Dallas Today

Picture this: You're at a dinner party when a brilliant physicist casually drops the line "All theories are false" with the confidence of someone stating that water is wet. It's a phrase that gets tossed around in academic circles like gospel truth, but here's the thing – it's complete nonsense. This seemingly sophisticated statement has become the intellectual equivalent of dadaism, that early 20th-century art movement that celebrated the absurd and anti-rational. The problem isn't just that the phrase is wrong; it's that it's dangerously misleading. Consider something simple: the distance between two buildings on campus might be 1.846 miles in reality. When we say it's "about 2 miles," we're not making a false statement – we're making a practical one that's true within reasonable bounds. The theory that "all humans are less than 20 feet tall" isn't false just because we can't measure every person to infinite decimal places. The real damage comes when this pseudo-philosophical stance feeds into radical skepticism. If all theories are false, why bother searching for answers at all? It's a mindset that can paralyze scientific progress and critical thinking. The irony? Many of the smartest people in labs and universities – folks with sky-high IQs who can solve complex problems – stumble when it comes to thinking about thinking itself. Their expertise doesn't automatically transfer to philosophical reasoning, leaving them vulnerable to catchy but hollow slogans that sound profound but crumble under scrutiny.

Here's a puzzle that might surprise you: while you're probably paying more at the pump than your parents did, you're actually getting a better deal at the grocery store than any generation in history. A fascinating new analysis of 124 commodities over the past century reveals a striking split in how different essentials have evolved. Of 25 major crops studied, 24 are cheaper today than they were historically—and we're not talking small changes. Half of these food staples have dropped by more than 50% in real terms. Meanwhile, fossil fuels tell the opposite story, trending consistently more expensive over time. This isn't just about recent gas price spikes or supply chain hiccups—it's a fundamental difference in how food and energy markets operate. The research, conducted by construction economist Brian Potter, suggests entirely different forces drive these two essential categories. Food benefits from technological advances, improved farming techniques, and economies of scale that keep pushing costs down. Energy, however, faces the reality of finite resources and increasingly expensive extraction methods. For families trying to balance budgets, this data offers both good news and challenges. Your grocery dollar stretches further than ever, but transportation and heating costs continue climbing. Understanding these long-term trends can help consumers make smarter decisions about everything from where to live to what career paths might weather economic changes best.