Comment on science and society

[Roger B]

Science as a tool cannot prove negatives. Any scientist who says that XYZ cannot exist is saying that as a human being, a not very curious human being. They cannot say that as a scientist. But people worship scientists rather than be good thinkers (philosophers) and fail to realize that when a scientist is saying that XYZ cannot exist, they are speaking as just one of the guys and not as a thinking scientist.
But this arrogation of authority is most annoying and can be very damaging; and people's submission to their inappropriate authority is also most annoying. When the FDA says "ABC drug does XYZ", that is almost always true. When the FDA says "ABC drug does NOT do XYZ", that is almost always their opinion based upon their desire to protect some industry, which is a polite way of saying "bull$hit".
Be aware of when they say that "we have no evidence that XYZ exists", that is usually code for "XYZ does not exist." And this is not a trivial matter. They will make XYZ illegal; they can de-fund or refuse funding for XYZ, people can be sent to jail for even researching XYZ, simply because they say that they have no evidence that XYZ exists. They often fail to mention that they did not even look for XYZ. And their statement "we have no evidence for XYZ" becomes a defacto "XYZ does not exist".

Roger Bird