Richard Dawkins, Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford
University, wrote in 1996:
"You could give Aristotle a tutorial. And you could thrill him to the core of
his being. Aristotle was an encyclopedic polymath, an all-time intellect. Yet
not only can you know more than Aristotle about the world; you also can have a
deeper understanding of how everything works. Such is the priviledge of living
after Newton, Darwin, Einstein, Planck, Watson, Crick, and their colleagues.
I'm not saying you're more *intelligent* than Aristotle, or wiser. For all I
know, Aristotle's the cleverest person who ever lived. That's not the point.
The point is only that science is cumulative, and we live later.
Aristotle could walk straight into a modern seminar on ethics, theology, or
political or moral philosophy, and contribute.But let him walk into a modern
science class, and he'd be a lost soul, not because of the jargon, but because
science advances, cumulatively."
The recent discussion about homeopathy on PTHER brought these words to mind.
It seems that no matter how much we strive to explain things rationally using
the only method known to advance our deepest understanding of mechanisms we
can only apprehend with difficulty, science itself is castigated for not being
philosophical enough, artful enough, or heartless in its disregard for our
common, human desire to maintain a little mystery.
This subject is further explored in "The Presence of Magic" on my website
<A HREF="http://qin.com/dorko/">"The Clinician's Manual"<http://qin.com/dorko>
</A> in the "From Dorko's Desk" section.
Barrett L. Dorko P.T.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|