How Scientific Experimentation is Superior to Rationality...

Now that we have looked at the differences between the experimental type of thinking and the other types we have discussed, we can see that it is superior to any of the others. Experimental thinking does, to be sure, emphasize systematization and classification, but as means, not as ends in themselves. And, along with rationalism, it emphasizes general principles and laws, but again, not as ends in themselves, but as convenient guides for making our inferences. Neither observation nor infere...

 The Scientific Method Produces General Principles by Whic...

Just as the first means by which science reduces the danger of error is the continual comparison of ideas and concepts, the second is the formulation of general principles by means of which we can understand cause-and-effect or sequential relationships among events. The function of a general principle or scientific law is twofold; to organize discrete objects and events in systematic order so that we can deal with them more effectively and exercise greater control over them; and to provide a ...

 The Scientific Process Encompasses Numerous Viewpoints

We can get rid of outdated ways of looking at things, of fixed experience, of ingrained intellectual habits, only by constantly expanding our experience and continually comparing one idea with another in order to select the better one. Because systematic science is the result of constant comparison of innumerable materials and experiences, it cannot be produced by individual effort; it is a social product. Science has no nationality; it admits no prejudices. Scientific discoveries made in one...

 The Scientific Method is a Process for Knowing that is Su...

Since mere observation cannot provide the solution to a problem, no matter how accurately it is conducted the necessary next step is inference the process which leads from the present to the future, from the known to the unknown. Every inference is a sort of adventure. Another difference between the scientific method and ordinary common sense is that the former controls the adventure more carefully, and thus reduces the danger involved. The more rigorous the method the less the danger. Safegu...

 Observation Provides Data on Problems, but Cannot Solve Them

A good illustration of the scientific method, in which observations are made for the purpose of identifying difficulties and analyzing situations, is the procedure followed by a physician when he makes a diagnosis. A doctor does not write a prescription solely on the basis of what his patient tells him; he uses instruments to take the patient’s temperature to examine his feces, and to analyze his urine. It is only after he has made these examinations that he writes his prescription; without...

 The Vaccinated Protect the Unvaccinated

If 234 000 deaths from COVID-19 could have been prevented with a primary series of vaccinations (https://bit.ly/3XrFXfz) between June 2021 and March 2022, I estimate that 140 400 of these deaths would have been among Republicans. This is, of course, not a surprise because Republicans are less likely to be vaccinated than Democrats, and, as the Texas Department of Health put it, “Texas Data Shows Unvaccinated People 20 times More Likely to Die From COVID-19” (https://bit.ly/3H0ACog). T...

 Este es el Sol

Este es el brote que crece de la semilla y se oriente al Sol... Esta es la semilla que viene del arbol y cae en la caca que cayo al suelo a los pies de la zorra que callada achecha a la incauta serpiente que abre su boca y caza la iguana que lanza su lengue y apresa a la arana que teje su tela para atrapar al bicho que se sienta en la hoja y come la flor que epieza a brotar creciendo en el arbol que hace su comida con la luz del Sol.

 1979 Dystopian Vision That Came True

I HAVE THIS recurring nightmare. Jonas Salk has just announced his cure for polio. A bill is introduced in Congress to require mandatory inoculation of school children under HEW direction. Opposition then appears. Ronald Reagan urges "free choice by parents rather than compulsion by government." Mobil runs advertisements with the headline, "From gas tanks to bloodstreams. Where will government go next?" An associate professor of economics does a study for the American Enterprise Institute dem...

 Mathematicians as Birds and Frogs

Some mathematicians are birds, others are frogs. Birds fly high in the air and survey broad vistas of mathematics out to the far horizon. They delight in concepts that unify our thinking and bring together diverse problems from different parts of the landscape. Frogs live in the mud below and see only the flowers that grow nearby. They delight in the details of particular objects, and they solve problems one at a time. I happen to be a frog, but many of my best frien...

 Scientific Laws Mean That God has No Freedom

he one remaining area that reHgion can now lay claim to is the origin of the universe, but even here science is making progress and should soon provide a definitive answer to how the universe began. I published a book that asked if God created the universe, and that caused something of a stir. People got upset that a scientist should have anything to say on the matter of religion. I have no desire to tell anyone what to believe, but for me asking if God exists is a valid question for science...