Steve, by focusing on the consequences of people misusing knowledge, rather
than knowledge itself, you have illustrated the same fallacy that
characterizes so much of the antiscience movement. Science is a way of
acquiring knowledge, science is *not* peoples' use or misuse of that
knowledge. You state "The knowledge arrived at by thinking rationally
about facts is one set of knowledge." How else do we acquire knowledge but
by "thinking rationally about facts?"

Another quote from your posting: "I cringe each time an environmentalist
yells for science as the basis for decisions." Perhaps it's semantics, but
if science=knowledge, then why shouldn't we want knowledge as at least one
of the bases for decisions?

I think one of the major problems of communication here is that most people
don't even understand what science is. It's basically the search for the
truth. It is used and misused just like other human endeavors, but by the
definition of science, "good science" is science that discovers the truth
(about the universe or about a bird's nesting habits), "bad science" is
that which doesn't do so. It's got nothing to do with judgments about the
value of technology and how it should be applied or about the sorry state
of modern medicine, even though it seems to get that rap all the time.

Scientists are people. People (many of them) are flawed. Science, as far
as I can tell, is a good thing. To condemn it is to condemn (your quote
again) "knowledge arrived at by thinking rationally about facts."

A good scientists is (should be) always ready to change his or her mind
when new information is available. How doees that compare with faith or
intuition as a world view?

No one has to give a damn whether a bird song is coming from a
White-crowned Sparrow or Wilson's Warbler, but that has nothing to do with
science. And to contrast something pleasant on the one hand with science
on the other hand--to what gain?

Dennis Paulson, Director phone: (206) 756-3798
Slater Museum of Natural History fax: (206) 756-3352
University of Puget Sound e-mail: dpaulson at ups.edu
Tacoma, WA 98416