Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!cmcl2!nrl-cmf!ames!pacbell!att-ih!ihnp4!inuxc!iuvax!pur-ee!uiucdcs!uiucdcsp!pax
From: pax@uiucdcsp.cs.uiuc.edu
Newsgroups: sci.misc
Subject: Science IS a religion.
Message-ID: <73600008@uiucdcsp>
Date: 10 Mar 88 01:54:00 GMT
Lines: 60
Nf-ID: #N:uiucdcsp:73600008:000:3025
Nf-From: uiucdcsp.cs.uiuc.edu!pax    Mar  9 19:54:00 1988



	All the criticism of Omni reminds me of how I've come to detest NOVA.
	In the beginning I was an enthusiastic NOVA supporter.  But
	the more I saw the less I liked it.  The problem is that it presents
	science half as a cult of personalities and half as religion.
	The first assertion is probably obvious to everyone.  As to the
	second, if the next time you are watching it you would simply 
	imagine the narrator intoning your favorite creed, you will be
	persuaded by how well that creed fits.  NOVA and religion are
	appealing to the same emotion.

	Since I first made this realization, two things have happened
	to further shake my confidence in science as a social institution.

	The first has been the discovery of high temperature super-
	conductivity--a real discovery that exposes other contemporary
	physics as a species of bookkeeping and the artificiality
	of theory.  Really, how much confidence can you have in some
	arrogant astrophysicist's elucidation of the first millisecond
	of the history of the universe when a phenomenon like 
	high-temperature superconductivity wasn't even known.  It's
	not science, it's religion.

	The second was that I found out that many palentologists 
	don't accept the theory that a meteor striking the earth can 
	account for a sudden mass extinction of dinosaurs.   I had bought this
	because there is evidence that a meteor did hit the earth.  Now,
	apparently the fossil record is ambiguous on the question
	of whether there ever even was a sudden mass extinction of
	dinosaurs.  And man's own effect on the biosphere shows 
	that if there was the cause could be very obscure.
	But because the guy that proposed the theory is a Nobel Prize
	winner in Physics, that is not in the field at all, he
	thinks his critics should not even be listened to, dismissing
	them because they are not members of the National Academy 
	of Sciences.  Frankly if this sentiment is typical of
	its membership, it must be a detestible institution.

	But the bottom line is that science is not logical and not
	impartial but very much driven by politics and personalities,
	it's a religion complete with dogma and high priests, and the
	truth is that Omni taps the true root of science in America 
	today.  If you want to understand what science is all about,
	read Omni, not Scientific American, to find out.  (But don't
	believe anything it says :-)

	So what happened to science?  Was it always this bad?
	Remembering phrenology one is tempted to say so.  But
	I don't believe that.  I think that Science can be something 
	worthwhile, but I think the verdict on whether it is, has been, or will
	be is not in yet.  There is not even convincing evidence for
	the efficacy of modern medicine.  If you doubt this, why
	don't we live longer than bushmen? Why don't we lead 
	better lives than bushmen?
	
	It still seems very likely to me that
	future generations might look on science the way we look
	on alchemy or might even regard it with the disgust we resevre
	for slavery and racism.