Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Your science is stuck in my mystical

If it's Wednesday, it must be Morford goin' all meta on the known and the unknown, the provable and the unprovable.

Which leads to the other lesson I've learned, deep in the marrow: To suggest that the scientific method, peer-reviewed research, et al, while deeply precious to the advancement of the species, is the only path to valid human knowledge? I find this is almost exactly as packed with total shimmering BS as believing there's a hoary grandfather squatting on a gilded throne in the Carina Nebula surrounded by winged toddlers, all watching you make stupid choices and masturbate to Danish fetish porn. Which is to say, please.

You mean Grandpa is watching me eat this Danish with one hand whilst looking at pretty girls modelling product in this shoe, er, catalog with the other and then ordering the wrong ones? Harrumph!

Not exactly. This is more about the innate truism that there are movements and pulses, states and flavors of understanding science will never, not ever, be able to quantify, measure, figure out, or even accept, because they are not, by their very nature, things that can be figured out.

We know so much, we know nothing. Outside of both these truths lies a third thing, in a space where the first two intersect and dance and leave behind a gleaming, impossible residue that tastes like God, but probably isn't. What do you think it is?

I don't know, but if I had extra sensory powers I'd probably just use them to make right-wingers do the chicken at TV press conferences and interviews.

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