"Novels and history...produce insights...that science can’t match."

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/15/opinion/15brooks.html

by aggieben • 18 years ago

10 1 18 years ago

ars• 18 years ago

This pattern has been repeated tens of times:

You find something new, you think you can explain everything with it, then you find out more, and realize how much you don't know.

"You don't know anything, until you know what you don't know."

In particular science and religion have bounced like this for millennia: new science arrives, everyone disses religion. The science gets better, people realize how little they actually know, religion looks good again.

And repeat, over and over.

Example, the brain: it's explained and understood, no more soul, suddenly the brain is more complicated then anyone realized, hello again soul.

The same thing happened with the atom, solar models, cosmology, pretty much every scientific breakthough. (Actually cosmology is currently at the "we know everything stage", and is just about to slip into the "world is more complicated then we realized" stage, hello again creator - watch for it.)

"Novels and history...produce insights...that science can’t match."

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