Wednesday, June 11, 2008

NYT Letter

A good letter in today's NY Times:

To the Editor:

Re “The Cons of Creationism” (editorial, June 7):

The debate over science versus creationism is in part fueled by the notion that everybody’s opinions and beliefs are equally valid. While in a democratic society we should be respectful of each other’s opinions and beliefs, this is not how science operates.

The scientific method has well- defined rules by which we decide whether a solution to a scientific problem is correct or not. It is not that we believe or have the opinion that a certain solution is correct — we prove it scientifically one way or another.

Thus there are right and wrong solutions that may seem unfair, undemocratic and elitist. But this is how science advances and produces the marvelous technological developments that surround us. And this is not a belief. It is a fact.

Ivan K. Schuller
La Jolla, Calif., June 7, 2008

The writer is a professor of physics at the University of California, San Diego.


1 comment:

MT said...

Unfortunately experts disagree about whether there is such a thing as "the scientific method" and scientists at least appear to spend most of their time proving themselves wrong.