other homo-tagged animals possess such faculty together with the capacity for loving. If that time comes, it could have been the greatest insult to the egoistic tendencies of the human race and it must then push us out of our illusion of supremacy over the whole world.
Nevertheless, keep thinking. It’s our only passport to know that we are, at this point in time, still dangerously ignorant. Keeping this in mind, we are gaining the responsibility of throwing dung bombs to a restless society who is in deep slumber. By dung bombs, I refer to more pressing questions and novel theories challenging the strength of what we have believed in for years. They may look at them at first as trash, but later on, a very precious trash. By slumber, I refer on how people adhere to addressing the question marks by giving periods and stopping there, something that will get Popper totally irritated by his greatest allergy, the false-finality allergy. As for any answer, there should be more questions, more tests and hence, more knowledge.
The quest for knowledge should never be seen as something that stops in Newton but something that progresses in the pages of history. And sometimes even if it occurs seldom, it takes only a pair of geniuses to disprove the multiple adherents of tradition. Well, they may be right in saying that it takes two to tango. But I also refuse to say that for certain.
We see Einstein and Eddington emerge in a time when scientific struggle is trapped under the banner of warfare. It characterizes the basic human greed for domination. Domination necessarily connotes established position and prominence, something that would keep people’s eyes fixed upon conventions and authority. It throws away any possible hindrance to its continuing reign and consumes the human intellectual pursuit by injecting the best morphine in town, the promise of certainty. In such situation, anyone who clings to Newton holds authority, and hence dominates. They adhere to probability by stating the new theory’s proximity to the Newton principle and scrutinized the same by attaching its truth to the authority of its sources. The trend is to narrow down towards the answer by proving its truthfulness and not on how Karl Popper would necessitate, by looking at its falsehood, slashing them down, challenging them until the theory finally stood the test of time. It should patiently wait until someone finally proves it wrong.
Who the hell says that everything must be certain? That things ought to be probable than possible? Einstein, for one, devised his theory free of such ambition of conventions, of well-meaning sources, and of deceitful authorities. Had it been that Einstein baptized himself under Newton, he may have gained prominence in the universities of his time but not anymore now as someone who proved them all wrong. If so, he may have belonged to this group of University Men who haughtily see themselves as the final arbiters of truth. But he knows enough not to be fettered in such mentality.
I may call such the old-man’s disorder. Look at an old man. He finds all stupid reasons in the world just to stick on what he believes in even if face-point, its sheer impossibility is thrown down in front of him. The world of science is not safe from this illness. In the movie, one of its manifestations calls himself a man-of-scince but forfeits his duties to set out all his biases for the sake of knowledge. Well, he is surely just a sample of populations who are irritated to change. Surely, it is not a caprice on the part of Eddington to dismiss the old man’s closed mentality. Eddington’s figure is, nevertheless, a reminder that every theory must pass on into tests and not dismissed by sheer sticking to what’s conventional.
In as far as there may have been Einsteins and Eddingtons existing nowadays, we can easily see that they are outnumbered by those who are ill with the old man’s disorder. Worse is that they are setting their niche in our institutions like the Church, Universities and Governments, causing an alarming outbreak.
In our university for instance, the continuous struggle for domination is heavily rampant in the way different courses assume their prominence over the others, that it is as if one course possesses more truths than the others. The way some old teachers get irritated to students who try to question what they are teaching is devastating future betterments in the sharing of information. The way the students invoke the authority of sources at all times is very disturbing in the sense that they are not anymore empowered to think outside of the box and on themselves causing no new ideas to come about. The way the administration plays the shut-up campaign on those Einsteins and Eddingtons is becoming equally demanding like a martial-law on academic pursuit.
One thing I guess is what we should hold on to, again and again: keep thinking. It’s our only passport to know that we are, at this point in time, still dangerously ignorant.
