The Truth, Unhidden

-- You'd probably better read this theory about the COVID-19 crisis advanced by Brian J. Noggle quickly, before the powers that be discover that he's sussed out their plan and make it -- and perhaps him -- disappear.

-- Although this piece at National Review by Charles C.W. Cooke is targeted at his fellow millennials, suggesting that COVID-19 does not represent another of the many more awful things they've experienced more than any other generation, it inspired a couple of thoughts in me as well. Mr. Cooke creates a thought-experiment, asking what an average 25- to 30-year-old born in 1900 might have lived through by now. I transposed that onto my own lifespan. The 1900 me has seen both world wars, the Great Depression, the Korean War, Spanish Flu and a whole lot of other awful stuff. On the other hand, in two years Ray Charles is going to release his first album, gathering several of his hit singles onto one disc, so I got that going for me.

-- Physicist Sabine Hossenfelder takes to task the idea that good theories make good predictions. Accurate predictions may have some value, but sometimes a theory correctly predicts an outcome even though the theory itself is not correct. The predicted outcome may have happened because of an entirely different sequence of events. Of far more value, Dr. Hossenfelder says, is a theory which explains observed phenomena. A theory that makes correct predictions may not explain anything, which makes it of little use to a scientist. I may start applying that principle as I observe phenomena in my own life, although it may only lead me to saying "These people aren't very bright" a number of times.