Do you know what science is? Are you sure? Can you tell the difference between what is honest well-researched science that is based on verified evidence, and what is philosophy and religion dressing itself up as legitimate scientific research? If you can’t the difference, because you are not sure what science really is, then don’t you think it is important to learn how science arrives at conclusions – before embracing any claim to knowledge and certainty that happens to spark your interest and hopes, all because it sounds good or feels good? What if what you’ve been thinking are scientific proofs and truths are, in fact, refuted by real science? Are you willing to embrace what really is the reality, based upon the well-tested evidence that supports it? Do you know what science is? If not, would you like to know? …
In a nutshell, as I’ve heard it said, science is the cautious effort to discern fact from fiction, to discern what is real and what is belief only, based upon rigorous questioning, testing, and drawing conclusions from the evidence. Science proposes theories about this reality that are, then, tested. Science seeks the evidence that actually exists, whether it validates or invalidates the theory that is proposed. If the majority of evidence stacks firmly against the theorized belief, then the theory is discarded and a new theory is proposed. In fact, science has rewarded scientists with Nobel prizes for having debunked by evidence what was established scientific beliefs, and this willingness to change beliefs based on sufficient evidence is what advances the accuracy in knowledge and know-how of modern science. Nothing is taken for granted, and there are no absolute inviolable pre-ordained truths. Science is not afraid of seeking for truth, but science does not accept established belief as truth without the rigorously tested peer-reviewed evidence that supports it. As well, one of the main objectives of science is to continuously test our cherished beliefs, deliberately looking for weaknesses and instances that debunk our present beliefs. It is only through doing this that we know what is true and what is false, what is real and what is not real. …
In contrary, religion and pseudoscience, take a deliberately opposite stance. With pseudoscience – whether it be philosophical, cultural, or religious based – the pre-determined belief being upheld and being called a “fact” is presented to followers and to the general public as an absolute inviolable pre-ordained truth. In other words, it has already been declared (by belief alone) as an established fact, and the evidence is out there somewhere that proves it – if you have enough faith and belief to connect the dots. As I personally like to explain it, with pseudoscience pretending to be science the arrow is shot into the tree first and, then, the bull’s–eye is drawn very carefully around it to demonstrate how it must obviously be true. Therefore, all research that is engaged in is done strictly to prove this pseudo-truth. Pseudoscientists put great effort into sifting from all the evidence only such evidence that supports their believed-in truth, and they discard any methodology and any evidence (no matter how great!) that disproves their cherished beliefs as being false methods and data (and they, then, call this science!). Some popular pseudosciences of today include germ theory denial, the anti-vaccine movement, beliefs that extraterrestrials are visiting earth or seeded the human race on earth (UFO movements), Creation Science, Flat Earthers, Flood geology, climate change denial, and so forth and so on. All of these mix fervent religious belief with a poor understanding of the Scientific Method, or by deliberately avoiding addressing and using the process of real science. What good is belief, if it is easily disprovable, right? …
Now, take an honest moment to look closely at the beliefs that you have accepted from others, and dare to ask yourself: Are these beliefs I’ve accepted based in science or pseudoscience? Do I wish to actually know what is real and what is not? Does it really benefit me and others around me to believe in false truths about this reality we call life? Or is it really more dangerous to do this? Am I willing to question and change my mind based on sufficient evidence being presented to me? Do I know what real science is?
If we raise a generation of students who do not understand the process of science, the methods of discerning factual knowledge, or who are fearful of science that contradicts established social beliefs – because they don’t understand science – and readily give creedance to pretend science that feeds upon this ignorance, then we are headed as a nation towards the superstitious thinking of the past that has failed to resolve all of the challenges we have successfully addressed in our Scientific Method times.
#evolution #creationscience #floodgeology #climatechange #climatedenial
#Resist #ResistTrump #Indivisible #UnitedWeStand #WomensMarch #NationalPopularVote #maga #inhisimage #inhislikeness
#Alllivesmatter in the United States when America begins to fully embrace its history and its constitution, and when #WhitePrivilege ceases to have meaning in U.S. society.
#BlackLivesMatter #LGBTQ #NativeAmericanLivesMatter
2 Comments
Joseph T Farkasdi · August 11, 2017 at 2:25 pm
“In the beginning, when God created the seven Human species to commingle together upon the earth, he looked upon all that he had created and called it good. There was peace among the species of Man, among all humankind, for a very long time. But, when the humans gifted with unusual creativity took to spreading across the world, they warred with the other species for self-interested gain. In time, only one Human species remained and, later, wrote stories about themselves. Fantastic stories about their supreme importance and their glorious status upon this planet. The world that God created has never been the same.”*
What if human Sapiens hadn’t killed off the human Neanderthalensis, human Denisova, and human Floresiensis in all his extreme predatory ways? How would our societies have developed? What if human Sapiens had developed myths, religions, and writing very early after our cognitive revolution as a species? How would these stories have unfolded, with us not being the lone humans living upon the land, with us sharing the earth with brother and sister species? Had we allowed the other species of human to survive into the present, how would we have approached issues of racism and xenophobia, both among the different species of humankind and within the diversity of our own? I wonder. What stories could we now invent to include the brothers and sisters human species who did not make it into our BCE-CE historical period? Could we give them a voice once more? And, if we did, how would this change us as a self-occupied human primate species upon this planet? I wonder.
* A short story that I penned as a thought experiment to the expression of this post. Additionally, “God” represents any of the plethora of imaginary gods (and goddesses) that have been socially and personally imagined by human Sapiens-kind. Let’s be honest with ourselves folks, if it requires “faith”, then it is – no matter what it is – imaginary and without evidence. What actually exists, what is real, does not require our faith or belief in it (maybe, our trust is sometimes required), it is objectively self-evident to all who explore and study it, and it will never hide itself from reality within only the subjective minds and writings of a single animal species upon this planet.
What does it mean to be human?
http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence
Scientists have discovered a wealth of evidence concerning human evolution, and this evidence comes in many forms. Thousands of human fossils enable researchers and students to study the changes that occurred in brain and body size, locomotion, diet, and other aspects regarding the way of life of early human species over the past 6 million years. Millions of stone tools, figurines and paintings, footprints, and other traces of human behavior in the prehistoric record tell about where and how early humans lived and when certain technological innovations were invented. Study of human genetics show how closely related we are to other primates – in fact, how connected we are with all other organisms – and can indicate the prehistoric migrations of our species, Homo sapiens, all over the world. Advances in the dating of fossils and artifacts help determine the age of those remains, which contributes to the big picture of when different milestones in becoming human evolved.
#evolution #human #sapiens #torah
Let’s get the #NationalPopularVote in place before #Trump #TrumpPence 2020!
#Resist #Indivisible #UnitedWeStand #WomensMarch #maga #inhisimage #inhislikeness
#Alllivesmatter in the United States when America begins to fully embrace its history and its constitution, and when #WhitePrivilege ceases to have meaning in U.S. society.
The United States desperately needs #TruthandReconciliation and #SocialJustice starting today!
Joseph T Farkasdi · February 22, 2018 at 1:03 pm
Every child in the United States needs to read this book more than once! Yes, Carl Sagan did forewarn, for the writing has been on the wall.
“I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time — when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness. The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30-second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance.” – Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World, 1996, page 25-26
“Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking.” – Carl Sagan
#maga and #inhisimage #inhislikeness are but examples of this phenomena of indoctrination and ignorance.