Leaving the Church of Science

scientific research is a tool for epistemology. It’s an attempt to create a framework for claiming what we know and do not know. Like most tools, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. Its effectiveness depends on the artisan using it and the craft they’re using it on.

This is why science, as a mode of inquiry, is fundamentally antithetical to all monolithic intellectual systems. In a beautiful essay, Feynman (1999) talks about the hard-won "freedom to doubt." It was born of a long and brutal struggle, and is essential to a functioning democracy. Intellectuals have a solemn duty to doubt, and to teach doubt. Educ... See more