scary things at CRTC

[James Knott]

Robert Brockway wrote:
> On Wed, 8 Apr 2009, JoeHill wrote:
>
>> That is just not true _at all_. Science is based on verification through
>> experimentation, and a good scientist takes _nothing_ on faith.
>> Science is a
>> question. It questions everything, including itself, constantly.
>> These claims
>> people make about science being based on faith betray an utter lack of
>> understanding about what scientists actually do.
>
> During my science education I was taught to be constantly on guard
> against scientific dogma.
>
> Scientists are human and don't always act purely in accordance with
> the scientific method.
>
> Many scientists have become defensive when their life's work (and
> perhaps their reputation and livlihood) has been threated by new
> discoveries.
>
> Many of them have clung beyond all reason to the work of their youth
> instead of accepting there were major flaws in their theories.  They
> make up more and more elaborate theories to account for the apparent
> discrepances between their earlier work and reality.  They assume
> their work explains reality even when there is evidence to the
> contrart.  This is faith.
>
> Science is replete with examples of scientific dogma, where large
> numbers of scientists have ignored the evidence and clung to older
> theories that looked more and more tenous as time went on.  In the end
> this resistance usually only went away when the old guard died off.
>
> Plate Techtonics is a great example.  The evidence that continents
> moved and changed over time was very strong and came from a variety of
> sources, and yet the geological establishment resisted the idea of
> decades.
>
> Ideas like an expanding universe were resisted heavily by astronomers
> (in the early 20th century) who had built their life's work on the
> assumption that the universe was largely static over time.  The
> proponents were even happy to suggest that the universe was violating
> conservation of mass-energy to keep their theory afloat.
>
> Science has also been tainted all too often by cultural prejudices.
> Scientists well into the 20th century were presenting serious
> scientific studies that draw conclusions about sexuality or ethnicity
> that many of us would find abhorent.
>
> The idea that science is always pure and somehow naturally avoids
> scientific dogma is itself a form of dogma.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Rob
>
I suspect there's a fine line between the healthy skepticism that
science requires and dogma.


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