not even wrong
{{Short description|English phrase}}
{{Other uses}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=February 2023}}
"Not even wrong" is a phrase used to describe pseudoscience or bad science. It describes an argument or explanation that purports to be scientific but uses faulty reasoning or speculative premises, which can be neither affirmed nor denied and thus cannot be discussed rigorously and scientifically. Peter Woit uses the phrase "not even wrong" to mean "unfalsifiable".{{cite news |first=Oliver |last=Burkeman |author-link=Oliver Burkeman |date=19 September 2005 |title=Not even wrong |work=The Guardian |url=https://www.theguardian.com/g2/story/0,3604,1573072,00.html}}
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.{{cite journal | author = Shermer M |author-link = Michael Shermer | title = Wronger Than Wrong | journal = Scientific American | year = 2006 |volume = 295 |issue = 5 | pages = 40|doi = 10.1038/scientificamerican1106-40 |bibcode = 2006SciAm.295e..40S | url = http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=wronger-than-wrong|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110810231612/http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=wronger-than-wrong |archive-date = 10 August 2011 }}{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NNAPngEACAAJ |title=Atom and Archetype: The Pauli/Jung Letters, 1932–1958 |last1=Jung |first1=C. G. |last2=Pauli |first2=Wolfgang |last3=Meier |first3=C. A. |last4=Zabriskie |first4=Beverley |last5=Roscoe |first5=David |date=1 July 2014 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-0-691-16147-1 |page=xxxiii |language=en}}
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'."{{cite journal |author=Peierls, R. |title=Wolfgang Ernst Pauli, 1900–1958 |journal=Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society | volume=5 |page=186 |year=1960 |doi=10.1098/rsbm.1960.0014 |s2cid=62478251}}{{cite journal|author=Peierls, Rudolf |title=Where Pauli Made His 'Wrong' Remark |journal=Physics Today |volume=45 |issue=12 |year=1992 |page=112 |doi=10.1063/1.2809934 |bibcode=1992PhT....45l.112P}} This may also be quoted as "That is not only not right; it is not even wrong", or in Pauli's native German, "{{lang|de|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."
See also
- {{annotated link|Category mistake}}
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
{{Wikiquote|Wolfgang Pauli}}
- {{cite web |author1=Peter Woit |author1-link=Peter Woit |title=20 Years of Not Even Wrong |url=https://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=13864 |website=Not Even Wrong - Columbia Math Department |access-date=25 August 2024 |date=20 March 2024}}
Category:Philosophy of science