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Scientists Fill The Tree Of Knowledge.

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Posted by John Morgan Powell on February 14, 2001 17:54:30 UTC

Benjamin Nelson,

Interesting analogy.

You characterize scientists as if they are on a single twig all doing the same thing. You imply that knowledge obtainable from non-scientific sources is also important and it covers the vast numbers of branches and twigs not occupied by science's single twig. This is too narrow a view of science.

Scientists do NOT, as science textbooks too often imply, strictly follow the canonical "scientific method" of hypothesis-experiment-theory. Scientists follow whatever method works to arrive at cause and effect. Not only are their methods somewhat flexible, their topics cover nearly the full range of observable phenomena. In this way I would say scientists occupy most of the branches of the tree of knowledge.

Religion would like to think it occupies the most important branches, but their hope is vain. They don't know what they think they know. They claim scientists are proud, but it is the religious that are proud. They think they know God when they do not. They proudly tell the rest of the world the way God really is without finding out from Him if they are right. Scientists, on the other hand, recognize that Nature is the source of knowledge. Only by obeying and studying the laws of the same can knowledge be increased.

Atheistic scientists are more humble than religious people.

Some people think creationism should be taught in the classroom side-by-side with scientific theories. Some of these people fail to realize that science, as a matter of course, has already considered all reasonable alternatives.

I concede there are many twigs (and maybe even limbs and branches) of the Tree of Knowledge yet to be discovered, but I don't have confidence that believers in the supernatural are the ones to find these new fields of knowledge. I don't think an uneducated grandparent who believes in alien UFOs or their power to cure illness with a touch is likely to be the person to discover what caused the Big Bang. It's more likely to be someone who's currently a student in astronomy.

You seem to doubt that the cause of the Big Bang is going to be discovered by science. I have more confidence in science than you do. I predict that an explanation acceptable to the scientific community will be presented within 50 years (probably sooner). What do you think?

Has your training been in science, in the humanities, or something else?

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