Questioning Science

[DJ Droood]

The more you question science, the stronger it becomes. The more you question religion, the weaker it becomes. For this reason, I suggest we question everything vigorously.

[echoe]

Hmmm. well, I've seen science crumble under questioning too. Remember, science is also influenced by human goals. When we WANT to find a certain thing, there is more of a tendency to find what we're looking for and to overlook things we shouldn't have.

Plenty of pharmaceutical companies (scientific?) can prove what I just said. WANTING an outcome doesn't preclude the truth of it. There's also institutional backing of science (the Catholic Church backed PLENTY of scientists who were told what to say or what to do.) How many lawsuits or recalls of drugs have happened over the past few years? In spite of scientific pharmaceuticals wanting a drug to solely be for benefit/profit? And if you should argue that the science aspect was twisted, because yes, they took away parts and hid information, well, where then was the science? And to believe that no one else in science does the same thing is a dangerous trust.

When activated truthfully, science is pure observation without human influence, but the moment you get human observation, well, you can't avoid the human influence. We're prone to mistakes, period. So there are going to be as many mistakes in science as there are in religions.

I can't tell you how many studies I've sat and laughed at, or been disgusted with. The Bell curve. Trust me, if you're sitting in a room full of people who believe you're stupid, or who believe you're going to make mistakes, it makes you very nervous, and thus more prone to mistakes and wrong answers. Ever had a boss constantly look over your shoulder? The Bell Curve sought a specific outcome and thus found it, because those doing the study didn't wish to see any other outcome. It was a load of BULL. They discounted cultural aspects, educational aspects, life experiences, etc. I've met a LOT of people I consider to be highly intelligent, who don't have the educational background or degrees that many supposed "intelligent" people have. I've met some mighty stupid people who attended extremely well-known highly accredited institutions as well. And I too, am not immune from saying a stupid thing from time to time. Science is humanly driven and therefore not immune to human mistakes.

But in the end, my conclusion is the same as your conclusion. Question everything.

[echoe]

Faith isn't necessarily believing in something that is wrong. Drood is faithful to the tenet that science is right because science questions everything. Faith is believing in something. We can believe in partnership vows, and find that they are successful over the whole. Aberrations appear in every part of nature, so faith can also be a matter of leaping over the aberration and choosing to believe the constant. But science must take all into account, and not skip over the aberration. It's easy to get bogged down in any one area in life, and oftentimes faith is what carries you through to the next section. It doesn't make it a belief in something that is wrong. It just makes it a belief in something. If I were to leave my life sentence to scientists, Drood, believe me, I'd have killed myself long ago. I'm a scientific HUGE aberration of nature. Personified. And many have and still want to study me for scientific purposes. Many have and I'm sure will continue in the future, told me to give up all pretense of happiness, for in their "belief" I can not be a happy person. They're faithful to the concept that I'm not happy.

I'm both blind and deaf, with a rare genetic disease that occurs in 1 in 800,000. (Lottery here I come!) I also carried a child who had such a rare genetic condition that there was only one other known historically to have had that gene. And I was shoved into a scientific HELL because they wanted the genetic information and not the PERSON. In that hell, 5 leading European medical scientist of different countries came together to study the case. 5 European governments came together along with the Catholic church of Rome to tell me that I was not allowed to bear this abnormality, sheerly based on science. I did anyway. Authority and science be damned. I had faith in myself, and in my child. He lived past any time that any scientist ever determined he'd live. And when he died I had faith that I'd done the right thing. He knew the love of a mother and not the coldness of science. Faith has a purpose. Faith cannot be painted with a brushstroke of nothing but wrongness and science cannot be so trusted. Anything involving humans will have errors. We must ALL use wisdom, and assess ALL, not just pure scientific observation. Feelings and experiences are of value. Faith is of value. Knowledge is of value Science is of value, but none can stand alone.