One of the tactics of error in our day is to take something that is well-respected, well-regarded as true, and conflate a whole bunch of other things with that original thing (greatly expand the definition, you might say).
A tie-in to the physics-specific part of this is to wonder how faith in science was doing circa 1950, after the nuclear bomb's invention and the deadliest war in history, enabled by the mass of inventions that happened from circa 1900 to 1940.
When Oppenheimer was ousted from military authority in 1954, was that considered an attack on science?
From 100 years ago in GK Chesterton's Father Brown, "The Mistake of the Machine."
"'What sentimentalists men of science are!' exclaimed Father Brown, 'and how much more sentimental must American men of science must be! Who but a Yankee would think of proving anything from the pulse-rate (of a lie-detector). Why, they must be as sentimental as a man who thinks a woman is in love with him if she blushes."
Ed Feser has a timely essay on this style of argument:
https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2023/07/stove-and-searle-on-rhetorical.html
I'd tell him to move to Substack but the history on his blog is so extensive that it may not be worth it.
Appreciated, thanks.
A tie-in to the physics-specific part of this is to wonder how faith in science was doing circa 1950, after the nuclear bomb's invention and the deadliest war in history, enabled by the mass of inventions that happened from circa 1900 to 1940.
When Oppenheimer was ousted from military authority in 1954, was that considered an attack on science?
From 100 years ago in GK Chesterton's Father Brown, "The Mistake of the Machine."
"'What sentimentalists men of science are!' exclaimed Father Brown, 'and how much more sentimental must American men of science must be! Who but a Yankee would think of proving anything from the pulse-rate (of a lie-detector). Why, they must be as sentimental as a man who thinks a woman is in love with him if she blushes."
You tempt me to read still more Chesterton, sir.