Science Advances One Funeral at a Time

Max Planck, the father of quantum theory, once said something that should make anyone in a position of authority uncomfortable:

“Science advances one funeral at a time.”

It’s a brutal statement. Not poetic. Not optimistic. Just honest.

What Planck meant was simple: new ideas don’t win because they’re better. They win because the people who oppose them eventually disappear.

That’s not just a problem in science.

It’s human nature—and it shows up everywhere that hierarchy, reputation, and ego outweigh truth.

The Myth of Rational Progress

We like to believe progress works like this:

A better idea emerges → it gets tested → it proves itself → everyone adopts it.

Clean. Logical. Efficient.

That’s the story we tell ourselves.

Reality looks more like this:

A better idea emerges → it threatens established thinking → it gets ignored, attacked, or buried → it survives anyway → eventually, the old guard fades out → the idea becomes “obvious.”

Not because minds changed.

Because the people who wouldn’t change them are gone.

The Weight of Being “Right”

Here’s the problem: the longer someone has been “right,” the harder it is for them to admit they’re wrong.

Reputation becomes armor.

Careers are built on specific beliefs—doctrine, models, strategies, frameworks. Challenging those ideas doesn’t just question a theory; it questions the people who built their lives on it.

And most people won’t do that voluntarily.

So they dig in.

You see it in science when outdated theories hang on long past their expiration date.
You see it in institutions where failure gets rebranded instead of corrected.
You see it in leadership environments where questioning the plan is treated as disloyalty.

It’s not that people can’t see the cracks.

It’s that acknowledging them comes at a cost.

The Institutional Problem

This isn’t just about individuals. It’s about systems.

Organizations reward:

• Consistency over correction
• Confidence over curiosity
• Loyalty over dissent

If you’re the one pushing a new idea, you’re not just arguing facts—you’re challenging the structure that keeps people in charge.

That’s a losing fight in the short term.

Which is why most meaningful change doesn’t happen through persuasion.

It happens through turnover.

The Military Parallel

If you’ve spent time in uniform, this should sound familiar.

Doctrine doesn’t change easily. Neither do tactics, training pipelines, or leadership mindsets. Even when the battlefield proves something isn’t working, the system often defaults to defending the existing model.

Because changing it means admitting:

• We trained wrong
• We planned wrong
• We led wrong

That’s a hard pill to swallow—especially when lives are tied to those decisions.

So instead, you get incremental tweaks dressed up as transformation.

Until enough people rotate out.

Then suddenly, what was once controversial becomes standard operating procedure.

Not because the argument got better.

Because the resistance got weaker.

The Cost of Waiting

There’s a dark side to Planck’s observation.

If progress depends on funerals, then progress is slow.

Painfully slow.

And in high-stakes environments—science, medicine, national security—that delay has consequences.

Bad ideas don’t just linger. They compound:

• Faulty research misguides future studies
• Ineffective policies waste time and resources
• Flawed strategies cost lives

Waiting for change to happen naturally isn’t neutral.

It’s expensive.

Breaking the Pattern

If you take Planck seriously, there’s an uncomfortable question that follows:

How do you create progress without waiting for people to die?

There’s no clean answer, but there are a few uncomfortable requirements:

1. Make disagreement survivable
If people can’t challenge ideas without risking their careers, they won’t. You don’t get better thinking in environments where dissent is punished.

2. Separate identity from ideas
The more someone’s reputation is tied to being right, the less likely they are to change. If you want adaptability, you have to reward correction—not just consistency.

3. Institutionalize self-critique
Not lip service. Real mechanisms that force systems to confront their own failures—after-action reviews that aren’t performative, data that isn’t filtered, feedback that isn’t sanitized.

4. Promote people who can admit they were wrong
That’s the hardest one. Because admitting you were wrong often gets interpreted as weakness instead of competence.

Until that changes, neither will the system.

The Science of Human Nature

“Science advances one funeral at a time” isn’t just a critique of science.

It’s a warning about human nature.

We are far less rational than we like to believe. We cling to what we know. We defend what we’ve built. And we resist anything that threatens it—even when we’re wrong.

The question isn’t whether that’s true.

It’s whether you’re part of the problem.

Because if progress depends on funerals, then sooner or later, the obstacle is going to be someone else.

Or, if you’re not wise, it’s going to be you.

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Charles served over 27 years in the US Army, which included seven combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan with various Special Operations Forces units and two stints as an instructor at the United States Military Academy at West Point. He also completed operational tours in Egypt, the Philippines, and the Republic of Korea and earned a Doctor of Business Administration from Temple University as well as a Master of Arts in International Relations from Yale University. He is the owner of The Havok Journal, and the views expressed herein are his own and do not reflect those of the US Government or any other person or entity.