Halloween is filled with all kinds of emotions when dealing with life-threatening food allergies! |
Friday, October 18, 2013
Halloween - 2013 Edition
Friday, October 4, 2013
The Sanctity of Science
As the years go by, I grow more and more convinced that the scientific process is a perfect process for its intended purpose - to test ideas in order to explain how natural phenomena work in the realm of space and time. Natural phenomena can range from at one end - the known universe - to at the other end - the seemingly infinitesimally small Higg's boson (aka - God particle). At either of those extreme ends of natural phenomena, questions of science often meet the philosophical - e.g. was there a BEFORE the big bang? Most of us, however, reside somewhere in the middle of this spectrum. Even in the in between, there is still so much we have to learn - about ourselves, about our world. I believe the wonder, awe, and beauty of the unknown will always be a part of our existence because it is central to being human to question, wonder, and desire to know. I have yet to meet a person without these traits. I have to agree with a recent incredibly thought-provoking interview of Richard Dawkins on the Daily Show that this curiosity just may lead to humanity's demise (Really, watch it. It's fascinating). Yes, I agree that how certain humans will choose to use our accumulated knowledge will likely destroy us long before our use of the scientific process has a fighting chance of coming anywhere near understanding all there is to understand. Like an addiction to a bad drug, we can't stop our craving for knowledge. And I know we never will; I hope we never will. We need solutions to humanity's problems like food allergies, and understanding the problems should go a long way in helping us fix the problems.
Whew, that was deep! I hope you don't mind my random musings (the best thing about a personal blog, in my opinion!) But, back to what I really wanted to discuss - the scientific process in all its perfect glory. The process is perfect. Humans are not. Therefore, how humans use this process is inherently imperfect. The steps - observation, question, hypothesis, test the hypothesis (experiment), analyze the data, conclude - gets repeated over and over and over... it's like an upward spiral staircase continuously climbing higher in our knowledge. Any wrong ideas (hypotheses) will eventually be uncovered through experimentation. This is the beauty of the scientific process - it self corrects our wrong ideas.
Whew, that was deep! I hope you don't mind my random musings (the best thing about a personal blog, in my opinion!) But, back to what I really wanted to discuss - the scientific process in all its perfect glory. The process is perfect. Humans are not. Therefore, how humans use this process is inherently imperfect. The steps - observation, question, hypothesis, test the hypothesis (experiment), analyze the data, conclude - gets repeated over and over and over... it's like an upward spiral staircase continuously climbing higher in our knowledge. Any wrong ideas (hypotheses) will eventually be uncovered through experimentation. This is the beauty of the scientific process - it self corrects our wrong ideas.
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