Science, Really?
Under the pretext of so-called “science,” one can huff and puff lots of
hot air with fake orgasms; Creationism and Scientology, for instance, all
claim how they too are kissing-cousins of “Science” while busy pushing and
promoting their hidden monolithic world view: conversion, conversion, and
more conversion, of others into their mold.
When someone claims such unerring accuracy of being scientific, I get
scared, for their understanding of science, for instance, is not science
at all, as we understand the definition; rather, in such instances,
science degenerates into a religion, of sort. Such pseudo-scientists fail
to realize that the very essence of science is the unerring and underlying
doubt that had started the inquiry in the first place; hence, even after
repeatable experiment, science must humbly employ cautious verbs, such
as “suggests,” “it appears,” and “indicates,” etc. and NEVER an absolute
statement, knowing fully well that under different sets of circumstances
or given long enough time, the results may vary or change. (Hence such
statement as “mites *appeared* to have learned not to wipe out its host,
thus preventing their own demise.”)
Only religious conviction can provide definite/absolute answers, not
science.
While recognizing the dynamic nature of science—“Science is not static. It
is a continuing process with things being affirmed and disproved. Most
science stands the test, but occasionally things that were thought to work
one way are shown to work another or not at all”—a poster here damns
science for its “suggestions” and “hypothesis” without certainty. The
ability to say “we don’t know what causes DD *at this point*” is in and of
itself a scientific statement, a cautious, honest, humble statement of
facts. Being wish-wash is not cowardice, but being factual. To say CCD
is caused by Nosema-C alone is a definitive statement with religious
certainty, but we are not so sure yet. May be or may be not. So what?
The same “scientific” poster makes another glaring sweeping
generalization, an uninformed and unscientific assumption, in earlier post
that agricultural chemicals, which had allegedly killed bees, did not
affect other insects in the vicinity; therefore, the chemical must be
harmless—-not realizing different insecticides impact on different species
of insects *differently* because their genetic make-up is different and
unique, a totally idiosyncratic survival strategy in the game of producing
the next generation. This *scientific* fact has been already well-
recognized by entomologists as early as in the 1960’s; in fact, Rachel
Carson, among others, reiterates this important discovery in her seminal
book Silent Spring.
Little reading, just as little science, is indeed a dangerous thing.
I do not post everyday on Bee-L, for I am getting tired of daily arm-chair
philosophizing of this type of nonsense cloaked in the vestige of science,
especially regarding the cause of CCD, about which anyone who can process
food yields a pie of an opinion daily; this spinning of second-handed
opinions, though interesting and good for time-killing for some, neither
proves nor ascertains anything other than googled facts. For the record,
I too have an opinion as to what may be causing CCD, but I bite my tongue,
and being able to hold my silence, in my view, is much better than
pretending I am doing some dubious, self-serving, scientific inquiry.
Yoon
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