Science and knowledge

Our human brains evolved to notice and remember immediate and salient events, short-term trends, and personal anecdotes.
(Only research can stop dementia.)

Today's political issues are "solve" by simplifying complexes questions. It can be done in four ways. Ethical: people are good or evil. Anecdotal: we generalize on the basis of individual cases. Conspiracy theories: Soros, the Illuminati, or even aliens rule the world. Dogmas: claims that cannot be questioned for religious or ideological reasons. All of this shows that we are initially "thinking" by using emotions and not so much by using knowledge.

Read also blog on cognitive biases.

Science is the organized body of knowledge about the natural world. The knowledge is gained from the application of logical and empirical methods. Explanations are of natural phenomena rather than supernatural phenomena. Those who claim to know empirical truth a priori (as in creationism or intelligent design) cannot be talking about scientific knowledge. Scientific knowledge is human knowledge and scientists are human beings.

A scientific theory must have some logical consequences we can test against empirical facts by making predictions based on the theory. The exact nature of the relationship of scientific theory, facts, and predictions is something about which philosophers widely disagree.

A common misconception is that since scientific theories are based on human perception, they are necessarily relative and therefore do not tell us anything about the real world. Certain postmodernists claim it can tell us only how it appears to scientists. To claim that scientific knowledge which make it possible to explore outer space are “just relative” and “represent just one perspective” of reality, is to misunderstand the nature of science.

There is no one, true, final, godlike way to view reality. That does not mean that every viewpoint is as good as any other. Bit by bit we are discovering what is true by testing hypothesis. Scientific knowledge is defined as conjecture that is discussed, tested, and error corrected. That is why free speech is important not only in democratises but also in obtaining new knowledge.

Well, democratises and new knowledge tend to go together. But democracies are not perfect - as people, government institutions and MSM are not perfect. If 97% of scientists agree that CO2 is man-made and dangerous to us, then we think this claim must be correct. But truth is not decided by a majority vote. This logical fallacy is called an argument from authority.

Politicians tend to rule according to what can give them the most votes. The main stream media is to a large extent "paid" by the authorities. The media are repeating and repeating 97% (even if it is only 0.3%) until it becomes the "truth". I can recommend that you listen to Naomi Seibt and Lord Christopher Monckton in The consensus fraud part 1 and 2 on YouTube. (Before the videos are deleted.)

This is the first video in the Climate of Freedom Series.

Climate science explained in a concise and interesting manner.

So poor human brains: today science embodies the principles of objective data, theoretical explanations, experimental methods, peer review, public transparency and open criticism, and trial and error as the most reliable methods of determining who is right about the natural and moral world.
(By the way, climate is cyclical, never linear.)

Pictures from https://www.pexels.com/search/science/