DAK, please try to get the message of what science claims and does not claim. It does not claim to have infallible knowledge. Rather, it is a method of refining knowledge.
On the other hand, Authoritarian thinking such as "creation science" (which is anything but science) simply perpetuates myth. When science is wrong it is a wrong for a time and then corrects. When Absolutists are wrong they are wrong forever.
Religions thought till a few centuries ago that the world was flat and that the sky was a solid dome with heavenly lights attached. Some scientists, since Aristarchus, had suspected this was wrong but in the case of the heavenly bodies being "different" than earthly bodies and the case of the nature of the sky and of the geocentric model, etc...science, too, took centuries to disprove the superstitious, primitive point of view. This delay was at least partially due to special interest groups (ahmmm) who had a very poor sense of humour when it came to their magical knowledge being exposed as a chimera.
Principia Mathematica (for instance) addresses topics slightly more universal than how an individual metabolises alcohol and how it affects his subjective will to fight or to live. So no, DAK...I am NOT "going against Science again????". In case you missed it, I did not go against science before: I cautioned against the sham of pseudoscience. Pseudoscience does not employ a methodology or a corrective facility which encourages objective appraisal. This does not mean that any particular pseudoscientific claim is necessarily erroneous. It simply means that there is no reliable basis for the claim. If Geller claims that UFO's are helping him spend spoons with mental energy, it does not mean his claim is false. It simply means that without evidentiary and scientific data it will attract the devotion of only the extremely credulous. |
