Follow the Science

We seem to be increasingly told to “Follow the Science”. Well, that sounds fine, but just what do they mean by “The Science”? If you look up the word science in a dictionary (remember those?) you’ll find science described as a system of learning. Basically, a system based upon observation and experimentation. We are also told what “science tells us”. Now because science is a system, and not an animate object, it cannot lead us anywhere and it doesn’t have a mouth with which to tell us anything. What is really meant is that we are to follow the scientists. O.K., but what do the scientists follow? Well, like all human beings, scientists are prone to follow the money.

Science then, is a process, just like brick laying, and scientists, like brick layers, can and do tell us things. In fact, if you get in a brick layers way, you just might be told something that I would refuse to put into this entry.

A close relative of science, called technology, has often united with brick laying to give the world some marvelous structures such as bridges, palatial homes, and buildings. So we can see that science and brick laying aren’t really as far apart as we are often led to believe. Indeed, both can be traced back to antiquity, and were considered noble occupations. By the Middle Ages, both had achieved a high degree of organization. One result of this organization was that the brick layers formed the guilds of which one so often reads. Today they are known as labor unions. Those who belong to and conform to the unions are known as union brick layers. Those on the outside are called “scabs”.

Scientists took a different path, and rather than forming unions, they formed “consensus”. Those who adhere to the consensus are known as “serious scientists”. It is curious that there appears to be no equivalent to the labor term “scab”. It is inferred that those who do not agree are not serious.

Now, I have no idea why a scientist would not be serious. Maybe they spend too much time with the brick layers drinking beer and telling you-know-what kind of jokes. I just do not know.

It’s an interesting thought that if scientists spoke in the parlance of the brick layers, good old Galileo Galilei, or just plain Galileo for short, would be known to us as the most famous “scab” scientist of the 17th century!

NOTE: I do not in any way wish to offend anybody by using the term brick layers. I know that the trade is properly known as masonry, and that many years of apprenticeship are required to master the necessary skills of working with bricks, granite, marble, slate, and so forth. I simply used the layman term in the event that this item should ever be read by a scientist, serious or not.

So, the next time someone on TV or social media proclaims “Follow the Science”, or “Scientists agree that…”, ask yourself:

Who or what are they following?

What about the not-so-serious scientists who disagree?

You’ll probably get a better and down to earth answer if you ask a brick layer (mason) instead.

Just don’t get in their way while you’re talking.

It’s something to think about.