Not even wrong

For other uses, see Not even wrong (disambiguation).

"Not even wrong" is a description of an argument or explanation based on faulty reasoning or speculative premises. Because the underlying basis can be neither affirmed nor denied, the argument cannot be discussed rigorously or scientifically. It is generally used to describe pseudoscience or bad science. Peter Woit uses the phrase not even wrong to mean "unfalsifiable".[1]

Origin of the expression

The phrase is generally attributed to the theoretical physicist Wolfgang Pauli, who was known for his colorful objections to incorrect or careless thinking.[2][3]

Rudolf Peierls documents an instance in which "a friend showed Pauli the paper of a young physicist which he suspected was not of great value but on which he wanted Pauli's views. Pauli remarked sadly, 'It is not even wrong'."[4][5] This may also be quoted as "That is not only not right; it is not even wrong", or in Pauli's native German, "Das ist nicht nur nicht richtig; es ist nicht einmal falsch!" Peierls remarks that quite a few apocryphal stories of this kind have been circulated, and mentions that he listed only the ones personally vouched for by him. He quotes another example when Pauli replied to Lev Landau, "What you said was so confused that one could not tell whether it was nonsense or not."[4]

In this model, a distinction is drawn between things that are simply wrong (e.g., due to an ordinary factual or logical error) and things that are so completely wrong that proving their errors was hopeless.[6]

See also

References

  1. ^ Burkeman, Oliver (19 September 2005). "Not even wrong". The Guardian.
  2. ^ Shermer M (2006). "Wronger Than Wrong". Scientific American. 295 (5): 40. Bibcode:2006SciAm.295e..40S. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican1106-40. Archived from the original on 10 August 2011.
  3. ^ Jung, C. G.; Pauli, Wolfgang; Meier, C. A.; Zabriskie, Beverley; Roscoe, David (1 July 2014). Atom and Archetype: The Pauli/Jung Letters, 1932–1958. Princeton University Press. p. xxxiii. ISBN 978-0-691-16147-1.
  4. ^ a b Peierls, R. (1960). "Wolfgang Ernst Pauli, 1900–1958". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 5: 186. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1960.0014. S2CID 62478251.
  5. ^ Peierls, Rudolf (1992). "Where Pauli Made His 'Wrong' Remark". Physics Today. 45 (12): 112. Bibcode:1992PhT....45l.112P. doi:10.1063/1.2809934.
  6. ^ Thomas, Gary (16 April 2007). Education and Theory. McGraw-Hill Education (UK). p. 15. ISBN 978-0-335-23027-3. Pauli had three levels of insult for what he saw as bad science: 'Wrong!', 'Completely wrong!' and 'Not even wrong!' – the last meaning that the work couldn't even be shown to be wrong.
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