May 25, 2003
Dear Chisanga, Science is not a set of dogmas that demands ‘belief’. It is a number of hypotheses derived from intelligent observations, followed by conjunctures supported by peer reviews and falsifiability tests, some mathematical derivations, yet a few empirical deductions. Even what appeared to be perfect scientific theories get updated – for example, Newton’s equations of speed, time and gravity and laws of motion that seemed to work perfectly under classic circumstances begged for upgradation just before space conquest which found ready answers in Hertz’s discovery of electromagnetic waves, Maxwell’s theories derived from Faraday’s experimental conclusions and Lorentz’s transformations followed by Einstein’s General Relativity. Thus science is accepted or updated, not too rarely rejected along with human progress, never ‘believed’. Religion, on the other hand, is like an earthworm which you are forced to believe that it’s an iron pestle. No comparison..
I don’t need to believe science to trust it as much as I trust my children. My grandparents had many misconceptions, parents knew better, I believe I know even better and when I find my children smirk at some of my views, I realize that they had learnt more in school than I did. Yet I know that they could go wrong because their knowledge is not perfect. As years go into centuries and centuries into millennia their grandchildren and great=grandchildren would hone their knowledge getting nearer and nearer to perfection, but, like there is no perfect answer to the ratio of the circumstance of a circle to its diameter, the closer you get to it, the farther would vanishes perfection.
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