Henry Neufeld has a good analysis up concerning the strange world we find ourselves in when we trust science with one hand but then discard it with the other.
These first few paragraphs of his are posted here with Henry’s permission:
Practically everyone today is heavily dependent on the results on the work of scientists. We are quite content to trust the work of scientists when we climb aboard airplanes, drive our cars, or post blog entries. Of course, a great deal of technological building has been done on the basic discoveries of the scientists, but it’s the theories that scientists have developed that allow these things to work, and we express our trust in the reliability of the scientific method each time we depend on such wonders of modern technology.
We continue this trust when we hear of theories relating to gravity, various particles, and specific vectors and mutations involved in disease. The results of modern science are so pervasive in our lives, and its theories so pervasive in our thinking that it would be hard to imagine thinking or working without them.
But all of this trust starts to fall apart for many people over one scientific theory: evolution. It’s the scary word, the one place where the scientists just must be wrong, and many people simply grab hold of any option available rather than to think that the scientists, who have been repeatedly shown to be right on so many things, may also be right on this one. If a small group of people became convinced that the rules of aerodynamics were faulty, hired PR firms to support their view, wrote popular books on it, and demanded equal time in our high school classrooms, they would simply be objects of ridicule. When the topic is evolution, it’s another matter. Experimental data, historical observations, the fossil record, and genetics all combine to provide support for the key elements of the theory of evolution–common descent and variation + natural selection. Yet what would be plenty of evidence if applied to any other scientific theory instead becomes controversial.
(Head over to Henry’s blog to finish reading this piece.)
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About Brandon Haught
Communications Director for Florida Citizens for Science.
Good read: Of Science, Faith, and Feelings
Henry Neufeld has a good analysis up concerning the strange world we find ourselves in when we trust science with one hand but then discard it with the other.
These first few paragraphs of his are posted here with Henry’s permission:
Practically everyone today is heavily dependent on the results on the work of scientists. We are quite content to trust the work of scientists when we climb aboard airplanes, drive our cars, or post blog entries. Of course, a great deal of technological building has been done on the basic discoveries of the scientists, but it’s the theories that scientists have developed that allow these things to work, and we express our trust in the reliability of the scientific method each time we depend on such wonders of modern technology.
We continue this trust when we hear of theories relating to gravity, various particles, and specific vectors and mutations involved in disease. The results of modern science are so pervasive in our lives, and its theories so pervasive in our thinking that it would be hard to imagine thinking or working without them.
But all of this trust starts to fall apart for many people over one scientific theory: evolution. It’s the scary word, the one place where the scientists just must be wrong, and many people simply grab hold of any option available rather than to think that the scientists, who have been repeatedly shown to be right on so many things, may also be right on this one. If a small group of people became convinced that the rules of aerodynamics were faulty, hired PR firms to support their view, wrote popular books on it, and demanded equal time in our high school classrooms, they would simply be objects of ridicule. When the topic is evolution, it’s another matter. Experimental data, historical observations, the fossil record, and genetics all combine to provide support for the key elements of the theory of evolution–common descent and variation + natural selection. Yet what would be plenty of evidence if applied to any other scientific theory instead becomes controversial.
(Head over to Henry’s blog to finish reading this piece.)
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About Brandon Haught
Communications Director for Florida Citizens for Science.