Reason's Dilemma


Most people accept the fruits of the scientific method that result in cars, iPods, telephones, cell phones, polio vaccinations, the internet, lap-tops, antibiotics, pictures of the Andromeda galaxy, and cancer treatments that work slightly better each decade.

However, some people turn around and question results using THE VERY SAME SCIENTIFIC METHOD that produced all the foregoing when that method turns its iterative truth-finding lens on evolution, climate, the unsupported claims of alternative medicine, and even the age of the earth.

Essentially, it comes down to people being happy to accept the scientific method when its application does not challenge their pre-conceptions and they don't have to think about it.

But when the scientific method produces a finding that disrupts a cherished world-view, a surprisingly large population of supposedly rationale human beings stand blithely in the face of every other example of the scientific method's validity to claim, with no evidence for their counter-claim other than what they WISH were true, that the science is wrong.

The scientific method is NOT a body of knowledge; it is a formalized system for investigating reality. It peels away layer after layer of obfuscation to get closer to the truth.

Even better, the scientific method is a self-correcting set of procedures that reveals even the fabrications and mistakes of its earlier iterations. In time, science eventually overturns even the most cherished notions of scientists themselves.

Science doesn't want to make you happy or feel secure. Science doesn't want anything--its methods simply allow us to get closer and closer to reality.


Posted: Fri - June 8, 2007 at 10:08 AM          

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