HOME | DD

Description
Scientific knowledge is human knowledge and scientists are human beings. They are not gods, and science is not infallible. Yet, the general public often thinks of scientific claims as absolutely certain truths. They think that if something is not certain, it is not scientific and if it is not scientific, then any other non-scientific view is its equal. This misconception seems to be, at least in part, behind the general lack of understanding about the nature of scientific theories.
From The Skeptic's Dictionary

In this day and age people will take anything with a grain of salt up until it has "scientifically proven" attached to it. Then it's accepted as an absolute truth. As a person with faith, I personally have had it up to the ceiling with people whose religion is "scientifically proven" and telling me everything I believe in is "scientifically proven" to be wrong. Once and for all, I'd like to say that science is the systematic observation of the natural world and is simply a mode of human understanding. It can neither prove nor disprove the supernatural.

Furthermore, scientific claims can ALWAYS be amended or disproved by new evidence and should NEVER be accepted as the final answer. People who further scientific claims usually do so with a very human agenda. In the early 1900s, Westerners believed that science had explained everything there was to know and there was nothing new to be learned. This included that bathing was bad for you (Europeans still believed that at this era). Up until 1945, the American law called for compulsory sterilization of the "feeble-minded" or otherwise "unfit," because these people were "scientifically proven" to create defective children. Up until very recently, people fighting for animal rights had a hard time going up against the fact that animals were scientifically proven to be programmed by instinct and were devoid of thoughts and feelings. Just two years ago, Lydia Fairchild nearly lost custody of all three of her biological children because current DNA testing was considered "infallible" in the courts. Makes you wonder how many innocent people we're sending to prison based on faulty science.

So support science AND humanity. Don't accept whatever is the current scientific claim as absolute truth!

Description
Scientific knowledge is human knowledge and scientists are human beings. They are not gods, and science is not infallible. Yet, the general public often thinks of scientific claims as absolutely certain truths. They think that if something is not certain, it is not scientific and if it is not scientific, then any other non-scientific view is its equal. This misconception seems to be, at least in part, behind the general lack of understanding about the nature of scientific theories.
From The Skeptic's Dictionary

In this day and age people will take anything with a grain of salt up until it has "scientifically proven" attached to it. Then it's accepted as an absolute truth. As a person with faith, I personally have had it up to the ceiling with people whose religion is "scientifically proven" and telling me everything I believe in is "scientifically proven" to be wrong. Once and for all, I'd like to say that science is the systematic observation of the natural world and is simply a mode of human understanding. It can neither prove nor disprove the supernatural.

Furthermore, scientific claims can ALWAYS be amended or disproved by new evidence and should NEVER be accepted as the final answer. People who further scientific claims usually do so with a very human agenda. In the early 1900s, Westerners believed that science had explained everything there was to know and there was nothing new to be learned. This included that bathing was bad for you (Europeans still believed that at this era). Up until 1945, the American law called for compulsory sterilization of the "feeble-minded" or otherwise "unfit," because these people were "scientifically proven" to create defective children. Up until very recently, people fighting for animal rights had a hard time going up against the fact that animals were scientifically proven to be programmed by instinct and were devoid of thoughts and feelings. Just two years ago, Lydia Fairchild nearly lost custody of all three of her biological children because current DNA testing was considered "infallible" in the courts. Makes you wonder how many innocent people we're sending to prison based on faulty science.

So support science AND humanity. Don't accept whatever is the current scientific claim as absolute truth!