by Paula
from "Mythodrome"
Ordinary Person: Every night, my dog knows when my wife is coming home from work 10 minutes before she gets here, no matter what shift she works. Maybe my dog is psychic! How cool would that be?
Scientist: There can be no such thing as psychic dogs because the universe is a machine. It is either coincidence or you are lying.
OP: I’m not lying and it is not a coincidence. I see it every day!
Scientist: Your subjective experience is worthless because it cannot be measured in machine units.
OP: Oh okay, well screw you then.
Ordinary Person: I took this herbal medicine and it made me better.
Scientist: Your body is a chemical machine that requires specific chemicals in specific quantities. Studies prove that herbal medicines do not contain the chemicals necessary to make your body better. It was a placebo effect and therefore doesn’t count.
OP: Well regardless of what caused it to happen, the herbal medicine made me better. How does that not count?
Scientist: “Placebo effect” means your subjective experience is worthless because it cannot be measured in chemical units.
OP: Oh okay. Well screw you then.
Scientist: Global warming is a serious problem we need to address immediately.
Ordinary Person: I don’t see any global warming, in fact it’s been very mild this summer.
Scientist: The snows of Kilimanjaro are gone. The North Pole is a lake. You can see it with your own eyes!
OP: Why should what I see with my own eyes matter now when it doesn’t anywhere else? You said my subjective experience is worthless, so screw you.
Ever since I was a little kid I’ve loved science. I love microscopes and telescopes and stethoscopes and oscilloscopes and every kind of scope there is. I have never been able to understand why others aren’t as fascinated with the natural world as I am. I have not been able to understand why practically the whole of the United States has banded together against science and scientists not only with regards to global warming, but also in relation to just about everything science does. I had thought it was because science did not do a very good job of communicating with the general public. And this is true, technically; in reality, science is straight up insulting to people who don’t tow a machine-universe party line. In recent years, self-described militant, atheist scientists such as Richard Dawkins have exacerbated the problem by working to deliberately alienate anyone who does not share his (decidedly unfounded) faith in the machine universe (a.k.a., “materialism”).
Read the complete post at "mythodrome"
