
Six Signs of Scientism (2009) [pdf] - keiferski
http://www.uta.edu/philosophy/faculty/burgess-jackson/Haack,%20Six%20Signs%20of%20Scientism.pdf
======
hprotagonist
I'm a practicing biomedical researcher.

When people in my daily life do the "X ... for SCIENCE!" thing, or i see
"science: it works, bitches" bumper stickers, or the like, I'm always a little
sad.

I try to remind myself that the map isn't the terrain, and that humans are
guaranteed to build little cargo cults just to form a hermeneutic and handle
the world, but it's still disappointing to see the form of a thing being,
frankly, worshipped, instead of the thing itself being used productively. The
scientific process is (to abuse a phrase a little more) a wonderful servant ,
but a terrible master.

Hell, even Indiana Jones comes up sometimes: "Archaeology is the search for
fact, not Truth. If it's Truth you're interested in, Dr. Tyree's philosophy
class is right down the hall."

I know that scientific fields are not even close to being alone in this, it's
just a sobering reminder to keep myself on my toes. Feynman's point in "Cargo
Cult Science" (1974)[0] remains very true: it is really super hard to avoid
bullshitting yourself, even if you're aware that that's a thing that can
happen and you try to prevent it.

[0]:
[http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/3043/1/CargoCult.pdf](http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/3043/1/CargoCult.pdf)

~~~
sandworm101
>> "Archaeology is the search for fact, not Truth."

I've always hated that quote. If it were true, archaeology papers would be
nothing more than photographs of things people found. As soon as the
archaeologist points to something and says "tool" or "weapon", then opinion,
interpretation and "truth" are part of the equation.

So much of archaeology has been thrown away as junk science. The artifacts on
which that science was based have not been tossed, we have just reinterpret
them. We no longer interpret dinosaur bones as evidence of mythical dragons
any more than we see the Grand Canyon as evidence of Noah's flood.

~~~
dcow
To play the devil, how is history scientific? I mean as far as we know theres
only one history. And parts of it are not known to us. But in absence of
recorded accounts (and even in the face of them), aren’t we _bound_ to
interpretation? Science measures the tangible. History isn’t.

~~~
hprotagonist
I’ve watched Rashomon and you won’t fool me: there’s n! histories where n is ~
population.

------
keiferski
I recommend reading the entire paper, but here are the aforementioned six:

1\. Using the words “science,” “scientific,” “scientifically,” “scientist,”
etc., honorifically, as generic terms of epistemic praise.

2\. Adopting the manners, the trappings, the technical terminology, etc., of
the sciences, irrespective of their real usefulness.

3\. A preoccupation with demarcation, i.e., with drawing a sharp line between
genuine science, the real thing, and “pseudo-scientific” imposters.

4\. A corresponding preoccupation with identifying the “scientific method,”
presumed to explain how the sciences have been so successful.

5\. Looking to the sciences for answers to questions beyond their scope.

6\. Denying or denigrating the legitimacy or the worth of other kinds of
inquiry besides the scientific, or the value of human activities other than
inquiry, such as poetry or art.

~~~
HeavenBanned
I especially like that you included #6 because one big "value" I would say
amongst the scientism "community" would be the overt trashing of art and
poetry as meaningless. It's very sad.

~~~
hprotagonist
"If It'S nOt ScIeNcE iT's A lIE" is an exceptionally common trope, especially
among the people in my social strata. I'm not entirely sure that people
espousing that belief set are even doing so explicitly, i think it's so
implicit as to have become an unconsidered axiom.

I (see upthread), a scientist myself, think it's absolute hogwash, and i'm
certainly not abnormal among my peers in that.

There's something about being the person who not only watches how the sausage
is made but has spent (ack) 14 years at this point making sausages of several
kinds that kind of strips away overly idealistic expectations about How Pure
And Right This Thing Must Be. If you're lucky, and i think i am, you learn
enough humility to acknowledge the value of other people's sausage-makings.
And, often, have the right state of mind to see and acknowledge the
intellectual power and meaningful contributions of people well outside my
field.

------
lordleft
Science is our best tool for understanding the material world, but it is
unsuited for solving problems beyond that scope. Science cannot tell us what
to live for, or what is good or evil. It can definitely inform the answers to
those questions, but so much sloppy thought emerges from those who reduce
problems of philosophy to problems of science.

~~~
dcow
This was generally my entire college experience. There were a few pockets of
fresh air, like my philosophy classes. It was only after graduating that I
started to notice people slowly coming around to the idea science is a useful,
but not exhaustive tool, for developing ethical frameworks, world views,
principles, etc. And the attempts to use it strictly to do so (the pockets of
hyper-rational logic out there) leave much to be desired, at least in my
opinion. What surprised me most was how often practitioners of science, not
just those “for science yarr” types, got caught up in the whole thing.

------
throw0101a
Edward Feser has written a bunch on this topic over the years:

> _Despite its adherents’ pose of rationality, scientism has a serious
> problem: it is either self-refuting or trivial. Take the first horn of this
> dilemma. The claim that scientism is true is not itself a scientific claim,
> not something that can be established using scientific methods. Indeed, that
> science is even_ a _rational form of inquiry (let alone_ the only _rational
> form of inquiry) is not something that can be established scientifically.
> For scientific inquiry itself rests on a number of philosophical
> assumptions: that there is an objective world external to the minds of
> scientists; that this world is governed by causal regularities; that the
> human intellect can uncover and accurately describe these regularities; and
> so forth. Since science_ presupposes _these things, it cannot attempt to_
> justify _them without arguing in a circle._

* [https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2010/03/1174/](https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2010/03/1174/)

* [http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2011/03/scientism-roundup.ht...](http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2011/03/scientism-roundup.html)

* [http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2018/07/fallacies-physicists...](http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2018/07/fallacies-physicists-fall-for.html)

See also naturalism:

> _According to Robert Priddy, all scientific study inescapably builds on at
> least some essential assumptions that are untested by scientific
> processes;[15] that is, that scientists must start with some assumptions as
> to the ultimate analysis of the facts with which it deals. These assumptions
> would then be justified partly by their adherence to the types of occurrence
> of which we are directly conscious, and partly by their success in
> representing the observed facts with a certain generality, devoid of ad hoc
> suppositions. "[16]_

* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalism_(philosophy)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalism_\(philosophy\))

~~~
bloaf
Feser is actually wrong on a handful of points.

Science-qua-epistemic-method does _not_ require "that this world is governed
by causal regularities." In such a case, the method would still work, it would
just figure out that all claims of causal regularity were false.
Comprehensibility likewise shows his theistic bias: whether or not we can
understand the rules of the universe are irrelevant to whether or not we can
use science to reject our _incorrect /limited_ interpretations.

What science _does_ require is that the scientist _not be actively deceived,_
(e.g. if our senses were telling us there is a world external to our mind but
there wasn't, that would be a form of deception that would defeat science.)

~~~
wcarey
How would you distinguish using science-qua-epistemic-method between a world
where all claims of causal regularity were false and a world in which
scientist were actively deceived?

~~~
bloaf
The problem with the "actively deceived" scenario is that it defeats science,
so demanding that we use science to determine whether or not scientists are
actively deceived would mean that we have not quite understood the point.

~~~
wcarey
Right - do you draw the distinction between the cases you propose
philosophically then? I'm on board with an _a priori_ commitment to the idea
that we are not actively deceived in our observations of nature, but I think
without the same _a priori_ commitment to the idea of causal regularity in
nature we'd have the same problem.

I suppose I don't see how "actively deceived" defeats science, but "universe
not governed by causal regularities" doesn't? In both cases, we seem to be
able to identify patterns and regularities in nature that are illusory.

~~~
bloaf
Because as I said, we would do science and end up rejecting all claims
requiring causal regularities. That we might observe something that seems like
a causal regularity is irrelevant, because it wouldn't be repeatable, so we'd
end up rejecting it. If you want to invent some case where "well, what if
scientists measuring something makes it seem regular?" then you've created a
causal regularity where we're not supposed to have any (i.e. scientists
measuring causing regular behavior)

I'm also going to take issue with Feser using the concept of causation in the
first place. While physicists certainly still use the language of cause and
effect, I don't think they need the concept _metaphysically_ in the way
theists do.

Its like how biologists might say something like "this species of butterfly
evolved a longer proboscis in order to drink from this kind of flower" but
metaphysically they would understand that the butterfly species never actually
had the _intent_ to make their noses longer (neither did evolution, nor mother
nature.) So biologists might use teleological terms as a useful shorthand,
while understanding that there is no actual teleology metaphysically speaking.

I think physics is in the same place with respect to causality. They may speak
that way, but at the end of the day they just need the data to fit their
models. So we could have _acausal_ regularities, and science would work
completely fine.

------
api
Its heartening to me to see this here, and to see people understanding that
science and scientism are not the same thing. Scientism is actually anti-
scientific. Science is a practice and a process, not a cult idol or a dogma.

I think a lot of people have promoted scientism in an attempt to fight low
superstition and other obvious bullshit, but I think that's a devil's bargain.
You may get some superficial acceptance of "science" that looks like progress,
but you are not actually teaching rational thought. You are just getting
people to misuse science by placing in the same role as any other
superstitious idol.

I also think it in part is responsible for the huge resurgence of "scientific"
racism. That stuff looks like science and sometimes even is, albeit of a
cherry picked and spun nature and interpreted in a way that is devoid of
deeper philosophical consideration. To really refute it requires both a deep
study of the real science and of topics like ethics, morality, history,
epistemology, and language. It's hard for that kind of discourse to compete
with a few graphs and color coded maps and memes that all say "science."

You also have things like "Plandemic" that I am personally seeing catch on
among some who have a cargo cultish belief in "science" but no understanding
of what it actually is nor desire to really learn. Those videos and memes also
toot the dog whistles and pay homage to the shibboleths of scientism, but they
are maybe even further from actual science than race/IQ dogma.

Cultish idolatry of any form biases the audience toward short simple catchy
messages that pay homage to the idol and toot the right dog whistles. Longer
form discourse loses, especially if it even tiptoes anywhere near questioning
the idol or the cult. Even if an idolatrous cult starts from ideas and
premises that are somewhat rational it will drift into lunacy over time.

------
crankylinuxuser
Science and scientism tend to go hand in hand.

Science has saved us from the plagues of gross superstition. Did many of those
have kernels of truth? Well, sure. But how do we analyze them as to why? More
superstition doesn't cut it. One needs a set of thought tools that can
systematically tear it apart carefully. And physical tools facilitate that.
And then add in measuring and reproducibility, and there's science.

But taken too far, and #5 of their list is violated. Not everything can be
analyzed. And some things, I would dare say, shouldn't be analyzed.

Although, with the more we see IoT, internet tied hardware, machine learning,
neural nets, and the like, the more our gross matter doesn't appear to follow
science. Why does the IoT thing do X? Well an update last night no longer does
that. Or, why does Google searches act completely different between 2 people?
Once matter was programmable and reprogrammable, it becomes much more
difficult to perform science on them.

~~~
sonofgod
One might as well complain that when that one kilogram pile of protons,
neutrons and electrons flaps and squawks like a chicken, it no longer "follows
science". It's just that biology is a better, higher level tool for getting
meaningful than particle physics for explaining the trajectory of a chicken.

And it's a well-known aphorism that "in carefully controlled conditions ...
the experimental animal will do as it damn well pleases". And yes; it becomes
more difficult to reason about the trajectory of that chicken when its
internal motivations and factors like hunger, tiredness etc. are opaque to us.
And I think that's directly analogous -- DNA and the processes of life have
programmed and reprogrammed matter, and does make reasoning about them harder.

And it highlights the importance of metaphorically aseptic technique in the
analysis of malware and computer interaction; and in doing so highlights the
problems of "laboratory conditions" being distinct from real world ones since
malware might detect the abnormal sterility...

(I'm not even sure whether I'm agreeing with you or disagreeing. But your post
was thoughtprovoking.)

~~~
crankylinuxuser
And that I think is that what we're discussing is the crossroads of science,
metrology, philosophy, logic, and mathematics.

What is a kilogram? Is the idea the same as the base object? Should it have a
physical representation at all? What happens when the kilogram changes? Can it
change? What does it mean when/if it does? If we change it, are we still
conducting science?

Of course, that sphere of metal is easy to pick on. But what about the
"constant" of C, which we've seen other science studies showing it itself
changes - which possibly indicates Planck's constant changes. But the solution
was to state by fiat that C is an exact speed and move on. To me, this smacks
as unscientific as Indiana defining pi as 3.

And as the meme goes, psychology > biology > chemistry > physics >
mathematics. And yet each layer has its own findings and studies, but rarely
do each group talk to each other. And such studies come into conflict.... But
they're both right. What do we do then? More science? Less?

And there's falsified science. We don't talk much about that. It doesnt win
studies. It doesn't get grants. Nor do failed studies get acolades and tenure
positions. They should, but they don't. Knowing what areas don't have
connection is just as important as those that do. It represents a map of
understanding positive and negative.

And I don't think this is one of those agree/disagree.. at least I never took
it that way. This is just one of those topics that goes to the root of our
world. And we each are just a piece of it.

------
Barrin92
Going to break a little bit of a lance in defence of 'scienticism' in a mild
sense given that a lot of the comments overwhelmingly agree with the piece.

I think there's a lot of benefit to science as a methodology or process even
in contexts where science might not seem readily applicable. The author takes
as an example issues of justice. While it's true that there's something
fallacious about trying to reason about oughts from scientific principles
there is I think a lot of value in grounding these discussions in the
scientific process. The reason for that is that scientific principles force
people to avoid 'language games' or rationalisations and provide a common
formalism to make 'progress'.

People often use 'scientism' as a pejorative for a sort of cold, broken
calculator like mentality, but a scientific account of justice, grounded in
biology, evidence about punishment and so forth would almost certainly be more
humanistic, forgiving, and productive than say, religious debate or ad hoc
moral justification, which has led to some of the more cruel treatments in our
history.

The author also I think makes some basic mistakes about the nature of science,
she says for example:

 _" But too often those elegant mathematical models turn out to be based on
assumptions about “rational economic man” true of no real-world economic
actors."_

This is true, but not really a problem. As Milton Friedman put it: _" Truly
important and significant hypotheses will be found to have "assumptions" that
are wildly inaccurate descriptive representations of reality, and, in general,
the more significant the theory, the more unrealistic the assumptions (in this
sense) Why? Because such hypotheses and descriptions extract only those
crucial elements sufficient to yield relatively precise, valid predictions,
omitting a welter of predictively irrelevant details. Of course, descriptive
unrealism by itself does not ensure a "significant theory"_

Believing in the 'rational man' is no mistake of scientism but like believing
in a perfect sphere. Somewhat absurd and evidently not found in the real world
but nonetheless useful as a tool to form theories.

~~~
generalpass
> Going to break a little bit of a lance in defence of 'scienticism' in a mild
> sense given that a lot of the comments here overwhelmingly agree with the
> piece.

> I think there's a lot of benefit to science as a methodology or process even
> in contexts where science might not seem readily applicable. The author
> takes as an example issues of justice. While it's true that there's
> something fallacious about trying to reason about oughts from scientific
> principles there is I think a lot of value in grounding these discussions in
> scientific process. The reason for that is that scientific principles force
> people to avoid 'language games' or rationalisations and provide a common
> formalism to make 'progress'.

> People often use 'scientism' as a prejorative for a sort of cold, broken
> calculator like mentality, but a scientific account of justice, grounded in
> biology, evidence about punishment and so forth would almost certainly be
> more humanistic, forgiving, and productive than say, religious debate or ad
> hoc moral justification, which has led to some of the more cruel treatments
> in our history.

> The author also I think makes some basic mistakes about the nature of
> science, she says for example:

> "But too often those elegant mathematical models turn out to be based on
> assumptions about “rational economic man” true of no real-world economic
> actors."

> This is true, but not really a problem. As Milton Friedman put it: "Truly
> important and significant hypotheses will be found to have "assumptions"
> that are wildly inaccurate descriptive representations of reality, and, in
> general, the more significant the theory, the more unrealistic the
> assumptions (in this sense) Why? Because such hypotheses and descriptions
> extract only those crucial elements sufficient to yield relatively precise,
> valid predictions, omitting a welter of predictively irrelevant details. Of
> course descriptive unrealism by itself does not ensure a "significant
> theory"

> Believing in the 'rational man' is no mistake of scientism but like
> believing in a perfect sphere. Somewhat absurd and evidently not found in
> the real world but nonetheless useful as a tool to form theories.

A lot of what you have stated appears to rest on the assumption that the other
disciplines have no methodology, as well as inserting false dilemma.

~~~
Barrin92
I think it's fair to say that what distinguishes scientific activity from
other fields, like philosophy is the formalistic methodology. The logical
positivists who took this to the extreme actually envisioned a 'unified
science' as one of the central goals of doing science.

I don't think it's a stretch to say that much of philosophical discourse,
disagreement, in particular, concerns disagreement about fundamental
methodology. I don't think that's even something philosophers would disagree
with. Theologians, continental philosophers, analytical philosophers,
postmodernists and so forth all have vast disagreements about what the tools,
or even the purpose of philosophy is.

Likewise, when theories of justice are concerned, religious scholars and
bioethicists don't primarily disagree about the results or evidence of some
process, they disagree about fundamental assumptions on how to make inquiries
at all. That's usually not the issue (or a secondary issue) in science.

~~~
generalpass
How would science be applied to determine that prices should exist?

------
lidHanteyk
Interestingly, I see these behaviors most often in pseudoscientific and fringe
communities. For example, in the Flat Earth community, there are constant
appeals to various bogus arrangements of mathematical and physical principles,
and an insistence that all evidence is being considered in a scientific
manner.

~~~
hudon
I see the opposite, these behaviors seem most espoused by intelligent folk,
who know there is value in science but whose opinions are riddled with
emotional bias, as well as the media and politicians, who in turn know that
the words “science” and “fact” can be used to appeal to intelligent folks’
emotions. You can see this clearly when politicians claim to be “leading with
science and facts”.

It’s all appeal to authority or emotion, with some science going on, but
mostly scientism.

 _edit: You can replace “intelligent folk” with “intelligentsia”, as to not
imply any IQ difference. I’m contrasting “fringe communities” with the more
mainstream “intelligentsia”. The difference at play is perceived intelligence,
not actual._

~~~
lidHanteyk
This is a common misconception. Flat Earthers aren't unintelligent, as your
wording implies. They are _misled_ and _miseducated_. Indeed, humans have
roughly been at their current level of intelligence for a hundred millennia,
and show no signs of either getting especially smarter or dumber.

Since I anticipate somebody appealing to the Flynn effect [0] or similar
improvements in intelligence-testing scores across the recent centuries, I
would head them off by mentioning Spearman's hypothesis [1]. The obvious
reading of the hypothesis is horribly racist, but we can take its
contrapositive: If there are largely no changes between humans in recent
millennia, then the differences in testing scores are due to cultural biases
in the construction of the test and the education of people. And it happens to
be the case, due to pedigree collapse [2], that we can be mathematically
confident in the homogeneity of humanity (to say nothing of confidence from
molecular biology [3]).

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spearman%27s_hypothesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spearman%27s_hypothesis)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedigree_collapse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedigree_collapse)

[3]
[https://www.nature.com/articles/ng1435](https://www.nature.com/articles/ng1435)

~~~
dehrmann
> If there are largely no changes between humans in recent millennia, then the
> differences in testing scores are due to cultural biases in the construction
> of the test and the education of people.

Not being sarcastic, I suppose things you see in IQ tests like spacial
manipulation are culturally biased in that certain cultures give kids shape-
in-the-hole toys, teach them shapes, have geometry classes, etc. You could say
improvements in intelligence scores are teaching to the test. You could also
say we're standing on the shoulders of giants.

------
yters
I blame the lack of philosophical and logical training of the sort that
teaches how to spot fallacies, what a good argument looks like, how to outline
one's thought process, etc.

~~~
generalpass
It seems even more is the understanding that other disciplines are useful for
answering other questions; that science or the scientific method cannot be
used to answer every question.

It makes discussions with people who feel this way nearly impossible because
when coming up against questions science can't answer, they reject all answers
because no scientific "proof" has been provided.

------
zkmon
Science is a pursuit of relating physical effects with causes, without
consideration of ultimate consequences of such knowledge and its applications.
In contrast, other animals just focus on their biological needs and don't care
about understanding, using or influencing their surroundings and changes in
it, beyond what is needed for their basic survival needs. All scientific
achievements were unnecessary for the goals of human survival and evolution.

~~~
shrimp_emoji
Maybe humans are some of the only animals smart enough to put other things
above survival.

Is spending eternity in the cramped room of Paleolithic life satisfying? (And
by "eternity" I guess I mean the remaining lifetime of the Sun or
biosphere[0].)

To me, it's not. I'd rather sacrifice my basic survival and that of the whole
species for something greater. (Especially since "survival" is a zero-sum,
doomed goal in the long-run anyway.)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dbbwrfp9toE&feature=youtu.be...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dbbwrfp9toE&feature=youtu.be&t=45)
unironically. xD

0:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future#Fut...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future#Future_of_the_Earth,_the_Solar_System_and_the_universe)

~~~
zkmon
Satisfaction and happiness were wrong goals! Producing mutations that can fit
better was the only goal. After pursuing the wrong goals, you can't prove
whether today's life is more satisfying or happier than paleolithic life. By
evolution standards, the humans are weaker now (due to dependencies on many
things) than ever.

~~~
varjag
Evolution has no standards.

~~~
zkmon
you know what I meant. Biologically, human got less capable, less fit into the
ecosystem and less tolerable for changes. That's how evolution measures the
progress of a species.

~~~
varjag
What I mean is you are attributing virtue to an emergent process. Evolution
doesn't care, and survival in primordial forest is not any more "important"
metric than existence elsewhere, elsehow.

Either way the human species are perhaps the most successful in fitness and
survival of all thus far.

------
dcow
In my experience, the problem largely stems from, and the people to blame are,
in-fact the arrogant atheists that use science as an argument against anything
non-rational. You know the type I'm talking about. And to be clear, I'm not
saying there aren't those times on all sides, but here me out.

It reminds me of a video I came across a few years ago:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDu2dgTT5t4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDu2dgTT5t4).
It's a debate between an atheist professor (from University of Arizona?) and a
christian professor (from MIT?) where they polled the audience at the end to
determine a winner. The prompt was not "does God exist". The prompt was "does
science refute God". The atheist spent the whole time trying to disprove God
by saying he'll believe in a god if the stars align and send him a sign. The
christian spent the time arguing that it doesn't matter whether anybody
believes in god or not. Science is simply not a tool that can be used to make
any statements on the metaphysical, whatsoever. And concepts like religion,
morality, ethics, etc. only make sense in that realm.

My two takeaways were 1. how annoying it was that the atheist missed the
subtlety in the prompt and insisted on trying to disprove _God_ rather than
discussing the actual prompt of whether science _can_ actually study things
that aren't observable. Perhaps maybe that's the definition of a true
rationalist, though. And 2. how sad it was that the audience also seemed to
miss it, voting for the pompous atheist at the end. As far as I could discern,
the atheist failed to provide any argument leading to the conclusion that
science can refute God, irrespective of whether anyone believes in a God or
not.

Which brings me back to my point: things should not _have_ to be scientific to
be valid, socially. You should not have to argue that psychology, or economics
is a pseudo/soft science in order to validate funding it. An archeologist or
historian should not feel invalidated if they need to sprinkle in some
interpretation to connect dots between the facts at hand. In fact, applying
scientific method to domains where it does not apply is at best wasteful and
at worst counterproductive. The whole "science vs the arts" mindset is a false
dichotomy. There's a lot of useful knowledge to be gained that is neither
rational nor strictly artistic. But if we reduce it to that socially, then you
_need_ to argue that you pursuit is someone rational and scientific in order
to justify it to peers, etc. And I do blame the "asshole atheist" for that
reductionist mentality.

I think everyone should read some Thomas Kuhn. It's interesting to look at
what happens when the popular rational dogma itself changes. Rationalists and
even atheists are equally susceptible to dogma. And sometimes it's not about
whether you're right or wrong. It's having the humility to admit that there
might be another way to skin the cat that ultimately leads to real progress.

