Misdirected efforts in New Zealand to honor Indigenous culture by infusing myth into science classes are harming the teaching of science there, just as they are elsewhere.
Most MD's, even today, don't conduct any research. Medical doctors are to science as mechanics are to engineering, they just apply knowledge and experience to fix/heal things.
Midwives accumulated and passed on a lot of real knowledge and were probably involved in treating children from the many diseases that we didn't understand at the time. It really wasn't until the late 19th century that proof of the microbiological world became dominant in disease and Koch's postulates became widely known. It then took a few generations to make that reality and have alternative hypothesis from witchcraft and black magic to "bad air" fade into history.
Medicine didn't become scientific until modern times.
I agree but I cannot help but smile when you say: "Science is universal. It is not ‘male’, nor ‘white’, or ‘western’."
May be, but scientists are not (were not) "universal". Until recently, medicine (if you consider it a science) was "male". Females (female rats actually) were considered too complicated to run experiments for them. Many diseases affecting primary females or having different symptoms in females were unknown, ignored or misunderstood. Women had to march to protest lack of research/funding for breast cancer.
Soon (already) women in the US will not be able to rely on medical science for abortion even for health reasons. They now seeking "alternative methods" relying on herbs and other concoctions. Unfortunately, the universality of science is entangled with its societal context.
I'm not religious myself, but I've found myself intrigued by some of the claims made in the Bible.
The book of Genesis starts off with...
"Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light."
Sounds suspiciously like the Big Bang to me. This could be coincidence of course, or perhaps I'm just reading in to the passage that which isn't actually there. But still, somebody wrote this 3,000 years ago, and they could have written anything, but they chose to write this.
A better example for my taste is the story of how Adam and Eve ate an apple from the tree of knowledge and were then ejected from the Garden of Eden. This fable sounds remarkably like what I see happening in today's modern world.
What I like about this story is that, unlike the supposed Big Bang claim above, it doesn't seem to require divine inspiration. If one starts with a deep understanding of the human condition, it might be possible on that basis to make credible predictions about the general thrust of where humanity is headed.
The evidence that the Bible authors may have had deep insight in to the human condition is that the book they wrote wound up becoming the most popular book in Western civilization. This publishing success clearly doesn't validate every claim made in the Bible, but it does suggest the authors knew something about their audience.
My best guess at the moment is that the Bible writers were referring to some phenomena which does exist in nature. But they were writing for an audience of uneducated peasants who lived short harsh lives. And so they necessarily had to communicate in simplistic fables which understandably no longer resonate with many in the educated modern world. You know, imagine trying to explain sex to a four year old. You'd have to leave a lot out.
I was intrigued by learning about CRISPR, which taught me this. Bacteria grab a chunk of DNA from invading viruses and store the virus DNA within the bacteria's own DNA. Then they reference this stored information to identify future invaders, so as to present the best possible defense against the attack.
When we do things like this we call it data management operations, and label it as an act of intelligence. Given that bacteria have no brain or nervous system, it's hard to label them as intelligent.
So what is the source of their intelligent-like behavior? Saying the word evolution solves nothing, because that just kicks the can down the road to the next question. What is the source of evolution's intelligent-like behavior?
It's funny, without science they would be living their stone-age beliefs. Still dying from the water, splinters, cut fingers and dieses the horrible vaccines prevent. I'm sick of the fact that we pay attention to the whining minority.
Perhaps the social sciences and humanities are correct: "it is all about power". In this case the power to veto reality when you believe it some other story and can force that belief on others.
Too bad nature and reality doesn't give a damn about humanity and we are totally dependent for survival on that reality.
I just reread Orwell's "1984" and it seems even more valid today in our "woke" culture as the new-speak grows and real history and science goes down the memory hole.
I never even considered the possibility of the crazy post-modern belief over in the social sciences and humanities being able to power to suppress the enlightenment and the sciences much like the religions did in the dark ages.
Most MD's, even today, don't conduct any research. Medical doctors are to science as mechanics are to engineering, they just apply knowledge and experience to fix/heal things.
Midwives accumulated and passed on a lot of real knowledge and were probably involved in treating children from the many diseases that we didn't understand at the time. It really wasn't until the late 19th century that proof of the microbiological world became dominant in disease and Koch's postulates became widely known. It then took a few generations to make that reality and have alternative hypothesis from witchcraft and black magic to "bad air" fade into history.
Medicine didn't become scientific until modern times.
I agree but I cannot help but smile when you say: "Science is universal. It is not ‘male’, nor ‘white’, or ‘western’."
May be, but scientists are not (were not) "universal". Until recently, medicine (if you consider it a science) was "male". Females (female rats actually) were considered too complicated to run experiments for them. Many diseases affecting primary females or having different symptoms in females were unknown, ignored or misunderstood. Women had to march to protest lack of research/funding for breast cancer.
Soon (already) women in the US will not be able to rely on medical science for abortion even for health reasons. They now seeking "alternative methods" relying on herbs and other concoctions. Unfortunately, the universality of science is entangled with its societal context.
I'm not religious myself, but I've found myself intrigued by some of the claims made in the Bible.
The book of Genesis starts off with...
"Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light."
Sounds suspiciously like the Big Bang to me. This could be coincidence of course, or perhaps I'm just reading in to the passage that which isn't actually there. But still, somebody wrote this 3,000 years ago, and they could have written anything, but they chose to write this.
A better example for my taste is the story of how Adam and Eve ate an apple from the tree of knowledge and were then ejected from the Garden of Eden. This fable sounds remarkably like what I see happening in today's modern world.
What I like about this story is that, unlike the supposed Big Bang claim above, it doesn't seem to require divine inspiration. If one starts with a deep understanding of the human condition, it might be possible on that basis to make credible predictions about the general thrust of where humanity is headed.
The evidence that the Bible authors may have had deep insight in to the human condition is that the book they wrote wound up becoming the most popular book in Western civilization. This publishing success clearly doesn't validate every claim made in the Bible, but it does suggest the authors knew something about their audience.
My best guess at the moment is that the Bible writers were referring to some phenomena which does exist in nature. But they were writing for an audience of uneducated peasants who lived short harsh lives. And so they necessarily had to communicate in simplistic fables which understandably no longer resonate with many in the educated modern world. You know, imagine trying to explain sex to a four year old. You'd have to leave a lot out.
I was intrigued by learning about CRISPR, which taught me this. Bacteria grab a chunk of DNA from invading viruses and store the virus DNA within the bacteria's own DNA. Then they reference this stored information to identify future invaders, so as to present the best possible defense against the attack.
When we do things like this we call it data management operations, and label it as an act of intelligence. Given that bacteria have no brain or nervous system, it's hard to label them as intelligent.
So what is the source of their intelligent-like behavior? Saying the word evolution solves nothing, because that just kicks the can down the road to the next question. What is the source of evolution's intelligent-like behavior?
It's both discouraging and frightening that so much nonsense is gaining in popularity at a time when Humanity needs science more than ever.
It's funny, without science they would be living their stone-age beliefs. Still dying from the water, splinters, cut fingers and dieses the horrible vaccines prevent. I'm sick of the fact that we pay attention to the whining minority.
Perhaps the social sciences and humanities are correct: "it is all about power". In this case the power to veto reality when you believe it some other story and can force that belief on others.
Too bad nature and reality doesn't give a damn about humanity and we are totally dependent for survival on that reality.
I just reread Orwell's "1984" and it seems even more valid today in our "woke" culture as the new-speak grows and real history and science goes down the memory hole.
I never even considered the possibility of the crazy post-modern belief over in the social sciences and humanities being able to power to suppress the enlightenment and the sciences much like the religions did in the dark ages.