“Almost Never True for Long” with Stuart Firestein

I greatly enjoyed the entire discussion with Stuart Firestein, but was especially struck by his final point. He mentioned that throughout history, the mechanics of the human brain have often been compared to the most advanced technology of the day, such as hydraulics, clocks, and even neural networks (and that most of these metaphors have been wrong). This information was surprising to me, but I also think it illustrates his earlier point that few scientific truths hold for long. Whatever way we think about the human brain, or medicine, or "the heavens," is likely to shift, adapt, and respond to societal pressures in future paradigms. This seeming transience of science is slightly unsettling, but is quite the appropriate note to end on in this class on the history of prediction.