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Science is different from many another human enterprise - not, of course, in its practitioners' being influenced by the culture they grew up in, nor in sometimes being right and sometimes wrong (which are common to every human activity), but in its passion for framing testable hypotheses, in its search for definitive…
Why should it be hard for scientists to get science across? Some scientists, including some very good ones, tell me they'd love to popularize, but feel they lack talent in this area. Knowing and explaining, they say, are not the same thing. What's the secret? There's only one, I think: don't talk to the general…
A few weeks before the debates, however, they are informed that it is the task of each to present the point of view of the opponent in a way that's satisfactory to the opponent - so the opponent will say, 'Yes, that's a fair presentation of my views.' In the joint written debate they explore their differences, but…
Ethnocentrism, xenophobia and nationalism are these days rife in many parts of the world. Government repression of unpopular views is still widespread. False or misleading memories are inculcated. For the defenders of such attitudes, science is disturbing. It claims access to truths that are largely independent of…
36. When, under stress of pain, the witch has confessed, her plight is indescribable. Not only cannot she escape herself, but she is also compelled to accuse others whom she does not know, whose names are frequently put into her mouth by the investigators or suggested by the executioner, or of whom she has heard as…
...there is nothing which can better deserve your patronage, than the promotion of science and literature. Knowledge is, in every country, the surest basis of public happiness. In one in which the measures of government receive their impression so immediately from the sense of the community as in ours, it is…
Daniel Kunitz is a friend of mine from college. He's spent his life as an innovative junior and senior high school social sciences teacher. Want the students to understand the Constitution of the United States? You could have them read it, Article by Article, and then discuss it in class but, sadly, this will put most…
At the time of writing there are three claims in the ESP field which, in my opinion, deserve serious study: (1) that by thought alone humans can (barely) affect random number generators in computers; (2) that people under mild sensory deprivation can receive thoughts or images 'projected' at them; and (3) that young…
Even when it's applied sensitively, scientific scepticism may come across as arrogant, dogmatic, heartless and dismissive of the feelings and deeply held beliefs of others. And, it must be said, some scientists and dedicated sceptics apply this tool as a blunt instrument, with little finesse. Sometimes it looks as if…
If it is to be applied consistently, science imposes, in exchange for its manifold gifts, a certain onerous burden: we are enjoined, no matter how uncomfortable it might be, to consider ourselves and our cultural institutions scientifically and not to accept uncritically whatever we're told; to surmount as best we can…
What realm of human endeavour is not morally ambiguous? Even folk institutions that purport to give us advice on behaviour and ethics seem fraught with contradictions. Consider aphorisms - haste makes waste; yes, but a stitch in time saves nine. Better safe than sorry; but nothing ventured, nothing gained. Where…
...the order of the Universe is not an assumption; it's an observed fact. We detect the light from distant quasars only because the laws of electromagnetism are the same ten billion light years away as here. The spectra of those quasars are recognizable only because the same chemical elements are present there as…
Within the personal religious belief system of a law enforcement officer, Christianity may be good and satanism evil. Under the Constitution, however, both are neutral. This is an important, but difficult, concept for many law enforcement officers to accept. They are paid to uphold the penal code, not the Ten…
President Ronald Reagan, who spent World War Two in Hollywood, vividly described his own role in liberating Nazi concentration camp victims. Living in the film world, he apparently confused a movie he had seen with a reality he had not. On many occasions in his Presidential campaigns, Mr Reagan told an epic story of…
...science is part and parcel humility. Scientists do not seek to impose their needs and wants on Nature, but instead humbly interrogate Nature and take seriously what they find. We are aware that revered scientists have been wrong. We understand human imperfection. We insist on independent and - to the extent…
Fear of things invisible is the natural seed of that which every one in himself calleth religion.
Trust a witness in all matters in which neither his self-interest, his passions, his prejudices, nor the love of the marvellous is strongly concerned. When they are involved, require corroborative evidence in exact proportion to the contravention of probability by the thing testified.
the hard but just rule is that if the ideas don't work, you must throw them away. Don't waste neurons on what doesn't work. Devote those neurons to new ideas that better explain the data. The British physicist Michael Faraday warned of the powerful temptation to seek for such evidence and appearances as are in the…
One of the great commandments of science is, 'Mistrust arguments from authority'. (Scientists, being primates, and thus given to dominance hierarchies, of course do not always follow this commandment.) Too many such arguments have proved too painfully wrong. Authorities must prove their contentions like everybody…
Those strains that reproduce persist; those that do not reproduce die out. The ability to reproduce is what makes living things different from rocks. Besides, there is nothing inconsistent with free will or even chastity in this view of life. Human beings, I believe, thrive according to their ability to take…