Why Science is So Much Better than Politics

The solar eclipse today was wonderful. Not the eclipse itself, so much as the break from politics. Science is so much better than politics. Science deals with what is. It’s rational, predictable and intelligible.

Politics does not have to be so toxic. The reason politics got so toxic? Because we got so much government. Government is absolutely everywhere. It’s in our classrooms, on our computers, on our telephone bills, in our doctors’ offices, in our hospitals, in our kitchen cabinets, in our garages, in our places of employment — absolutely everywhere! Differences in politics would not matter so much if government didn’t control so many aspects of our lives.

It’s a lot easier to agree on science. I’m not referring to politicized science, either. I mean real science. The realm of real science involves facts and logic. Error is possible, but error is also correctable. Instead of focusing on personality and feelings, in science we focus on the search for objectively discernible and provable truth. Instead of asking, “What’s wrong with you?” for thinking a certain way, we ask, “What facts led you to that conclusion? And why?” This is how human thought and human associations ought to work — in all things.

Ethics, politics, feelings, psychology — they should all involve the search for truth. Truth is possible to discern in all things, even where it’s difficult and not obvious. If we approached our daily lives, feelings and current events like scientists approach reality, we’d feel confident, strong, and reverent toward life, reality and each other … all the qualities missing from today’s world.

If we want to make the world a better place, we’d all do well to start acting a lot more like scientists.