rationalskepticism.org

Greyman wrote:This deserves emphasis.

Calilasseia wrote:Not that I would dispense with some of his (Francis Galton's) other ideas, such as linear regression in statistics, or his contribution to forensic science with respect to fingerprints, or his prototype forays into meteorology.

Indeed, much to the point. We can despair of his overt racism, yet still do celebrate, and use, his contributions. Ideas will stand, or fail, on their own merits, not on how naughty or nice their developers had been.

This is a central idea that pedlars of apologetics frequently don't understand. Which has much to do with the manner in which the culture they inhabit, is one in which ideas are judged [1] by their conformity to doctrine, and [2] the individuals responsible for those ideas. Indeed, conformity to doctrine, and being the product of hallowed persons, is all too often far more important to the apologetics brigade, than the requisite ideas being supported by observational reality, being deductively sound, or possessing utility value.

I've repeatedly brought to the table here, the fact that Newtonian physics no longer constitutes cutting edge understanding of the physical world, and indeed, at least one of its core axioms - the axiom of absolute time - was destroyed by relativity years ago. But, we still teach the concepts. Because, even though that absolute time axiom is wrong, the resulting framework provides a useful approximation, with very small errors, when working with low velocities and weak gravity fields. That approximation also has the benefit of being conceptually and computationally simple, compared to the intimidating mathematical machinery needed for General Relativity. Calculus, the branch of mathematics that is needed for a proper approach to Newtonian physics, is simple enough to be taught to secondary school pupils. On the other hand, basic tensors are hard going for second year undergraduate mathematics students at university, and the Ricci Calculus is a beast of a discipline.

Consequently, I'm aware that even wrong ideas can sometimes be useful, regardless of whether or not the originator thereof happened to sit happily with my sensibilities. But I take time to understand the reasons for those wrong ideas being useful, and learn when that utility ceases. All too frequently, pedlars of doctrines aren't interested in utility full stop, and because of their doctrinal adherence, refuse point blank to consider even the possibility that ideas not conforming to doctrine can be right. Worse still, their attachment to texts and persons deemed "sacred", hobbles and handicaps their entire approach to discourse fatally.