Madness About a Method-NY Times
This ignorance of science, flecked with outright hostility, is worth pondering at a moment when three of the nation's most contentious political issues - global warming, stem-cell research and the teaching of intelligent design - are scientific in character. One reason that has been cited for the dislike of science is that it is "irresistible" - that its influence tends to overwhelm and drive out competing values and authorities. But the Bush administration seems all too successful in resisting it. Time after time, critics say, the administration has manipulated and suppressed scientific findings for political reasons.
See the rest of this article at http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/11/magazine/11wwln_lead.html
posted by MallenFamilyBlog @ 7:38 AM
1 Comments:
Any scientist who knows his Popper (are the rest dumb bastards?, sorry) knows that there are realms into which science cannot venture. It is impossible to propose a falsifible hypothesis about God (or a god, or your god here), so science can never work in the arena of religion. The falsifiability rule does make science interally consistent, however, and for something with such restrictions it sure does a good job of explaining things. And if we chose to teach, in our public schools, scientific biology, or physics or chemistry, that one simple rule is pretty good at thwarting the opposition.
We need to do a better job of teaching that science is a way of knowing, and that anything that claims to be "the truth" won't stand the test of time. This is one reason why science can't be a religion and why typically skeptical scientists question religion. However, science does not.
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