RE: This is gonna be the thread where we talk about stabs
06-17-2012, 11:13 AM
I find this particularly interesting as someone whose wanting to go in and teach science for a time.
I remember growing up with a difficult view of "science". The very concept itself has been over-idealized. Few people really understand the process, (not the "scientific method" but the process of how "science" is made). It wasn't until college that I begun to see how certain ideas came together. That you had to do X amount of Y type of research and publish in Z articles and have it accepted by some amount of people before that information trickled its way down into common textbooks.
I particularly dislike the whole Science vs. Religion stigma. Elements of it make sense, showing how physical laws challenge tradtionally religiously held notions. But it's reached a point where science is seen by many as a substitute for religion - for any worldview. As if Science was something deep and expansive enough to cover fields like art and literature and answer the very 'why' questions that hound us. Likewise some would think that religion is something designed to tell us how the climate changes or what we're made of or what the smallest particle is. It shows you don't understand either.
The two fields are so very different that to pit them against each other to the degree we often see becomes detrimental to the both of them. People begin to assume that the two are antonyms. That where science is silent, it disagrees with religious thought, and that where science speaks clearly then religious thought must foolishly stand against it.
I think doctors have found a good blend. Somehow people dont see them as "scientists". Even though if you want to know about medical research they are who you have to go to. Yet people see doctors often as healers physically, and comforters spiritually (okay both of those will vary from physician to physician just like they vary from person to person, but that's just it. People get that. People know that doctors are fully rounded people with everything that goes with it)
I remember growing up with a difficult view of "science". The very concept itself has been over-idealized. Few people really understand the process, (not the "scientific method" but the process of how "science" is made). It wasn't until college that I begun to see how certain ideas came together. That you had to do X amount of Y type of research and publish in Z articles and have it accepted by some amount of people before that information trickled its way down into common textbooks.
I particularly dislike the whole Science vs. Religion stigma. Elements of it make sense, showing how physical laws challenge tradtionally religiously held notions. But it's reached a point where science is seen by many as a substitute for religion - for any worldview. As if Science was something deep and expansive enough to cover fields like art and literature and answer the very 'why' questions that hound us. Likewise some would think that religion is something designed to tell us how the climate changes or what we're made of or what the smallest particle is. It shows you don't understand either.
The two fields are so very different that to pit them against each other to the degree we often see becomes detrimental to the both of them. People begin to assume that the two are antonyms. That where science is silent, it disagrees with religious thought, and that where science speaks clearly then religious thought must foolishly stand against it.
I think doctors have found a good blend. Somehow people dont see them as "scientists". Even though if you want to know about medical research they are who you have to go to. Yet people see doctors often as healers physically, and comforters spiritually (okay both of those will vary from physician to physician just like they vary from person to person, but that's just it. People get that. People know that doctors are fully rounded people with everything that goes with it)