Seth's Blog: Gravity is just a theory

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/12/gravity-is-just.html

by twampss • 18 years ago

27 48 18 years ago

sethgodin.typepad.com

alexandros2• 18 years ago

Sometimes you have to go against the grain though. After all, evolution is true, and marketing it as 'this is a great way to supplement your creationism' (which Darwin actually did) may not exactly go over well or be the most honest approach.

smanek• 18 years ago

We don't know evolution is true. The most you can say is that evolution is the best explanation we have for the data collected so far.

There have been pretty major revisions to the evolution since Darwin's time, and I think it still needs a lot of work to explain some of its fuzzier points ('chemical evolution', cambrian explosion, etc). It's entirely possible that a new explanation (i.e., not evolution) could better explain those and other data points.

It could be similar to how newtonian mechanics works 99% of the time, but couldn't explain the orbit of mercury. We needed relativity (which arguably disproved gravity) to explain the handful of non-conforming data points.

alexandros2• 18 years ago

granted. perhaps 'a better theory than what came before it' might be a better description.

kirse9• 18 years ago

We don't know evolution is true

I think scientists are still waiting on the results of the 100m year experiment where a fish pen turns into a group of intelligent humans.

Honestly, I'm sure I'll get flak for this, but I can't believe people accept Evolution as if it's some inherent and proven physical law as gravity. On the macro-evolutionary level, there's so much bullshitting/extrapolation going on (especially in the arena of speciation) that there's so many questions and holes left unanswered.

Despite the fact that we only ever observe variation within a given type, we're supposed to have faith in the scientists that (given enough time) we'll get whole new kingdoms of life. As far as I'm concerned, those experiments prove one thing: variation exists within a given type. Period.

nazgulnarsil• 18 years ago

... "this is the best explanation for the data" is the most you can ever say about anything at any time. ever.

danhak• 18 years ago

It always irks me a bit when science is pushed out of its comfort zone to make some non-scientific point. Subtlety is lost, misconception introduced. And language like "just a theory" suggests that scientific theory is much less rigorous than it actually is.

maximilian• 18 years ago

Exactly. A theory has been vetted by both experimentalists and theorists multiple times until they are all so convinced a hypothesis works that it moves into theory land. In the vernacular, a theory is just an idea, which isn't the way its used in science.

Eliezer• 18 years ago

Wow... apparently Seth Godin is my uncle wearing a clever disguise.

http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/10/no-one-knows-wh.html

tokipin• 18 years ago

i think gravity 'waves' travel at the speed of light

KirinDave9• 18 years ago

You're right. As far as anyone can tell, gravity propagates at the speed of light.

We're just not really sure what is propagating, or why. LHC will hopefully finally give us some useful observations on the subject.

mamama• 18 years ago

Theory: a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world, based on a body of facts that have been repeatedly confirmed through observation and experiment. e.g. General relativity has a lot of mathematics backing it up.

Law: a scientific generalization based on empirical observations of physical behavior. e.g F = ma. We don't know why it's true, it just is some sort of an axiom.

mixmax3• 18 years ago

Seth should pick his examples more carefully, he obviously doesn't know anything about science.

-----------

Seth: They say he discovered gravity. Nonsense. He just named it.

Fact: He didn't discover gravity, and has never been accredited for doing so. The famous story of Gallileo dropping balls from the tower of Pisa to measure gravity happened in the 17'th century, so obviously the idea of gravity was around for a while before Newton. What he did do, however, was to publish the Principia Mathematica in 1687 that gives an in-depth explanation of gravity, including the famous inverse square law. In the book he theorised his three laws of motion, invented calculus and basically lay the whoole foundation for classical mechanics. This is what we remember him for, not for having named gravity.

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Seth: Everyone 'believes' in gravity. And yet, we know virtually nothing about it

fact: Seth should read up on his physics, starting with Einstein.

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seth: There are very few people doing serious gravity research

Fact: One of the major goals of modern physics is a theory of everything where the four natural forces (weak force, strong force, electromagnetic force and gravity) are combined into one. Gravity has always been the odd one out and hard to explain, thus spawning massive research into gravity. One of the reasone the LHC, the most expensive physical experiment to date, was conceived was to learn more about gravity. Oh, and there's this guy called Einstein that apparently did some work in this area too.

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Seth: There are evolution skeptics who would prefer a different story, but no gravity skeptics, even though there's a lot less science there.

Fact: Religion always tries to put down science that reaches contradictory conclusions than scripture, and gravity is no exception since it implies that the earth is not at the center of the universe. Seth doesn't seem to get this though, since the battle was lost by the church long ago. Take Gallileo who was on trial on the suspicion of heresy in 1633 because of his theories of gravity. If found guilty he would have paid with his life. The laws of gravity were much more opposed by the church than evolution is today.

mynameishere• 18 years ago

Fact: Religion always tries to put down science that reaches contradictory conclusions than scripture

Fact: Not "always". For the most part, religious people are oblivious to science, and only highly visible matters like heliocentricity (gravity, less so) become contentious. It's clear that he's making an imperfect metaphor and the details aren't especially important.

That is, are you marketing evolution? Even the smart lads believe in evolution because it's fashionable, like the iphone, and not because they followed through all the relevant citations. Rather, merely quoting the full title of "On the origin of species" is enough to put fair weather Darwinists in a tizzy--and the atheists are right in there with the Pope, depending on how you advertise the inquisition. It's a marketing problem and has a marketing solution.

mixmax3• 18 years ago

I'm not disagreeing with his central thesis, I'm just saying that it is undermined tremendously by his bad examples.

And since he is in marketing he should know better.

gjm11• 18 years ago

1. There's a broad space between "because it's fashionable" and "because they followed through all the relevant citations". It seems to me that "the smart lads", if you mean anything sensible by that, occupy a point of that space that's somewhere near "because they looked to see what people who show genuine signs of expertise tend to think". Which, given that science is a field in which expertise is actually possible and somewhat assessable, seems to me quite different from "because it's fashionable".

2. The full title of the "Origin of Species"? What, you mean the fact that (gasp) it has the words "favoured races" in it? Well, I suppose that someone who doesn't have any clue what Darwin meant by that might be worried that it's talking about human "races", but ignorance and stupidity are always with us.

smwhreyebelong• 18 years ago

Agreed. Momentum might have been a better concept to use here than gravity: Use something that a lot of people already believe in than trying to change their belief completely.

In other words, push the ball that's already in motion than trying to stop it and move in the opposite direction.

nebula• 18 years ago

Gravity has always been the odd one out and hard to explain

What do you mean by this? can you please elaborate.

Einstein has already explained gravity as curvature of space caused by the presence of mass. And this is a well tested theory.

mixmax3• 18 years ago

I'm not a scientist, just have a casual interest in science and its history, so please allow for some inaccuracies and feel free to correct me.

It appears that gravity is somewhat different than the other forces in fundamental ways. The other three forces are adequately described using quantum mechanics - gravity not so. Gravity is explained using Einsteins general theory of relativity, and describes gravity as a curvature of the time-space continuum. Modern physics rests on two main pillars: quantum mechanics and relativity. Gravity is the only one of the fundamental forces explained by the relativity column, and so it is harder to incorporate into a unified theory encompassing all the forces.

Of course it doesn't help that quantum mechanics and relativity are by many thought to be incompatible theories: The first works well for sub-atom sizes and weights, the latter works well for planet sizes and weights. This is also one of the reasons black holes are so interesting - sub atom size and planet weight. Both quantum mechanics and relativity must be at work.

Really interesting stuff :-)

zupatol2• 18 years ago

Newton's cheap trick to get famous is not giving a name to something everybody knows. It's standing on the shoulder of giants.

zupatol2• 18 years ago

Maybe my post is not very clear.

Seth Godin implies that Newton became famous because of something that amounts to a cheap marketing trick, instead of just being a genius who revolutionized math and physics.

I say if you want to find something cheap in what Newton has done, the only thing you can do is look at what modesty made him say about himself:'If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants'.

So now if you vote my post down, I'll know it's not a misunderstanding.

PStamatiou• 18 years ago

I might be going on a limb here but do we really need to have every single Seth Godin post on Hacker News? Every few days there's a new one that somehow reaches the top, doesn't offer much value and even has significant issues (like this one).. I didn't really think this comment through but I know I have become slightly annoyed with his posts flooding HN as of late.

llimllib• 18 years ago

I thought it was posted so we could make fun of his scientific ignorance? Did the poster really think this was a good metaphor?

(I'm not saying the marketing advice he gives is bad. In fact, I couldn't even get past his nonsense at the top of the article)

mattmaroon• 18 years ago

Totally agree. Most of his posts are useless. His total lack of physics knowledge aside, most of his stuff doesn't even tell me how to market better.

petercooper• 18 years ago

His posts are, however, often insightful and usually feature a fresh observation.

While these rarely give you step 1 - do this, step 2 - do that type advice, enough insights, when compiled together, can help you come up with ideas and inspire insights of your own.

raheemm• 18 years ago

Seth's analogies of gravity and evolution may not be accurate, but his point stands that the theory of gravity is less controversial than the theory of evolution. Its also interesting how he illustrates the power of a story as a marketing device. It is one of the many factors in the the success of evolution vs. gravity.

He goes a step further and provides insights into the kinds of stories that sell (or dont) - long stories and stories that go against the conventional wisdom are harder to communicate.

Obviously, if you have a super-spectacular product like google search or iphone (add in your fav product), you dont need to tell a silly story. But for most folks who are in the business of creating/delivering mundane products/services or who dont have a huge marketing budget, its nice to gain an advantage. I think this is one of the reasons for the success of the Balsalmiq guy - he has a nice product but his story of a totally transparent one-person ISV going it alone is really compelling.

debt• 18 years ago

Poor Seth, just can't get it right.

zeynel• 18 years ago

I think Seth Godin got it right. Some of the comments here also prove how much Newton is a brand around which a perfect marketing campaign has been formed. I wrote a post about this:

http://science1.wordpress.com/2008/12/03/the-greatest-market...

Seth's Blog: Gravity is just a theory

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