Pittsburgh HPS Proves That P

Who knows where these came from, but I’m sure that they are not endorsed by the parties mentioned.

Earman. Start with plain vanilla Minkowski spacetime (in which obviously not p), and delete a point. Multiply the metric by a conformal mapping in a compact region around the deleted point, so that the length of every geodesic diverges as it approaches that point. Then, p.

Gotthelf. All we can learn from whoever really wrote Aristotle’s Parts of Animals is p. Therefore, p.

Grunbaum. Many theistically inclined philosophers have quite wrongly confused themselves into thinking that not p. Therefore, p.

Lennox. For years, scholars used to think that not p. But when you actually look at what Darwin wrote in the manuscripts, it’s pretty clear that p. Therefore, p.

Machamer. (Loudly): It’s time to start breaking down the old dichotomies! Once we do that, p won’t sound so strange! Therefore, p.

Machery. Surveys show that while 60% of American students say not p, only 40% of Chinese students say not p. Therefore, p.

McGuire. It’s tempting to follow enlightenment scholars in thinking that for Newton, not p. On the contrary. For Newton, it was very much the case that p. Therefore, p.

Mitchell. While not p might be suggested on a top-down analysis, p clearly emerges on an integrative pluralist account. Therefore, p.

Norton. As you can see in this little animated GIF, p. Therefore, p.

Palmieri. Historians have argued about whether or not p is really true. However, recreation of the experiment suggests that p. Therefore, p.

Schaffner. Some suggest that not p. But there are certainly distinct theories that have the same formal structure, but for which p is true nonetheless. Therefore, p.

Levine & Mcintyre. Back in the good old days, it used to be that not p. But then the graduate students bought a scanner. Therefore, p.

Alternatives anyone?


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2 thoughts on “Pittsburgh HPS Proves That P

  1. slartibartfast

    What is chronological age effectively measuring here? Is it newness to the field? Is it newness to research and discovery in general? Is it testosterone levels? Brain structure? The presence/absence of stabilizing/distracting factors, such as a family with kids?

    The question is particularly relevant since chronological age doesn’t mean what it did even 25 years ago, let alone a hundred. The field of aging psychology has added two new ‘life stages’ to the human list of child/adolescent/adult/middle-age/senior – extended adolescence (ie – 20 somethingness) and extended middle age (ie – over 60 and still nowhere near retirement).

    So, the age of scientific acheivement may or may not be comparable over time, unless it is locked into biologically-driven phenomenon. In which case it would remain constant.

    Your graph only reaches into the 1920s. Surely there have been a few worthy breakthroughs since then: certainly in amount of intuition required, if not as much in their scope.

    In any case, anyone, young or old, that wants their name on the map should hurry: Artificial General Intelligence will put us all out to pasture in the next hundred years, so act now while supplies of discoverableness last :>

  2. Bryan

    Hi slartibartfast,

    Oops! I think you meant to comment on this post.

    You’re right that ‘chronological age’ may not mean what it used to. I suspect that only a more detailed analysis than the one I’ve given can really tell. (An analysis that goes, as you recommend, well beyond the 1920s.)

    On artificial intelligence: interesting suggestion. I’m still digesting these arguments.