Technical Truth

Technical truths—like genetics, math, and biochemistry—are true even if no one believes them to be true. They exist independently of what’s in people’s brains: What is this virus made of? Will it spread? Can this drug work?

At first it seems like a trivial or weird statement, but the only thing more prestigious than science is math. They're not normally juxtaposed, but I would say math is greater than science. Math is exact in a sense where science is approximate.

Math is greater than science in another respect, which is independent replications. It's not realistic to expect everybody to have inclined planes, reactors, or chemistry sets at home to replicate experiments for everything. Scientific equipment is expensive. How are people supposed to independently replicate findings? They don't have all the scientific equipment, but you know what they do have? Computers. Computers are mathematical equipment. You can run billions and billions of calculations per second.

So you might not be able to replicate the experiment, but you can replicate all the calculations with the raw data set, if put online. That's interesting.

Natural phenomena are decentralized. Anyone should be able to test whether your algorithm or statement about electrical fields is correct.

Technological history is the history of what works;

political history is the history of what works to retain power.