Hey, I am all for science. But what is science ??? One is not necessarily scientific because one says “I believe in climate change because the N Y Times believes in climate change and those guys at the Times like science.” One is not scientific because one is a political wimp who abides by group think. Science is not the conventional wisdom of a bunch grey suited nerds who consider themselves geniuses.
“Scientists” once held that the sun revolved around the earth. Scientists have changed their minds on the virtues of tonsillectomies on pre pubescent children 5 times in the past century. Thomas Jefferson considered himself a scientist and that bimbo said black people smelled more than whites because some of their urine was, allegedly, emitted through their sweat glands !!! Doctors (or applied biologists) used to employ leeches. Doctors consistently change their position on the efficacy of estrogen therapy for post menopausal women.
Also, many scientists use their positions to disseminate political convictions, not to advance knowledge. Consider John Money of Johns Hopkins and his flagrantly false theories re what he argued was the infinite malleability of human sexuality (Read the book “As Nature Made Me.”) Read one of my article on substack which calls attention to a SPECIFIC study which was slanted to conform to “scientists’” political convictions, https://davidgottfried.substack.com/p/two-specific-examples-of-how-scientists
No true scientist believes science gets it right... in fact, that is why science is all we have. It is the most effective approach for arriving at concrete and testable conclusions. It is, by its nature, a self-correcting discipline. Meaning, posit a hypothesis, create tests to "prove" that hypothesis and arrive at a theory - and then others begin picking at that theory.
It either survives or it does not.
As with any discipline, there will be those who get it wrong for any number of reasons. Could be personal/political bias, could be mistaken notions, could be bad test, or could be that new information is discovered to cause an alteration in the conclusions.
You don't have those mechanisms for religious thought and certainly not for political ideologies - which are more religion than thought.
I'll stake my future on the fact that science, more than any other discipline, has a chance to get things right. The alternative is....
I am pro science. Indeed, the first sentence of my comment was, "I'm all for science." However, as I said, so much of what passes for science is just dogma grafted onto something called "science." Before Pasteur and Lister came along, doctors, believing that they were apostles of science and reason, did not wash their hands between patients and spread infection from patient to patient. You correctly noted that science, after arriving at a hypothesis, tests those hypotheses to see if they are valid and, depending upon the results of that "reality testing" may amend the hypothesis. However, in reality very often they close their eyes to data which proves the hypothesis may be wrong.
Hey, I am all for science. But what is science ??? One is not necessarily scientific because one says “I believe in climate change because the N Y Times believes in climate change and those guys at the Times like science.” One is not scientific because one is a political wimp who abides by group think. Science is not the conventional wisdom of a bunch grey suited nerds who consider themselves geniuses.
“Scientists” once held that the sun revolved around the earth. Scientists have changed their minds on the virtues of tonsillectomies on pre pubescent children 5 times in the past century. Thomas Jefferson considered himself a scientist and that bimbo said black people smelled more than whites because some of their urine was, allegedly, emitted through their sweat glands !!! Doctors (or applied biologists) used to employ leeches. Doctors consistently change their position on the efficacy of estrogen therapy for post menopausal women.
Also, many scientists use their positions to disseminate political convictions, not to advance knowledge. Consider John Money of Johns Hopkins and his flagrantly false theories re what he argued was the infinite malleability of human sexuality (Read the book “As Nature Made Me.”) Read one of my article on substack which calls attention to a SPECIFIC study which was slanted to conform to “scientists’” political convictions, https://davidgottfried.substack.com/p/two-specific-examples-of-how-scientists
No true scientist believes science gets it right... in fact, that is why science is all we have. It is the most effective approach for arriving at concrete and testable conclusions. It is, by its nature, a self-correcting discipline. Meaning, posit a hypothesis, create tests to "prove" that hypothesis and arrive at a theory - and then others begin picking at that theory.
It either survives or it does not.
As with any discipline, there will be those who get it wrong for any number of reasons. Could be personal/political bias, could be mistaken notions, could be bad test, or could be that new information is discovered to cause an alteration in the conclusions.
You don't have those mechanisms for religious thought and certainly not for political ideologies - which are more religion than thought.
I'll stake my future on the fact that science, more than any other discipline, has a chance to get things right. The alternative is....
I am pro science. Indeed, the first sentence of my comment was, "I'm all for science." However, as I said, so much of what passes for science is just dogma grafted onto something called "science." Before Pasteur and Lister came along, doctors, believing that they were apostles of science and reason, did not wash their hands between patients and spread infection from patient to patient. You correctly noted that science, after arriving at a hypothesis, tests those hypotheses to see if they are valid and, depending upon the results of that "reality testing" may amend the hypothesis. However, in reality very often they close their eyes to data which proves the hypothesis may be wrong.