Lawrence Hall, HSG
Don’t Follow the
Science
“Follow the science” is itself an unscientific expression,
personifying science as a sort of cosmic Boy Scout troop leader or perhaps a
soldier taking the point. It suggests that we should not follow our hearts
(which is just as illogical), our music, our dreams, or anything else except
science personified almost as a deity.
But science is an abstract concept, not a person. The word
comes from “scientia,” Latin for knowledge of all sorts. In our time we have
narrowed the term for the purpose of discovering and proving facts that can be
demonstrated to be valid or invalid [6
Steps of the Scientific Method (thoughtco.com)].
As an example, we humans have designed instruments arbitrarily
marked with numbers for measuring the air temperature for utility. Even so, a
scientist would not say that today’s temperature is 60 degrees Fahrenheit; he
or she would say that at a given time a given thermometer at a given location read
60 degrees Fahrenheit. He might go further and remind us that thermometers
almost never agree with each other. So what is the temperature? Scientifically,
we can’t really know, but even a caveman could tell us if the day feels warm or
cold.
Unfortunately, many humans tend to accept uncritically
almost any allegation to which the label “science” is attached, especially if
that allegation is made via the Orwellian Telescreens seemingly superglued to
our hands. If a piece of information is beamed to us through a little made-in-China
box that lights up and make noises then it must be true, right?
We fancy we have in some way progressed because we believe in
little boxes instead of the Delphic Oracle, but in the event they are only
little boxes.
Even scientists aren’t always scientific; now they name
storms and even attribute agency to them, a form of personification that reminds
us of Greek paganism.
This brings us to the French scientist who posted to the
InterGossip (which is scientific) a photograph (also scientific) allegedly
taken by the James Webb Space Telescope (yes, scientific) and promoted it as a
super-golly-gee-whiz image (scientific)
of Proxima Centauri,
a far-off star.
After a month or so,
the scientist admitted that the picture he promoted as a wonderful bit of science
was in fact not a star but a cross section of a sausage. He said he was only
joking [Scientist
admits 'space telescope' photo is actually chorizo in tasty Twitter prank
(msn.com)].
Follow the science,
right?
When someone says “follow the science” what he almost always
means is that he uncritically believes whatever babble he last read on the
InterGossip. In his small world, “you could research it” means to access whatever
conspiracies are floating around among Orwellian telescreens without ever once
considering the possibility that they might be inaccurate or even impossible – “Q,”
for instance, or Hillary Clinton dismembering children in a pizza parlor, or the
reincarnation of John F. Kennedy Jr. on the Grassy Knoll.
Not so long ago anyone positing such absurdities would have
been laughed out of the conversation; now that we have the science of the
InterGossip beamed through the science of little glowing boxes there are people
who now believe such nonsense and sometimes act on it to the harm of others.
Following the science seems mostly to be a matter of bellowing
thought-denying chants through bullhorns and raising clenched fists at each
other instead of thinking things through and considering all the possibilities
with both clarity and charity.
The six steps of the scientific method constitute a valid
means of examining only those facts which can be evaluated and measured. Science
cannot examine love, flowers, sunsets, a father playing catch with his child, or
old friends playing chess around a fire, and so science, while valid in its own
orbit, is but an incomplete study of Creation. Science itself is not a god, and
we dare not presume to treat it as one.
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