Is Science Always Correct?
I’ve often wondered how thinkers like Plato, Socrates, and Sun Tzu managed to devote themselves to philosophy without the grind of daily labor. In today’s world, most people work to survive—those who don’t are rarely seen as philosophers unless their musings somehow justify others working on their behalf. But in antiquity, many of these figures weren’t idle dreamers detached from reality. Socrates lived modestly, relying on gifts and civic engagement rather than formal income. Plato came from wealth and later founded the Academy, which likely sustained him. Sun Tzu earned his keep as a military strategist, advising rulers and commanding armies. Others, like Aristotle and Seneca, served as tutors or advisors to powerful patrons. Their thinking was embedded in civic, military, or educational roles—not divorced from them. Philosophy then wasn’t a luxury of idleness; it was a form of service, often supported by privilege, patronage, or institutional duty. The question today isn’t whether philosophers should work—it’s whether their work builds anything worth the labor of others.
What truly frustrates me about today’s scientific and academic establishment is the relentless churn of apocalyptic predictions—scenarios of collapse, extinction, and irreversible doom. For decades, these forecasts have dominated headlines, siphoning billions in public funding, only to be quietly revised or forgotten when reality fails to cooperate. Unlike the classical philosophers, who lived modestly and thought deeply, many modern scientists are well-compensated for publishing alarmist speculation that rarely bears the weight of time.
Let’s set aside the climate debate. I grew up in an era where Pluto was a planet, the Big Bang emerged from a singularity, and cathode ray tubes were marvels of modern engineering. The Coelacanth was extinct, honesty was a virtue, and patriotism wasn’t controversial—it was foundational. Teachers taught reading, writing, and arithmetic—not ideological grooming or political catechism. Education was about equipping minds, not reshaping them to fit the latest social orthodoxy.
This isn’t nostalgia for a perfect past—it’s a reckoning with a present that often trades truth for trend, and rigor for narrative. I’m not asking for blind tradition. I’m asking for intellectual honesty, cultural coherence, and the courage to think without an agenda. If we’re going to build a future worth inheriting, we need fewer prophets of doom and more stewards of reason.
Scientists, Astrophysicists, Mathematicians, and others claim that the James Webb telescope can see all the way to the beginning of time. They know this due to a quantity they calculate, which is the light they observe as red shift. Excuse me for asking, but just how many shades of red are there? I suppose they read red shift like tree rings or layers in an ice core? Allow me to point out that scientists have long held that the Big Bang created our universe.
For years, we were told the universe began as a singularity—a point of infinite density that exploded outward in the Big Bang. Now, the narrative shifts again: the universe didn’t burst from a single point, but emerged everywhere at once, expanding simultaneously in all directions. That’s not just a revision—it’s a reinvention. And it’s enough to make one pause and scratch their head.
Einstein’s theories still hold, remarkably. But quantum mechanics remains a tangled web of paradoxes. The Grand Unified Theory is always just over the horizon, and nuclear fusion is perpetually five to ten years away—then five to ten years after that, and again after that. Much of what I spent a lifetime learning has been overturned, and worse: the unraveling is so recent, even physicists seem unsure where to begin again.
Perhaps that uncertainty is a gift. A momentary pause before the reeducation begins. A chance to ask not just what we know, but how we know—and whether the scaffolding of modern certainty is built on bedrock or belief.
