Originally posted by: chatbuster
haha, looks like we still seem to like running to the headmaster for approval everytime. wont buy a product unless it is endorsed, no? 😉 good.
but first, a correction. ex-world chess champion Bobby Fischer's IQ is not 205, it's a mere 180. 😉 contrast that with einstein's estimated IQ. though he never took any IQ test, scientists have tried to estimate the IQ of deceased personalities such as Mozart and Goethe by means of biographic data. The value estimated for einstein was between 160 and 180 (source: internet).
hmmm, solely on IQ terms, makes fischer smarter than einstein, and fischer had some pretty dumb ideas himself, didnt he? didnt he publicly exult over the attacks on WTC? As the son of of a jewish mother, did he not also use the term "dirty jews" as though it were a statement of fact (New York Daily News). hmmmm, higher IQ than einstein? 😉
now, back to einstein, perhaps the greatest physicist/ scientist of the 20th century. same internet site as that being served up for our entertainment here has this to say in fine print later on:
"The moral influence (Gandhi) had on the conciously thinking human being of the entire civilized world will probably be much more lasting than it seems in our time with its overestimation of brutal violent forces."
hmmm, wrong, as we know today. we still seem to be caught up in brutal wars, arming ourselves to the teeth eerywhere, repudiating the pacifist ideologies that he had. 😊
then somewhere he also says: "It is my contention that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder". (quoted in Des McHale, Wisdom, London)
hmmm, is he caught up in some time warp of his own? at the least, did he not foresee the need for the Allies to go to war and kill? he could work out massive equations, but could not foresee things even though he lived right there in naziland for a while? hmmm 😛
from another source: "Einstein denounced World War I and after the war became an outspoken pacifist. But the rise of Nazism and the horrifying events of World War II forced him to reconsider his anti-war position. Concerned the Nazis were building an atomic bomb, he urged the United States to build one first. Six years later, when the bomb was dropped on civilians, Einstein openly regretted his action and became a champion of nuclear disarmament for the rest of his life.
at some point, he also says how coming up with his relativity theory was the biggest regret of his life because it led to the bomb.
hmmm, seems he was not always able to foresee things, great thinker that he was. also a waffler when it came to situations that did not lend themselves to precise theories and calculations.
later in 1939 (long after the letter to Gandhi in 1931 😉 ), writes a famous letter to President Franklin Roosevelt not long after the start of World War II that warns of the possibility of Germany's building an atomic bomb and urges nuclear research.
hmmm, so he has chucked his pacifist ideologies? what might he be thinking of gandi then? still want to meet him? 😛
on his other famous waffles- he ultimately rejected the gravitational constant he had come up with, only for us to find that today he was originally right and subsequently wrong. he started work on the Unified Field Theory in the late 1920s, but did not succeed.
will leave u with the quote, from einstein himself:
"One reason why mathematics enjoys special esteem, above all other sciences, is that its laws are absolutely certain and indisputable, while those of other sciences are to some extent debatable and in constant danger of being overthrown by newly discovered facts." Sidelights on Relativity
hmmmm, did we follow that? natural sciences such as economics, and social topics such as freedom, war, pacifism is not math. even in a field such as economics with some math, we have had Nobel Prize winners whose theories contradict each other. no way of knowing who is right, and who is wrong unless empirically based on limited data.
so seems like he waffled on important issues of war and pacifism, went back on forth at least on issues he was not an expert on, at times even on issues he was an expert on.
like they say, a little bit of knowledge is a very dangerous thing. 😉 when we quote to endorse, we might want to offer the entire context and not just put it out there as a newspaper clipping. 😉 we just might want to also offer our interpretation of that quote. perhaps what really distinguishes the newspaper delivery boy from the "thinking guy". 😉
