Off Topic — HabitableZone

Off Topic » in reply to re: I am of the completely opposed opinion.

Yield to the Logic of the situation -- CDR Spock, UFPSF
ER — (archived)

We are programmed by evolution to look for the causes of events. This is a very useful property of our minds because it drives our learning and knowledge. However, our instinct for looking for patterns is so refined that we often tend to see them where none exist. This is the origin of religion and superstition. This is why we need scientific method, to discipline and control the creative impulse. Either wihout the other is useless, together they have proven unstoppable.

The ancient civilizations of the past, the Romans, Chinese, and the Arabs , made great advances working with trial and error and rules of thumb, creativity and experience, and by building on their predecessors. But they couldn't get past a certain point. For that we needed Descartes and Bacon: scientific method. Since the 1600s things have been happening. You don't need to study science as much as you do history and philosophy to see this. This way of looking at nature actually gets results. We can't read the Book of the World yet, but we have finally cracked the code.

This is the most profound intellectual development in the history of mankind and it's just getting started, that's why I am so excited about it, why the whole world has adopted it. Science isn't just guys in white coats cutting up frogs on government grants, it is the tool mankind has been looking for for 3000 years to help him find his place in the universe, his destiny. And it has shown us a universe of elegance and beauty and wonder that no religious philosophy has been able to approach. The universe the scientists discovered is much more profound and magnificent than the one the priests invented.

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