HumANomaly

Nothing upsets us more than when we think that other people are ignoring the facts. We see this as a roadblock on the road to progress. But we don't realize that we are all guilty of the very thing we all despise. The reason we don't realize this is because we have imposed a narrow interpretation on what it means to ignore the facts. In fact, in conversation to ignore the facts does not really mean to ignore the facts. It really means to act or to take a position contrary to the facts. Consider this example.

It is axiomatic that science is something that humans do, in the sense that we do science. We have known this from the beginning of the scientific age. We all accept this fact but it is so obviously true that we ignore it, meaning that we do not pay any scientific attention to it. We don't ask any questions about it because there is no chance that it can be proven to be false. But it is a Trojan Horse.

While we have not been looking this axiom has transmogrified into a belief that only things that humans do should be considered to be science. Because we ignored the original fact we have tacitly accepted this modification as fact without testing it. It is obviously false to claim that science is NOT something that humans do. That is seen as the opposite of the original axiom. But no one seems to think that the modification is also the opposite of the original axiom. The result of ignoring the original fact is that we have also ignored this new fact and any possible effect it could have on how we develop as humans. So, we accept it as true without even knowing what it really means to say that science is only things that humans do can be science.

We feel an obligation to review things that we consider to be science because we understand that human error can affect our conclusions. That works well and we often discover errors others have made. But what about things humans have not done, but things humans have thought or accepted; like the belief that science is only things humans have done?