Science, Our Last Defense

(11 am. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

Science has always been under attack from the Right, who never let things like factsiness get in the way of their guts. Hell, Mulder had nothing on the right-wing tribe of “we want to believe.” Look at the Warren Report. Science is their Enemy. Logic the Anti-Christ.

It is no surprise that after the 60’s revolution, there was a concerted effort to dumb down the Population, discourage critical thinking and demonize science while elevating Religious Radicalism in the National center stage. Reagan was a direct result of Nixon, not so much as direct revenge, but the result of think tanks using logic to create a more manageable populace.

Science is painted as cold, impersonal, arrogant. People may be all of those things, but science cannot. Science is merely a process, devoid of all anthropomorphism.

It is a PROCESS of applying LOGICAL thinking to known data.

Like, say, a bullet cannot make 5 both lateral and vertical turns, through bone and erupt in a pristine state.

Or that DNA evidence proves we are all related, moving from the cradle of life in Africa outward.

Science, no matter how you feel about it, feels nothing. Math is the same way. We all know the basic process:

While many will point to the past failings of observational science, such as “flat earth” as proof of science’s shortcomings, again, I reiterate, it is not because of the process these conclusions were drawn, merely the human error in inputting raw data.

I have this debate often, in my own living room, when it comes to the study of Astronomy. “How do they know the Universe is expanding, or what the hell that star is made of?”

“Doppler Effect.”

“Spectrum Photography.”

I find most people find it like sausage; they really don’t want to know what goes into it, they just want to either eat it or not eat it. I will grant, our observations are made with a basis of known elements, and there may be completely alien elements that we are unable to observe from our carbon-based flat line. However, the Doppler Effect works exactly as anticipated from our Earth-based test when applied to the Cosmos with NO variation whatsoever.

Critics say that this means everything we know or hold to be true at the moment may be fluid. Of course, they won’t deny the Law of Gravity, but cherry-pick that of which they choose to be skeptical. Usually the sausage-level stuff, things they neither want to, or perhaps are incapable of researching and trying to understand.

I respond, of course it is fluid; again, a PROCESS.

The problem with any study is in eliminating enough variables to find a thread of observational data that acts in a predictable enough way to be considered a sound theory or Law. Nothing exists in a vacuum; unless we create that vacuum for the process of study. Science seeks to clear away the muddle of cobwebs first, then examine the process as whole thereafter. To understand the web, one must know the materials that created it.

Analytical thinking created the very arts that are seen as “warm” and fuzzy. What is music at its very core than the science of applied mathematics?

It is a Universal Language.

“Cold Logic” ahhhh, logic is as human as lust; in fact without logic we would spend all our time on the latter, never even realizing that lust is merely a chemical logic biological imperative to breed with the best of species. Without logic, we’d probably forget to eat.

The creation of “Gods” was originally logical to our evolving species, as an explanation for the inexplicable: “Where did that Sun go at night, anyway?”

Not that we have it all down, but the process itself is a beautiful construct that every day creates new wonders. Light itself changes from wave to particle by being observed, and if that doesn’t blow your mind, it somehow anticipates that observation by changing as it passes a “blind” depending on whether or not someone is on the other side to observe it.

How fucking cool is that?

It is our very nature to continue applying Science and Logic to our World, to explore and discover. Science is no more cold and calculating than a toddler staring in wonder at the prism of dew on a blade of grass. It is curiosity and wonder. I reject wholly the notion that science and spirituality are mutually exclusive; I find the more we learn, the closer they become to being one, despite our tendency for binary thinking and dualism.

Is the wonder of the green of that blade a grass lessened by it being reduced to a “machine” when one observes the tiny little chloroplast factories doing their thing, or does it amplify the wonder to a new level?

As quantum mechanics and string theory introduces the idea of multiple realities; is that not an amazingly parallel explanation to shamans, gods and the lines of the world? It proves that those observations were not flawed, but now seeks to explain them.

“Science is a new Religion, and just as Faith Based as Religion.”

I say poppycock. Science works endlessly to prove itself wrong. Find a theocratic process that does that, and we’ll talk.

Instead, we have a concerted effort in this country to discredit the very Process that is the only thing between us and the cave. They have managed to convince enough people that science is flawed to have only 51% of the Population believing in Global Warming. They count on the lack of Logic in society to cover the fact that Exxon-Mobile, one of the World’s largest polluter FUNDED the counter-research. Of course, we don’t even want to look at how many now believe in Creationism and Intelligent Design and a very young Earth.

If there was ever a time we needed to laud Science to fight back the stooopid, it is now. Cable carries 14 God channels and only 2 Science channels. Think about that.

Otherwise, we may as well just go back to asking where the sun goes at night.

Me? I’ll take my facts straight up and cold as hell; stir it reasonably with logic, and suck it up with a sense of awe and wonder. I prefer the Cold Comfort of Logic to the Unreliability of Human Nature. I like reality.

Science Rocks.