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Welcoming a new age of darkness
Scientific method favors the maturing of ideas into knowledge; it brings more innovation, more prosperity and reinforces the individual freedoms on which it is based.
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Science illustration. (Shutterstock/File)
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cientific method favors the maturing of ideas into knowledge; it brings more innovation, more prosperity and reinforces the individual freedoms on which it is based. The scientific method — the exercising of the critical sense in order to understand the facts — and ideas are therefore two key variables for the production and dissemination of knowledge.
The scientific method without ideas serves little purpose; and so conversely ideas without science not only serve little purpose but they can also be dangerous. This is precisely what we are witnessing: a proliferation of ideas devoid of any scientific validation. Namely, they are devoid of attention to experimental results.
Without knowledge, we evolve so much more slowly, even if we do succeed. Rules separated from the method of experimentation end up contrasting cohabitation among citizens, restricting their freedoms. We retreat into ourselves rather than open up. Bye Bye Open Society.
This is not just a European problem, but concerns many parts of the world. Too many citizens reject science, afraid of confronting complexity with the slow and structured work of the experimental method. They prefer to entrust themselves to the magic formulae of contemporary wizardry that manifests itself with the revamped return of authoritarianism and populism.
