📝Science is Religion

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#insight

§ Science is structurally similar to religion with lots (?) of assumptions and faith.

The basic preposition of scientific method is that there are experiments that can be repeated to confirm or disprove a theory. In reality, you will likely never repeat an experiment, so science becomes a second-hand knowledge and authority and faith play a crucial role.

For a more authoritative scientist it is easier to promote a wrong theory and being believed to without much proofs. We have a track record of this in history. e.g., scientists believing machines cannot fly, or that man can’t drive faster 50kmph (the head would explode, lol). (TODO: check that I am remembering these correctly).

Vice versa, for a no-name scientist, it is much harder to promote a correct theory. e.g., a doctor who suggested that doctors should wash their hands was considered ridiculous.

Also, the authority of scientific papers might not get checked or quotes put off-context. As an example of former, there are multiple trash papers published by scientific journals (e.g., computer-generated scientific-looking papers), or as a pinnacle: “Get Me Off Your Fucking Mailing List” is an actual science paper accepted by a journal. As an example of later, there are many common-day myths that are “backed-up by science,” where science means a non-peer-reviewed paper or quote from a paper completely off-context. e.g., the fact that human needs 2 liters of water per day is literally next to a sentence that says most of that water comes from food. Also, a highly-quoted “number of microbes in human body” can be tracked back to a back-of-envelope calculation in a non-peer-reviewed paper (IIRC).

This is not to say that science is fundamentally flawed or wrong, but rather that we might be putting too much faith into it.

TODO: assumptions of science

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