OutOfPhase
Supreme [H]ardness
- Joined
- May 11, 2005
- Messages
- 6,586
In the 1630's Galileo postulated the earth revolved around the sun, everyone thought he was "incorrect" and the church "shut him up" by convicting him of heresy. Turns out the earth does in fact revolve around the sun. There are many examples of scientist, mathematicians and scholars being silenced throughout history, their knowledge and ideas destroyed. Since knowledge and truth are always in flux it makes sense to constantly consider all the possibilities. Seems to me we are in danger of google becoming the new church.
I put a serious line between "what I'd like to believe" and "what I can prove with available evidence at my disposal". One is rational and scientific, the other is hocus pocus. Your example is reinforcing my point - the church should be told to shut up in this case, not Galileo. He had facts, they had things they wanted to believe.
Yes, a hypothesis can be wrong. But the entire point is science is we correct those with facts, not beliefs. That's what science is - the attempt to understand reality by making a hypothesis, testing it with experiments, and evidence.
So until there's real evidence vaccines really cause serious problems (of which none is ever really presented), let's err on the side of kids not dying of things we can prevent. I like a world without polio, personally.