“Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts”?

If there are three points (A,B,C) on a vertical (straight) line and if you move over each time from the points the same amount, you get another three points: A1,B1,C1; connecting A1,B1,C1 you get a straight line. Is this what the author tells us

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If there are three points (A,B,C) on a vertical (straight) line and if you move over each time from the points the same amount, you get another three points: A1,B1,C1; connecting A1,B1,C1 you get a straight line. Is this what the author tells us

Yeah, that sounds right to me.
1.A1 stays put
2. B1 (which is up one) is moved ONE space to the right.
3. C1 (which is up TWO) is then moved TWO spaces to the right.

Now you still have a straight line (if connected). It's just that it's now a diagonal line instead of a vertical one.

I listened to a conversation between two girls, and one was explaining that if you want to make a straight line, you see, you go over a certain number to the right for each row you go up--that is, if you go over each time the same amount when you go up a row, you make a straight line--a deep principle of analytic geometry! It went on. I was rather amazed. I didn't realize the female mind was capable of understanding analytic geometry.

Failed to figure out how the twenty is gotten:
Can you figure it out?

The speaker went on:

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She went on and said, "Suppose you have another line coming in from the other side, and you want to figure out where they are going to intersect. Suppose on one line you go over two to the right for every one you go up, and the other line goes over three to the right for every one that it goes up, and they start twenty steps apart," etc.--I was flabbergasted. She figured out where the intersection was. It turned out that one girl was explaining to the other how to knit argyle socks. I, therefore, did learn a lesson: The female mind is capable of understanding analytic geometry. Those people who have for years been insisting (in the face of all obvious evidence to the contrary) that the male and female are equally capable of rational thought may have something. The difficulty may just be that we have never yet discovered a way to communicate with the female mind.

argyle:

up, and they start twenty steps apart," etc...

I have probably ruined the system, and the students that are coming into Caltech no longer will be any good. I think we live in an unscientific age in which almost all the buffeting of communications and television--words, books, and so on--are unscientific. As a result, there is a considerable amount of intellectual tyranny in the name of science.

Finally, with regard to this time-binding, a man cannot live beyond the grave. Each generation that discovers something from its experience must pass that on, but it must pass that on with a delicate balance of respect and disrespect, so that the [human] race--now that it is aware of the disease to which it is liable--does not inflict its errors too rigidly on its youth, but it does pass on the accumulated wisdom, plus the wisdom that it may not be wisdom.

It is necessary to teach both to accept and to reject the past with a kind of balance that takes considerable skill. Science alone of all the subjects contains within itself the lesson of the danger of belief in the infallibility of the greatest teachers of the preceding generation.

So carry on. Thank you.

1. As I read it, the disease is the disease of being fallible.

2." Does "will be any good" mean "will be excellent whatsoever"? I don't see the words "will be any good" in that passage. Are you referring to the "wisdsom" part?

I have probably ruined the system, and the students that are coming into Caltech no longer will be any good. I think we live in an unscientific age in which almost all the buffeting of communications and television--words, books, and so on--are unscientific. As a result, there is a considerable amount of intellectual tyranny in the name of science.

Finally, with regard to this time-binding, a man cannot live beyond the grave. Each generation that discovers something from its experience must pass that on, but it must pass that on with a delicate balance of respect and disrespect, so that the [human] race--now that it is aware of the disease to which it is liable--does not inflict its errors too rigidly on its youth, but it does pass on the accumulated wisdom, plus the wisdom that it may not be wisdom.

It is necessary to teach both to accept and to reject the past with a kind of balance that takes considerable skill. Science alone of all the subjects contains within itself the lesson of the danger of belief in the infallibility of the greatest teachers of the preceding generation.

So carry on. Thank you.

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up, and they start twenty steps apart," etc...

I don't think it has any particular significance, and I don't think it relates in any specific way to anything he has already said.

He is just giving an example (and some excerpts) of a conversation, but he is not trying to fully convey it. You'll notice that as soon as he says "twenty steps apart," he just adds "etc." (and the rest, and so forth). He didn't complete the example, and he didn't intend to. He was just trying to convey the general idea, not the specifics. The "general idea" being that it can get complicated, and these girls could deal with those complexities.

OK, let me look at it now (I was looking below, because it was your SECOND question, sorry).

I've forgotten now exactly what he said before this, but I don't think it matters. He's joking in a self-deprecating way, mainly. Obviously, he alone can't ruin the entire system, no matter how bad he might be (and he wasn't bad, he was one of the best ever at explaining complicated things in a comprehensible matter).

To the extent he means anything half-serious, I think he saying that his former students, having graduated, have been teaching those who now come in, and, since he ruined them, they will ruin their students (who are just now coming in).

Yeah, I think you should add "the."

"I made it in biggest size of the font" ===>>> ""I made it in the biggest size of font"?

Another of the qualities of science is that it teaches the value of rational thought as well as the importance of freedom of thought; the positive results that come from doubting that the lessons are all true. You must here distinguish--especially in teaching--the science from the forms or procedures that are sometimes used in developing science. It is easy to say, "We write, experiment, and observe, and do this or that." You can copy that form exactly. But great religions are dissipated by following form without remembering the direct content of the teaching of the great leaders. In the same way, it is possible to follow form and call it science, but that is pseudo-science. In this way, we all suffer from the kind of tyranny we have today in the many institutions that have come under the influence of pseudoscientific advisers.

Then a way of avoiding the disease was discovered. This is to doubt that what is being passed from the past is in fact true, and to try to find out
ab initio again from experience what the situation is, rather than trusting the experience of the past in the form in which it is passed down. And that is what science is: the result of the discovery that it is worthwhile rechecking by new direct experience, and not necessarily trusting the [human] race['s] experience from the past. I see it that way. That is my best definition.

1) Does "But great religions are dissipated by following form without remembering the direct content of the teaching of the great leaders" mean "But great religions are broken by...

(2) Does "the great leaders" refer to "religious leaders like Jesus, Buddha..."?

What does "the discovery" refer to?

(

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1) Does "But great religions are dissipated by following form without remembering the direct content of the teaching of the great leaders" mean "But great religions are broken by...

Yeah, more or less. "Broken" and "dissipate" are two different concepts but the result can be the same, over time.

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(2) Does "the great leaders" refer to "religious leaders like Jesus, Buddha..."?

Yeah, that's the way I read it, but it could mean more than that. At least some religions have canonized "saints" who might also be considered to be among the "great leaders," I suppose.

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What does "the discovery" refer to?

I don't think it refers back to what you suggested. I think it merely refers to what immediately follows it, i.e.,: "that it is worthwhile rechecking by new direct experience, and not necessarily trusting the [human] race['s] experience from the past."

Because "the discovery that is worthwhile rechecking" is crystal clear.

And that is what science is: the result of the discovery that it is worthwhile rechecking by new direct experience, and not necessarily trusting the [human] race['s] experience from the past. I see it that way. That is my best definition.

Then a way of avoiding the disease was discovered. This is to doubt that what is being passed from the past is in fact true, and to try to find out
ab initio again from experience what the situation is, rather than trusting the experience of the past in the form in which it is passed down. And that is what science is: the result of the discovery that it is worthwhile rechecking by new direct experience, and not necessarily trusting the [human] race['s] experience from the past. I see it that way. That is my best definition.

This goes along with things he says elsewhere: e.g., that formulas, terminology, and memorization are NOT science. Science is learning for yourself so that you actually UNDERSTAND it.

1. He's trying to define science
2. Science is the result of something.
3. What is that something?
4. It is: " the result of the discovery that it is worthwhile rechecking by new direct experience."
5. OK, so what is science?

I'm not sure now. I need to get out of this screen so that I can see more context.