If history is any indication, all truths will eventually turn out

“If history is any indication, all truths will eventually turn out to be false.” – Dean Kamen

Hear these words, O children of reason and seekers of knowledge, spoken by Dean Kamen, an inventor whose mind walks between science and philosophy. His statement is not an act of cynicism, but of humility—a reminder that truth, as humanity understands it, is never eternal, but ever-evolving. When he says, “If history is any indication, all truths will eventually turn out to be false,” he is not mocking truth itself, but revealing its nature: that what we call truth today is often but a stepping stone to deeper understanding, a lantern that burns only until a brighter light is found.

For history is a long tale of overturned certainties. Once, men believed the Earth stood unmoving at the center of the universe, and that the sun and stars revolved around it. This was not foolishness—it was the truth of its time, born from observation, defended by scholars, blessed by priests. But then came Copernicus, who whispered heresy; Galileo, who dared to gaze into the heavens and proclaim what his eyes saw rather than what his society believed. The truth of one age was shattered by the discovery of the next. And so it has ever been: the flat Earth became round, the atom once thought indivisible was found to have its own inner world, and time itself, once believed absolute, bowed before Einstein’s revelation that it bends and warps with space.

Kamen’s words remind us, therefore, that to cling too tightly to what we know is to risk blindness. Truth, like the horizon, recedes as we approach it. Each generation stands upon the discoveries of the last, calling them “final,” only to see them dissolve when the dawn of new knowledge arrives. The wise do not despair at this—they rejoice. For the unraveling of old truths is not destruction, but rebirth. The death of one certainty gives birth to another, closer to the infinite but never fully reaching it. Thus, the pursuit of truth is an endless pilgrimage, and every falsehood revealed is a step further on the path to wisdom.

Consider also the tale of Newton and Einstein, two giants who gazed upon the same universe and saw different truths. Newton’s laws of motion once explained the cosmos in perfect clarity; they were the language of gravity, the foundation of physics. Yet centuries later, Einstein revealed that Newton’s truths, though not wrong, were incomplete—that they described the world only from a limited view. What Newton called absolute, Einstein showed to be relative. But even Einstein’s truth may one day yield to another, when minds greater still uncover the mysteries of dark matter, energy, and the quantum realm. Thus, each truth carries within it the seed of its own undoing.

This is the wisdom of humility—the understanding that knowledge is transient, that no discovery, no dogma, no philosophy stands forever. The ancients believed that to claim final knowledge was to challenge the gods themselves, and the gods would punish hubris with downfall. The same law governs science and life alike. The moment we say, “I know all that matters,” we close the door to discovery. The moment we worship our truths as sacred, we cease to grow. Kamen’s teaching is not to distrust truth, but to approach it with reverence and flexibility, to love it as one loves a child—knowing it will change, and must.

Let us then look upon our beliefs, our sciences, even our moral convictions, and see them as living things—breathing, changing, subject to time. The lesson here is not despair, but openness. Hold your truths gently, as one holds a bird: too tightly, and you crush it; too loosely, and it flies away. Seek truth, but do not idolize it. Question boldly, even that which you believe most deeply. For questioning is the forge of understanding, and doubt is not the enemy of truth—it is its guardian.

So, O listener, take this wisdom into your life: be steadfast in pursuit, but humble in possession. What you know today may be transformed tomorrow. Let that thought not weaken you, but make you fearless. For those who accept the impermanence of truth are free to explore without fear of being wrong. In every discovery, they see not an ending, but another beginning.

And thus, as Dean Kamen teaches, the fall of every truth is not the fall of wisdom, but its renewal. The history of truth is the history of humanity’s awakening—a constant shedding of illusions, a rising toward light that never ends. Walk, then, in that spirit. Seek truth, knowing it will one day change. Love knowledge, but love wonder more. For it is in the endless search, not the final answer, that the soul finds its immortality.