Tam makes the point here that the fragmentation of the populous by the million different media venues makes it difficult to produce and maintain a coherent- well, anything. But the original point was from a comment thread at the Munchkin Wrangler about the disaffectation some people have for medicine. And it set me off in a (possibly) third direction, and maybe I hijacked the thread with my comment; sorry Tam.

But my point is, “Science” is thought of as this holy thing that is dispassionately floating around out there, and that it’s binary, it’s true or false. Well, that’s a bunch of fucking hooey.

Science itself may dispassionate, but it’s use, interpretation, and misuse is the problem, and bloody nearly everyone misuses it. Frinstance, the comment that brings the whole thing to the fore: The idea that innoculations cause autism. Someone did some ‘Science” and made a correlation between innoculations and autism, and then a bunch of nimrods got up in arms. That may be the biggest bite of utter bullshit in the thread.

There’s a parallel here: Religion. Jesus Christ created what became the Catholic Church. And then humans set about ignoring/interpreting His Word to suit their purposes. Science is the same damned thing. Science has, as I pointed out in Tam’s comments, brought us disaster after disaster. In Medicine, it has brought us Thalidomide, Thorotrast, to name but a few (you don’t want to KNOW how many meds these days get tested and discarded, believe me, you don’t.) In engineering, it has brought us Dioxin. Agent Orange. Tacoma Narrows. The Silver Bridge. The Challenger Disaster. No, “science” itself didnt’ do this, but the improper application of science by humans. And at each turn, the humans thought they were applying science properly. The folks who filled Love Canal with toxins thought they were disposing of toxins in a safe manner; had they known what was to come they certainly would not have done what they did. And these people were all operating in “Good faith”.Imagine what “science” can do when it is in the hands of Algore and his crew. Marko makes the point that he trusts medical science, and in the main, he’s correct- but on an individual basis, medicine- as practiced by humans- is one of the worst misapplications of science that exists. Get to know a doctor- any doctor- and listen to the horror stories. Mine own doctor tells me about a patient of his who suffered from constipation, who (during one of my doctor’s vacations) went to my doctor’s colleague, who immediately operated on him. Why? No money to be made handing an 80 year old a fleet enema and sending him home. A surgeon has to operate to make money, after all. My doctor says there isn’t a uterus or appendix or gall bladder in all of the town where he lives.

No, as Orc pointed out in the comment, that’s not science. But it is the misapplication of medical science that occurs where we interface with it, and for that reason and many others, I don’t trust any of them as far as I can fling them straight up in the air.

Update: Welcome, Tam’s readers. And anyone else who happens along.

In comments several have made the point that religion and science are indeed compatible, and I must agree. If there is a Creator of the universe, theoretically, he has another important title, and that is Author of Natural Law. And we understand so little of natural law. I believe, personally, that the more we understand of Natural Law in all it’s forms (which label can be given, reasonably, to science) the more we learn about Creation, and the more we learn about the Creator. The Catholic Church, for instance, embraces evolution. Anyone even KNOW that besides me? They do. They also posit that the Creator stepped in at the appropriate moment and endowed Man with an immortal soul. The idea of “Sola scriptura” practiced by most calvinists, the idea that everything is exactly as in the bible, no more and no less, is patently ignorant. As is the idea of “Proving Darwin Right” which seems to be the holy grail(if you’ll excuse the gross misuse of the term) of the anti-theists.

People that think of theology in terms of science, as Tam says, are ijits. People that think of science in terms of theology, are also ijits. People that think a purely scientific view and a purely religious view must be by nature at cross purposes are also, probably, ijits.

Anyway, thanks for listening, and thanks for the comments, and thanks, Tam, for the link. I promise i didn’t mean to hijack your original thread, but this is a subject that annoys me no end.

Crap, I see Dante is also chiming in, quite intelligently. Talk about “light fuse and get away” Tam!