Almost no one out there in the Wide World — or at least the world touched by Mass Media — understands what “Science” is. I promise you, it’s not what most people think it is, not what you were taught in grade school, either.
Ours is an Authoritarian culture. We are trained to obey authorities, to trust authorities and accept authoritative statements. The police officer in uniform. The salesman / actor in a TV commercial wearing a lab coat, as if that means he’s not just reading from a script. “4 out of 5 doctors prefer Camel cigarettes” (1).
There are many abstracted Authorities in use, too. The CDC is a real organization, staffed by real people, but the term “the CDC” gets thrown around as a source of authority on medical concerns. Particularly the last year or two, yes? Even on things the CDC didn’t say, or said in another way which actually meant something entirely different.
Another abstract Authority is the Government. Again, obviously the Government does exist, made up by millions of people working in dull jobs, getting paid by your taxes, having to try to obey millions of laws and regulations no one Human Mind can possibly encompass. What I mean is that Government is a group of people, taxed to the max just to get their basic jobs done. This does not make them a Magic Bullet Fix or a Trusted Authority. “Why doesn’t the government do something!” Because they can’t, don’t have the resources, or don’t even see the problem that you are seeing when you make that statement. Or because it’s election time and we are focused on other things.
Ok, enough preamble. The Abstract Authority here is “Science.”
“Science knows this.” Or “Science tells us that.” Or “Trust the Science.”
All BS statements. Those statements are not “scientific.”
“Science” knows nothing. People know things, or believe they do. Science tells us nothing; that’s like saying “the hammer told me that the nail should go right there.”
The hammer is a tool. So is Science.
The most correct definition of “Science” is that it’s merely a set of tools and techniques for exploring anything and everything. Anything. It’s an approach to understanding and to interpreting what we see or even fail to see. It’s a set of tools. It contains no knowledge in itself, but is essential in clearing up misunderstandings, expanding on what is known, in any subject. Knitting, gardening, space industry, cell phones, biblical scholarship, atomic physics.
Or even colors of paint. All those colors of paint didn’t just happen one day, you know. It took 100’s of years of exploration and experimentation.
There are “science books” that are filled with the gleanings of “Science” but these are the bits of knowledge or believed knowledge (the best we know so far) that were achieved using the techniques in the toolbox known as Science. These beliefs and believed knowledge are not science in themselves.
Science can be applied to new drugs for new diseases, to getting a robot to Mars (though that’s more engineering than it is Science), to figuring out a new and improved Internet (since the current one is failing so badly through abuses of many sorts), or to understand better and better what all those “Dead Sea Scrolls” say — because linguistics and translation of something that old is always an on-going process, also because the scrolls are in fragments and it takes the best forensic techniques (a side pocket of the toolbox known as Science) to piece them back together.
Beliefs about the World derived from the
techniques of “Science” are not themselves Science.
They are only beliefs, the Best We Know So Far. Deal with it.
The techniques of Science can discover the physical principles that might lead to Smart TVs and Cell Phones, but then it’s engineering, manufacturing and marketing that bring them to market(2).
Science is finding out why Jupiter has a Big Red Spot. Science aided Galileo in discovering that Jupiter has four moons (which started the events that ended up with his being under house arrest for the rest of his life). Curiosity is what caused him to actually go there, though. Not Science.
Science is a big set of laboratory techniques, or methods for examining if your data is accurate, or complete. Science is the concept of always questioning, always doubting, and always believing that there is more to any subject yet to be learned. Always more.
Science is nothing more than a toolbox of techniques
used to explore How, What, Why and What Will That Do?
Always question the data. If you don’t continue to question, then it’s not Science any more. It’s authoritarianism and is a clear indicator of an Agenda, or at least laziness. Don’t take questioning too far, though; then it’s just cynicism and pigheadedness — that is, ego. Science has no agenda, just like the hammer has no agenda.
By the way, Doctors are not scientists. There might be some who are also scientists, certainly. (And Thank You!) The biggest flaw with the TV series the X-Files was that they kept using Scully as the scientific touch-stone, the balance to the intuitive Mulder, when she was only a medical doctor. An MD is a technician of the techniques of medical science; he is not an originator of those techniques (unless that doctor is also a researcher, and therefore possibly a scientist). X-Files gave me no reason to think of Scully as anything other than a “saw bones” with a dab of lab experience, plus a paper she wrote on Einstein’s Twin Paradox. Well, big deal; I wrote one of those in High School, myself! It doesn’t make her the perfect partner for Mulder. Further, she was skeptical this and skeptical that (doing the Pig Headed thing), and that’s also not science. It can be science, but not if taken to extremes. Allowing a discussion of something is not the same thing as buying into it or accepting it as fact. Failing to even discuss it, however, is BS.
You must above all else have an Open Mind, or, again, it’s not Science n’more.
Science can be used to invent a better shaving razor, or to come up with a more accurate translation of biblical documents(3), or even to investigate a better form of government.
But, Science is also used to further political agendas, sometimes by “purchasing” (through money, threat of loss of money or other Gangster techniques) scientific opinions (papers written by “scientists” that are tailored to come out a certain way) and sometimes by cancelling a particular research budget when some investigation is getting too close to endangering someone’s dogma or profits.
People have agendas, and some use the Idol of Science to further those agendas. Some use the actual techniques in the toolbox to do that, some use politics aimed at Science (like holding a gun to Science’s head), and some just use the word “Science” — like the advertisers who put the lab coat on the actor while trying to sell you a better (or worse) whatever.
One of the major problems with our current political / governmental structure is that our (so-called) leaders are not required to know anything about the value of Real Investigation into how, what, why or what that will do, nor about the serious dangers of agendas by individuals or small groups — especially small groups with Big Money. (But that’s not Rocket Science to figure out, after all, is it?)
There is nothing here in the so-called subject of Science for any one to get all up in arms about, either. It is not Anti-religious any more than is that Hammer. Some of the world’s best scientists in history were also some of the most influential and insightful theologians. People might be anti-religious. Science has no opinion. A real scientist would say, “we have no solid data on that, yet, but we certainly have millions of compelling anecdotal reports; however my option is…” and beyond that, no scientist can possibly say more. (At least until a more specific question is asked!)
I was 7 years old, I think, when I asked the question, “why is it either evolution or creation? Why isn’t evolution the way God did it?” Seven years old. I have never seen a conflict. But that’s another topic. I’m just trying, here, to point out what Science is, what it isn’t.
So, bottom line:
If there’s an agenda other than “let’s find out,” it isn’t Science;
it’s Ego or Politics misusing the Toolbox or the Idol of Science.
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(1) That was how cigarettes used to advertise and compete with each other. By citing doctors as authorities on how their cigarettes tasted… excuse me? No, really! How they tasted. Geez.
(2) By the way, your cell phone and Smart TV exist only and solely because of the Space Race of the 1960’s. Don’t believe anyone who says “all that money was thrown away.” Not at all…
(3) Which is always going on, by the way. Read Biblical Archeology Review, for instance. The mistranslations in mainstream bibles are legion, and only rarely do the discovered corrections wind their way down to the publishers of this book. Ancient linguistics is a very, very difficult art and science. Then, some of those languages are nearly impossible to translate without changing the meaning(s) built in to those verses. Sigh… language is difficult at best. That we each speak at least one is a tribute to Human Intelligence all by itself. Greek and Aramaic are especially difficult to translate without losing layers of meaning. Look up all the meanings of logos (Greek – λογος) sometime, then reconsider the opening paragraphs of the Gospel of John. Just sayin’