Try to be less certain. We haven’t fully connected the classical and quantum sciences, not yet. There’re a lot of holes. There’s a lot we could be wrong about! We don’t have a theory for everything. If you don’t fully grasp the big picture (this includes quantum phenomena), and how the interlocking peices work together in a harmony, then we’ll never trully be right – local facts will conflict with big picture facts. These things aren’t yet fully observable, and even then we’ll have to accomodate them. It helps to be humble. Just imagine what we’ll know in 500 years. Do you honestly think that not much will change? Do you think that 500 years from now we’ll be in the same boat, and we’ll look back to 2009 and say, “By gosh, they had everything right!” I don’t think so. We look back 500 years and we tear apart most of the then science world. We discard what didn’t work, and keep what did. Right now I see in my mind a lot of people who’re fixating on what we kept, on what worked, and not remembering the things we were wrong about. They’re not remembering how precious and rare being right was. Being right often meant being isolated and condemned, even by established scholars. Too many people think to themselves that back then the church ruled everything, but they forge that the very same people in existence today, who pursue science with devotion, are the same people who lived in the dark ages. Ultimately, it doesn’t always pay to be humble – a lot of “scientists” were wrong, and were oh so certain. They were wrong, so obviously they were not be scientific – not being humble. Maybe what they believed coincided with what they could observe in those days. Maybe it made sense to them. Perhaps the same fate awaits us. Oneday, what makes sense presently, won’t make sense anymore.

Giving others hte impression that science is not absolutely certain, and that it could be wrong, and that indeed this has happened in the past, might help to win a few of the fence sitters who’re exceedingly irritated by absolute statements.

Thanks
Doug
Vancouver Sun spirituality and philosophy writer

Todd is very clear to define ’scientism’ as different from ’science’ right from the start, and he repeatedly refers to ’scientism’ as the subject of his article all the way through.

Furthermore, Phil actually reiterates several of Todd’s points as *counterpoints* to Todd (even though they’re both saying the same thing).

Todd: “Science has always had a speculative component, as we see with theories about quantum physics and the Big Bang and evolution.”

Phil: “It took a leap of imagination for Alan Guth to think that the Big Bang theory wasn’t wrong, but incomplete, and to add inflation to explain why the Universe looks so smooth.”

Speaking of Strawmen arguments:

Phil: you have accused Todd of attacking science in this article. Todd attacked “scientism” in this article. Your entire piece is a strawman.

Here’s some more, this one from the Telegraph’s Missing the Point desk: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/science/sciencenews/5081751/Why-science-doesnt-make-sense.html