The Power of the Scientific Way of Thinking

There is a single light of science, and to brighten it anywhere is to brighten it everywhere. Isaac Asimov Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge. Carl Sagan The secret of science is to ask the right questions, and it is the choice of problem more than anything else that marks the man of genius in the scientific world. Sir Henry Tizard Science relies on -- and insists on -- self-questioning, testing and analytical thinking that make it hard to fool yourself or to avoid facing facts. Pseudoscience, on the other hand, preserves the ancient, natural, irrational, unobjective modes of thought that are hundreds of thousands of years older than science -- thought processes that have given rise to superstitions and other fanciful and mistaken ideas about man and nature -- from voodoo to racism; from the flat earth to the house-shaped universe with God in the attic, Satan in the cellar and man on the ground floor; from doing rain dances to torturing and brutalizing the mentally ill to drive out the demons that possess them. Pseudoscience encourages people to believe anything they want. It supplies specious "arguments" for fooling yourself into thinking that any and all beliefs are equally valid. Science begins by saying, let's forget about what we believe to be so, and try by investigation to find out what actually is so. These roads don't cross; they lead in completely opposite directions. Poch Suzara