Science and intuition
As ever, the clash of science and intuition is always appealing to me as a spectator.
I came across this article on the USA Today website which has the delicious title; “‘Resistance to science’ has early roots”.
Now immediately, I can sense that this is yet another polemic against stupid irrational people who don’t revere science. After all, they must be stupid as they are resisting science, mustn’t they?? Delving into the heart of the article it becomes clearer…
Bear with me on this as it needs some detailed excerpts to get the idea across. For a start we have this:
“Scientists, educators and policymakers have long been concerned about American adults’ resistance to certain scientific ideas,” note Yale psychologists Paul Bloom and Deena Skolnick Weisberg in the review published in the current Science magazine. In 2005 for example, the Pew Trust found that 42% of poll respondents think people and animals have existed in their present form since the beginning of time, a view that is tough to reconcile with evidence from fossils. Many people believe in ghosts, fairies and astrology. “This resistance to science has important social implications because a scientifically ignorant public is unprepared to evaluate policies about global warming, vaccination, genetically modified organisms, stem cell research, and cloning,” …
OK, so we have people believing in stupid things making them stupid and not being able to debate other things. They are therefore resisting science. Hmmm…so far, I’m not convinced by this argument.
But let us continue…
“To be scientifically educated means you have to pick up a lot of counter-intuitive beliefs,” says Bloom, whose research centers on how children develop their ideas about the world. It’s perfectly rational for people to rely on intuitive beliefs about the world, i.e. that objects fall down, rather than learning Einstein’s theory of gravity, he adds. “Life is too short.” The conflict comes when intuition conflicts with scientific evidence…
…One intuition that causes trouble for science is “promiscuous teleology,” a natural tendency in children to see a purpose and design in everything, part of normal development in making sense of the world. For this reason, children in studies prefer creationist explanations for animals and people, studies show too.”
So now we have the problem that science must ditch intuition in order to explain the world ‘properly’ and those people who won’t or can’t do that must be resisting science (although, for the life of me I can’t see why).
In order to really get to the heart of the matter, we have the following;
“A lot of scientific ideas are fundamentally at odds with religious ones,” Bloom says. “Every religion in existence adopts dualism,” a belief that draws a distinction between the mind (i.e. the soul) and the brain, he notes, a finding completely at odds with the basic evidence from neuroscience that the brain itself generates all our thoughts and feelings.”
Now I, for one, didn’t know that the mind was the soul. Interesting concept there. Might have a few people saying ‘possibly not’, I think. And obviously, science has complete evidence for the brain being responsible for everything. (Would that include clairvoyance, bi-location, psychic surgery, telekinesis, teleportation, and a long list of other human activities??) But I’m merely resisting science here, and
“Resistance to science springs from a clash of experimental or observational evidence with childhood intuition about the world, coupled with what political or religious community we embrace.”
So, by resisting science we are remaining childlike as well as being swayed by political and religious upbringing (which can’t be true if we’re still children). But then, wouldn’t that be society’s fault for keeping us as children, or am I being naive here? No, I find myself still resisting science a little bit.
“Scientists, who have struggled mightily to distrust childhood intuition, must understand that their way of seeing things based on experimentation, observation and debate is unnatural, Bloom adds. “We have to understand the idea that that supernatural or religious ideas are not the product of stupidity or malice, but are in fact, normal human nature.”
Oh well, that’s all right then. I’m not being malicious in distrusting science. In fact, I’m not really being stupid (despite earlier observations to that effect). I’m just being normal. Phew! What a relief!! I’m normal!! Hooray!!
But, wait a moment, that surely makes scientist abnormal??? They are unnatural people (read his words!!).
Sooooo, just let me think about this, what is there so attractive about science that makes me want to run to join its fraternity? Scientists are abnormal, what they do is unnatural and therefore they are weird and perverse and should immediately be forced to drop that garbage they do and join the rest of us normal human beings who are happy with our ideas about the supernatural and the religious.
You know, on reflection, I quite like this guy…
Popularity: 19% [?]
Related posts
Filed under: general stuff, science