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PIERCE_OF_STARS

                                             February 15, 2010
                                             August   12, 2011
                                             May      11, 2022

C.S. Peirce, "How to Make our Ideas Clear" (1878):
                                                         http://www.cspeirce.com/menu/library/bycsp/ideas/id-main.htm

      "Who would have said, a few years ago, that
      we could ever know of what substances stars
      are made whose light may have been longer in
      reaching us than the human race has existed?
      Who can be sure of what we shall not know in
      a few hundred years?"

  That's a nice, ringing optimistic sentiment, but
  I'm afraid the way I think is to reverse it...

  Consider that the central idea of science-- really,
  not much more than "You should check what can be
  checked"-- existed for hundreds of years before the
  scientific enterprise really began to take off.

     Who can tell what stunningly obvious
     ideas we are going to ignore for the
     next few hundred years, before
     reaching that "Oh, duh!"  moment?





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