The Duck-Beaver Duality

I think I have a problem with authority. At least I have a problem with authority when I'm not the authority, which I'm pretty sure is the same thing. For instance, I have a problem with the climate change cultists. Specifically, I have a problem with the way the concept of climate change went from a scientific proposition to a popular-culture mandate in the space of a year or so. 'Time' magazine doesn't get to dictate science, and scientists who use fear and alarmist rhetoric to make their point aren't really scientists who deserve the title.
   But that's not my topic today.
   I have a problem with the basic assumption behind quantum physics, and that is the wave-particle duality. This is the experimentally-proved assertion that any elementary particle, an electron, for example, behaves like a particle when subjected to an experiment measuring for particles, and behaves like a wave when subjected to an experiment measuring for waves. This leads to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, the Schrodinger's cat thought experiment, and, essentially, the entirety of quantum physics. The idea is that you can't know a particle's velocity and position at the same time, that the act of observation changes the thing you're observing, etc. etc. etc.
   I think it's based on a fallacy. One that I can demonstrate with a simple thought experiment. Well, two.
   There's an old story about three blind men, none of whom has ever seen anything, let alone an elephant. When they're asked to describe an elephant one blind man is placed at the trunk, one at the leg, and one at the tail. The first blind man feels the trunk and says 'an elephant is like a snake.' The second blind man at the elephant's leg says 'an elephant is like a tree.' The last blind man is at the elephant's tail and he says 'an elephant is like a brush.'
   Now... all three men are right, according to the measurements they could make, an elephant is indeed like a snake, a tree, and a brush. But an elephant is in reality none of those things. It's an elephant. So all three blind men are - technically, according to their experiments - correct, yet in the face of observable fact, they're wrong. Completely and utterly wrong.
   It astonishes me that scientists who claim to adhere to the Occam's Razor principle of simplicity would profess that an electron is either a wave or a particle, depending on how you measure it. Doesn't that seem like an overly complicated explanation? One that leads down all sorts of wrong paths?
   If an electron behaves as either a particle or a wave, that means it is neither a particle nor a wave, but a third thing entirely. Just like an elephant is not a snake or a tree or a brush, but an elephant.
   I think the ephemeral nature of atoms and the extremely tiny scales involved make this oversight very easy. There's nothing you can actually touch, hear or smell. And because physics is described with mathematics, it's also easy to lose sight of the forest for the trees.
   So let's scale up the example, make it macro. Suppose you're a zoologist, and someone brings you a brand new animal. But they tell you, 'if you classify this animal one way, it's a duck. But if you classify it another way, it's a beaver.' And they can prove to you, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the measurements they took when they were looking for a duck meant this animal was a duck, and yet the measurements they took when they were looking for a beaver showed the animal was - absolutely - a beaver. It was two different animals, and which animal you saw depended on the observation you happened to be making at the time. What would you do?
   Well, if you were a physicist you'd say 'this is just the duck-beaver duality, nothing we can do about it, accept the paradox and move on.' As a zoologist, however, you'd know something can't be two different things at once, and you'd know a duality is impossible. You'd probably also realize that you don't have either a duck or a beaver, you have a platypus.
   So come on, physicists, give up the duck-beaver duality theory, and find the platypus in the Standard Model. Just give me a footnote in the paper that earns you the Nobel Prize.

The Three Worst Words

They got to me, they wore me down, they broke my spirit.
    You see, I had resolved to fight the good fight, I told myself that even though it was like pushing the sea back with a broom I was going to do my part to help maintain a reasonable discourse. But I was tilting at windmills. I set myself an impossible task, and it beat me.
   I was going to do my own tiny part to fight the rampant, willful ignorance I see every day. Astonishing misinformation coupled with vile language leads otherwise rational people to become caricatures of themselves, and like a virus that kind of vitriol takes on a life of its own and spreads from person to person, even infecting those who don't agree with the rhetoric. It breaks us all down, it ruins the discourse. Maybe that's the point of it.
   While there's no way I can change the world, I thought I could change people close to me. Friends, people who I know - for a fact - are not really ignorant, racist, redneck idiots, yet who inexplicably seem to love to repeat that kind of poison. I tried, really I did. And I gave it a good go, for a time I thought I was making a dent. But I was wrong. The tide of ignorance has become a tsunami, and it's only going to get worse. So, please forgive me, but I have to utter the three worst words one person can say to another:
   I don't care.
   What a horrible thing. You'd think the opposite of 'I love you' would be 'I hate you,' but as anyone who's been in a relationship can tell you, it's a short walk from love to hate and back again. They're both strong emotions. The opposite of either of those things would actually be apathy. And that's where I am right now. I don't care. I have friends who gleefully spew all sorts of intolerant, ignorant garbage and I'm just going to turn my back. If they want to let someone else set their agenda, if they're comfortable with being crassly manipulated by people and organizations that absolutely don't care about them, fine. Have at it. Wallow in your terrible situation, make the wrong choices, blame anyone but the people responsible - or yourself - for what's happening to you. Behave like a five-year-old. Whatever.
   I don't care.