Sunday, August 1, 2010

Degrees of Wrong.

Stuart: "It's a little wrong to say to say a tomato is a vegetable, it's very wrong to say it's a suspension bridge." - The Big Bang Theory: The Hofstadter isotope.

I firmly believe this to be one of the best lines ever on TV. Only surpassed by a couple quips on Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
"Yes, let's not jump to conclusions."
"I didn't jump. I took a tiny step and there conclusions were."
(Although, comparing quips with Buffy in the running is a bit unfair, "That'll put marzipan in your pie plate bingo." is the worst and it's actually pretty great because it's suppose to be bad.)

Back to the topic, much of my belief that this is a great quote comes from my love of understanding the gradation of wrongness and how it pertains to science. In short that science is the process by which we get less wrong over time by testing what we think might be the case against reality which is the case.

In a sense, it's a little wrong to say that gravity is Newtonian force, it's a lot wrong to say it's the spirit energy of everything trying to go to their ideal location.

1 comment:

Pure Bliss said...

"science is the process by which we get more wrong over time by testing what we think might be the case against reality which is the case."

I'd figure science would get less wrong over time. I guess one of us is wrong about that.