{"id":44887,"date":"2017-11-14T17:13:44","date_gmt":"2017-11-15T00:13:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=44887"},"modified":"2018-01-01T12:36:50","modified_gmt":"2018-01-01T19:36:50","slug":"dispatches-front-lines-unceasing-war-science","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2017\/11\/dispatches-front-lines-unceasing-war-science.html","title":{"rendered":"Some dispatches from the front lines of my unceasing war against science"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"On<\/a>
An artist\u2019s conception of a lake on the Saturnian moon Titan (NASA\/JPL-Caltech\/USGS public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself, I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself now and then in finding a smoother pebble or prettier shell than ordinary, while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727)<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

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***<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I admit that I had never previously heard of this unjustly neglected chemist:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Forgotten Scientist Whose Work Led to Finding DNA\u2019s Structure\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

***<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIs there a terrestrial analogue for Titan? \u00a0Looking for life in Titan\u2019s totally alien seas could start with Earth\u2019s own asphalt lake.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

***<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cShould we seed life through the cosmos using laser-driven ships?\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

***<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAncient spiral galaxy is 11 billion years old:\u00a0New observation could give insight into how such star systems sprout arms\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

***<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cOne-Fifth of Medical Care Is Unnecessary, Doctors Say\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

***<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe First Solid Evidence of Eruptions Under Antarctic Ice\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/h2>\n

***<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Raw and unprocessed notes from a manuscript, drawn from Allen R. Busker\u2019s review of Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark<\/em>, published under the title of \u201cScience, Pseudoscience, and Religious Belief\u201d by Allen R. Buskirk in FARMS Review<\/em> 17\/1 (2005): 273\u2013309:<\/p>\n

:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Contemporary science often requires that we ignore the evidence provided by our own eyes in favor of abstract theories.\u00a0 How many have ever seen a quark or a muon or even an electron?\u00a0 What evidence do we really, personally, have that the earth orbits the sun?\u00a0 To the human eye, it appears that the sun rises in the morning and sets at night, while the solid earth, terra firma<\/em>, remains motionless and at rest.\u00a0 What sensory data tells us that the earth revolves annually around the sun?\u00a0 None.\u00a0 Which is why ancient peoples universally held to a geocentric view of the universe.\u00a0 But then along came Copernicus, arguing that, in fact, it is the earth that moves around the sun.\u00a0 Which should take precedence?\u00a0 Theory, or common sense and what we can see with our own eyes?\u00a0 Galileo once expressed his admiration for Copernicus on the grounds that Copernicus let \u201creason so conquer sense that, in defiance of the latter, the former became the mistress of his mind.\u201d[1]<\/a>\u00a0 In other words, he admired the fact that Copernicus permitted\u00a0theoretical principles to override the data presented by his senses.\u00a0 But the surprising fact is that the weight of the actual evidence both in Copernicus\u2019s time and in Galileo\u2019s, some years later, was against Copernicus\u2019s proposal.\u00a0 It was not until approximately sixty years after Copernicus\u2019s death that the data were on hand to vindicate his heliocentric model of the solar system.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Cited in Steven Shapin, The Scientific Revolution<\/em> (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 93. \u00a0[see original]<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself, I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself now and then in finding a smoother pebble or prettier shell than ordinary, while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nSome dispatches from the front lines of my unceasing war against science<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"    I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself, I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2017\/11\/dispatches-front-lines-unceasing-war-science.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Some dispatches from the front lines of my unceasing war against science\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"    I do not know what I may appear to the world; 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