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Current Events » in reply to 'religious' aspects of science are very limited

'religious' aspects of science are all in the mind
Robert — (archived)

I think we just need to be clear on what we're talking about. Professional scientists (the good ones) don't mix religion with their work. They may have a nonreligious "faith"--that is, a "hope"--that they're on the right track and that the effort will pay off. The substitution of faith in science (in a more religious sense of unquestioning trust) for a deep knowledge of science is the sin committed by the nonprofessionals. As I argued to RL, pragmatically it's a lesser sin compared to superstitious fear of science.

Nice analogy between science popularizers and priests. I'd use the word "evangelist". The quality and rigor of the work varies wildly, and the hype artists bear an obvious responsibility for society's misconceptions. Then there's St. Carl of Sagan, who devoted a significant part of his work combatting misconceptions and fuzzy thinking...and thus became an icon of almost religious veneration. You can't escape this impulse to religious modes of thought, and I have to conclude that they're hardwired into the human brain. It can't be stamped out in this evolutionary epoch, and has to be managed instead.

Creation "Science" couldn't exist without a heaping, stinking pile of dishonesty in the form of rigging the assumptions and selecting the evidence. I once read a "paper" on a Creationist Web site describing some climate "research", and it was ludicrous--they blithely reported how they'd had to try out dozens of different models to find one even capable of producing the extreme results they wanted. Then they had to peg the meter on all their assumptions, combining several unlikely events like glaciation and increased insolation, in order to produce a slight possibility of Noah's catastrophic flood. Utter crap. But they were so pathetically proud of themselves. "Praise the Lord, we is scientists!"

Excuse me while I go throw up.

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