I believe in science.
Unfortunately, the catch-phrase “I believe in science” is often used to leverage the reputation of “science” in general to give authority to one ‘specific’ scientific claim in particular, shielding it from questioning or skepticism.
In my recent experience, many people who say “I believe in the science”, don’t actually follow or look at the “science”. In which case that statement carries the risk of becoming an excuse to avoid critical thinking and investigation. What’s really being expressed is more like: “I believe the news headlines”. I’ve certainly been guilty of this myself.
Science is not a “thing”… it’s a process; it’s a systematic study of the natural world / universe through experiments and observation. Yet sometimes it seems that science is becoming distorted into a religion or dogma of the mainstream consensus, rather than a process of investigation and testing hypotheses. Science should be directed at discovering truth… not censored to align with a specific narrative (as we are currently witnessing in the mainstream media, for example).
Evidence-based information is available to us if we choose to do our research, think critically, and keep asking questions. This is particularly important right now.
I believe in science, but science doesn’t care what I “believe”.
