Since the Enlightenment science has been presumed to be capable of liberating humanity from the shackles of ignorance and religious fervor.
Yet attempts to make science into the epicenter of human knowledge have instead made many more ignorant.
Those who claim to be “enlightened” by modern science, for instance, somehow believe scientific inquiry undermines the centrality of religion to human flourishing and well being.
And they do so with a religious zeal they claim to despise in others.
How “scientifically” contradictory. And nihilistically uninformed.
Science also fails to satisfy human needs because neither science alone, nor its methods, addresses the perennial problems of life. Philosophy and religion do. And both do so with more critical rigor than that of most practicing scientists.
Indeed although scientists have created the public perception that at heart they’re inquisitive and knowledgeable skeptics searching for deep answers in a confusing universe, their real world behavior suggests otherwise.
In reality most scientists are eager to serve as lap-dogs of the state. For they happily provide the government with facts and figures in exchange for a petty sense of public importance and a large taxpayer funded salary.
That’s hardly all that progressive is it?
Likewise the confusion about the difference between science and engineering leads scientists to receive more public acclaim than they deserve.
For scientists do not invent -- they merely observe.
And engineers take these observations and create.
Engineers created electricity.
They also invented cars, planes, and trains.
And they invented the computer.
Here then we see what scientists really are -- servile grunt working fact gatherers for the higher creativity and entrepreneurial skills of the engineer.
And if members of humanity at large follow scientists that’s all humanity will be -- a petty collection of small facts and data points signifying nothing.
Zigmund Reichenbach has an M.A. in Philosophy from West Chester University. You can support his work at https://ko-fi.com/zigmundreichenbach