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It is fashionable these
days to accuse scientists of being dogmatic. If a scientist expresses confidence
in some scientific conclusion, and acts as though opposition to that viewpoint
is simply wrong, the opposition promptly denounces him for not having an
open mind.
The opposition, of course, is fanatically convinced of the truth of their
views and will not, under any circumstances, modify them in the slightest,
but they are not scientists, you see, and they are not compelled to have
open minds.
The result is that many scientists hesitate to attack the various kinds of
nonsense that flood American society today, for fear of putting themselves
in a bad light and of appearing dogmatic and close-minded. They therefore
tend to keep quiet in the face of astrological
fancies, pyramid
fairytales,
Bermuda Triangle myths,
UFO mania,
Velikovskian fables,
creationist lunacy, and all the rest.
Since I am among those scientists who attack nonsense without hesitation,
and as strongly as I can, I am sometimes accused of "overreacting," and of
"overstating" my case.My usual response to these fainthearts is to ask whether
they have the guts to say the same to the opposition. I don't for one minute
expect that my defense of rationalism is going to make any difference to
the many unsophisticated people who enjoy believing the nonsense they read
and hear,and who have no way of separating folly from sense, but I do have
my own self- respect to consider. However hopeless the fight, I cannot simply
surrender.
See here! The earth is not flat!
That is a scientific conclusion, based on careful observation and reasoning,
and that conclusion is older than
Aristotle. Ever since his time, enormous quantities
of additional information have been wrung out of the universe, and all
of it supports the conclusion that the earth is not flat and is, indeed,
spherical.
To be sure, careful observations have refined the conclusion. The earth is
not a perfect mathematical sphere. Because of its rotation, it is an oblate
spheroid, but to such a slight degree that the difference from perfect sphericity
would be imperceptible if we viewed the earth from space with the unaided
eye.
Nor is it a perfect oblate spheroid. Satellite observations have determined
very slight departures from that and, of course, there is the lumpiness of
hills and valleys.
However, the small deviations from perfect sphericity do not force me to
conclude that, therefore, the earth is flat. Yet there are people who believe
the earth is flat. I don't mean just primitive tribesmen who accept the hasty
evidence of their eyes without consideration. I mean presumably educated
Americans and Europeans who argue, with apparent sincerity, that all the
evidence cited for nonflatness is either wrong or misunderstood, and that
the observations of the astronauts, by eye and by camera, have been '"faked."
How shall I treat these people? With respect? Shall I offer to compromise?
Shall I say, "Well, scientific open-mindedness compels me to agree that the
earth may be flat, or is at least partly flat"? Is that the only way I can
avoid "overreacting, " and "overstating my case"?
Never!
And that goes for all other varieties of nonsense. If I think that certain
views are crackpot, I intend to say so.
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