In modern society there is a prevalent notion that spiritual matters can’t be settled by logic or observation, and therefore you can have whatever religious beliefs you like. If a scientist falls for this, and decides to live their extralaboratorial life accordingly, then this, to me, says that they only understand the experimental principle as a social convention. They know when they are expected to do experiments and test the results for statistical significance. But put them in a context where it is socially conventional to make up wacky beliefs without looking, and they just as happily do that instead.
One thing that strikes me about this paragraph is that by and large scientists doing science by conforming to this social convention, seems like it works...I think.
It certainly seems better for scientists to understand what they’re doing on a deep level. But I don’t know how much better.
And this seems more true beyond science. Civilization is mostly made out of people cargo-culting people who understood what they were doing. And, I speculate, that this is actually better than the world where those people were not cargo-culting. If you’re going to have customs and social conventions, it seems like those that are imitating more thoughtful processes are better than ones from other sources.
One thing that strikes me about this paragraph is that by and large scientists doing science by conforming to this social convention, seems like it works...I think.
It certainly seems better for scientists to understand what they’re doing on a deep level. But I don’t know how much better.
And this seems more true beyond science. Civilization is mostly made out of people cargo-culting people who understood what they were doing. And, I speculate, that this is actually better than the world where those people were not cargo-culting. If you’re going to have customs and social conventions, it seems like those that are imitating more thoughtful processes are better than ones from other sources.