"... Science is not a monument of received Truth but something that people do to look for truth.
"That endeavor, which has transformed the world in the last few centuries, does indeed teach values. Those values, among others, are honesty, doubt, respect for evidence, openness, accountability and tolerance and indeed hunger for opposing points of view. [¶¶]
"Arguably science is the most successful human activity of all time. Which is not to say that life within it is always utopian, as several of my colleagues have pointed out in articles about pharmaceutical industry payments to medical researchers.
"But nobody was ever sent to prison for espousing the wrong value for the Hubble constant. There is always room for more data to argue over."
--Dennis Overbye, Elevating Science, Elevating Democracy, NY Times, Jan. 26, 2009.
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Have you read "13 Things That Don't Make Sense" yet? I'm in the middle of it now and am fascinated by the stories of when scientists were, as a group, extremely resistant to new ideas. I guess even scientists are human! :)
Posted by: Redlefty | January 28, 2009 at 09:44 AM