Slowman wrote:
IT wrote:
Slowman wrote:
ThisIsIt wrote:
Science is neither pure nor good, it's just a process that has proven highly effective at figuring out how the Universe works. Ideally it's after truth. What humans do with that truth can be judged to be good or bad, and probably will be both by different people.
let me contextualize science for you, because you clearly don't get it.
when the shit gets brown - when i get a life threatening disease, for example - then i run full speed, humble and whimpering, toward products and processes achieved generated and validated by the use of science and engineering. when an issue or instance is consequence-free, or when i'm too stupid to understand the consequences, or when the consequences affect others and not me, then my political or religious views move to the fore and science can bite me.
do you now understand how science works?
what do you do when you learn that the science that you were trusting has given you a life threatening disease?
you do one of two things: you die; or you use science to help you out of the jam science got you into.
every now and then the county i'm in has to fix a badly engineered intersection. too many accidents. the architecture of the intersection caused accidents. so it gets fixed. that doesn't call into question the methodology for traffic flow. it just means civil engineers screw up once in awhile. we don't start disregarding the rules of traffic flow because of the occasional bad intersection.
if you just look at how you live your life every day, the decisions you make, you do trust science and engineering. overwhelmingly. when you pick out one point and choose to disregard science - vaccines let us say, or evolution - why? is it because you have an overwhelmingly sound reason? or because it fits a narrative you find comforting?
if your problem is the clash of science with the religion you hold, remember that if your god made this world he made it to conform to his rules, which scientists have identified. miracles aren't his rules. they are the momentary, rare, suspension of his rules. if we choose to not live by his rules and rather according to his momentary suspension of them, seems to me god would find that rather facepalming.
thank you for your thoughts as most of them are coming across as rather rational with just some political leaning. like politics, IMO this thread was more about you wanting affirmation from this peer group rather than understanding.
you say that the options are to die or use science so we don't die. of course science/scientist would like us to invest more on science/scientists. i'm perplexed as to spending more or trusting more. are we going to make it up on volume? or another new and improved product?
another common option (and we're not limited in options) is to take a break and reassess where we are, like we do with our training/health. rushing from one thing to another often causes more damage. sometimes seeing what happens when we actually do less helps us heal and provides time to reason better.
some of us think that we are living in a science experiment gone bad. especially when we listen to doomsday scientists. in some ways science could be taking a victory lap given the huge number of people who are fed these days. most starvation is now due to political opponents denying food to the opposition and not a lack of food. i credit science with feeding many many people. good on science. science has also given us the bicycle and more potable water than ever before. good on science.
yet when science is demanding more buy in or threatening me with doom, it does remind me of the failures of science (pharma over existing less profitable alternatives for example or countries that go with a one child/no child policy and then can't get back to replacement level population to deal with aging). these failures give me pause and I take a break to re-access my buy in.
how many prescriptions should i be on at one time (as an analogy to your proposal in favor of science) to keep me from dying?
scare tactics sometimes backfire in science, religion and politics because people do get tired and start thinking about their approach to life. people grow skeptical and that can be a good thing.
Indoor Triathlete - I thought I was right, until I realized I was wrong.