[compost_tea] Re: OT: Science and Nature

From: Tim Wilson <thegoodjob_at_hotmail.com>
Date: Sat, 04 Feb 2012 01:21:34 -0000

Indeed, if it is Sagan you mean. Also at the forefront of skeptical scienti=
sts and associated with one of my mentors and good friends, Barry Beyerstei=
n who helped me to learn scientific method over 35 years ago.

http://www.positiveatheism.org/writ/saganws.htm

"I hold there's a kind of Gresham's Law that applies in the confrontation o=
f science and pseudoscience: In the popular imagination, at least, the bad =
science drives out the good. What I mean is this: If you are awash in lost =
continents and channeling and UFOs and all the long litany of claims so wel=
l exposed in the Skeptical Inquirer, you may not have intellectual room for=
 the findings of science. You're sated with wonder. Our culture in one way =
produces the fantastic findings of science, and then in another way cuts th=
em off before they reach the average person. So people who are curious, int=
elligent, dedicated to understanding the world, may nevertheless be (in our=
 view) enmired in superstition and pseudoscience. You could say, Well, they=
 ought to know better, they ought to be more critical, and so on; but that'=
s too harsh. It's not very much their fault, I say. It's the fault of a soc=
iety that preferentially propagates the baloney and holds back the ambrosia=
."


"Science involves a seemingly self-contradictory mix of attitudes: On the o=
ne hand it requires an almost complete openness to all ideas, no matter how=
 bizarre and weird they sound, a propensity to wonder. As I walk along, my =
time slows down; I shrink in the direction of motion, and I get more massiv=
e. That's crazy! On the scale of the very small, the molecule can be in thi=
s position, in that position, but it is prohibited from being in any interm=
ediate position. That's wild! But the first is a statement of special relat=
ivity, and the second is a consequence of quantum mechanics. Like it or not=
, that's the way the world is. If you insist that it's ridiculous, you will=
 be forever closed to the major findings of science. But at the same time, =
science requires the most vigorous and uncompromising skepticism, because t=
he vast majority of ideas are simply wrong, and the only way you can distin=
guish the right from the wrong, the wheat from the chaff, is by critical ex=
periment and analysis."

~Carl Sagan

--- In compost_tea_at_yahoogroups.com, "letitgrow69" <letitgrow69_at_...> wrote:
>
> One of the great thinkers of our time.
>
>
> Went to the well but the water was dry
> Dipped my bucket in the clear blue sky
> Looked in the bottom and what did I see?
> The whole damned world looking back at me - Robert Hunter
>
> --- In compost_tea_at_yahoogroups.com, Patrick Kennedy <mixelpix86_at_> wrote:
> >
> > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_966RzTF6k&feature=youtube_gdata_pl=
ayer
> >
>




Received on Sat Feb 04 2012 - 00:00:06 EST

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