Monday, March 12, 2007

Science Is Self-Correcting

The user, "Just This", recently posted on the Sam Harris Forum:

"Science does not exist in a bubble, in a perfect world. Unfortunately it is humans who 'do' science and humans who interpret the results, thus science is still subject to the prejudices of those humans involved. We have only to look at the subject of global warming to see the effects of man's character flaws. The idea of science being neutral in it's pursuit of truth or facts is a myth, a big myth. In other words you cannot separate science from scientists."

I think there's some truth in what "Just This" says. Unfortunately, he seems to overlook the fact that science tends over time to "correct" for human error and prejudices.

More so, science is self-correcting to a far greater extent than just about every other way humans have devised to reach consensus and agreement --- including religion and politics. So, "Just This" is only looking at one side of it, and perhaps the least important side at that.

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