"The truth or falseness of a theory has little to do with its usefulness"?

Question

What is your reaction to this statement?

Answer 1

Not sure what point the author is trying to make, but apply it to some theories: Newton's Theory of Gravity is not entirely correct, but is accurate enough to be useful in planning spaceship travel; the modern synthesis of evolutionary theory is almost certainly true, but useful is not the word I would use to describe it; pre-copernican theories of planetary motion were disastrously wrong, but useful enough to predict the observed motions. That was a fat lot of help, wasn't it?

Answer 2

My reaction is that statement in itself is a good example of a useless theory. Who cares about whether or not some things are true or false when they probably have no bearing on our lives. Black holes for instance, does it really matter if they exist or not like at this point in time? Has it effected any aspect of your life, will it? Will it have the same effect whether it is true or false?

All the stuff the person above said too.

Answer 3

There are many films and books that are fictions, and advertise themselves as such, but people learn a lot from the messages they get from them.

Theories can be similar - the pleasure of admiring the elegance of the logic can be inspiring in itself, even if the conclusion is either found out to be wrong (arguably) or seems clearly wrong to the reader from the start.

Theories can be fascinating simply as insights in to the personalities of the people who come up with them and the way their mind works, regardless of whether most people would agree with them.

This sounds like a course question- credit your sources!- P Wilde.

Answer 4

take religion as an example. if it promotes peace and direction in life does its authenticity really matter.