Science, ideology and religion

There is a difference between ideology (including religious dogma) and science. Ideology is little more than opinion while religious dogmas rely on revealed truth as written by unknown scribes. Neither have much use for evidence and facts.

Science is based on theory. Theories are supported, but never proven, by facts and observations. Any true scientific theory can be disproved, at any time, by inconvenient facts and observations. Modern science, influenced by philosopher Karl Popper, now believes that, for a statement to be considered scientific - as opposed to being an ideology or a religious point of view - the premise must, in principle, be capable of being disproved.

As an example, Newton's basic Law of Gravity has survived unchallenged for over 400 years. While the law states that the force of gravity is attractive, a single observation of a single apple, flying off into space unaided, would be sufficient to disprove what we currently treat as fact.

The arrogance of ideologues, and of the perpetrators of religious dogmas, is irritating as well as often being dangerous to our health, our prosperity and even our survival. The modesty of great scientists is refreshing and offers hope for humanity.

Two Nobel Prize winners - both physicists - epitomize this modesty and the realistic view of life needed to be a scientist who is able to make great discoveries:

"There are two possible outcomes [of an experiment]: If the result confirms the hypothesis, then you've made a measurement. If the result is contrary to the hypothesis, then you've made a discovery."
Enrico Fermi

"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself – and you are the easiest person to fool. So you have to be very careful about that. After you’ve not fooled yourself, it’s easy not to fool other scientists. You just have to be honest in a conventional way after that."
Richard Feynman

If President Bush understood science and scientists, he and his administration might have made fewer wrong decisions in areas where science really does matter.