Superstition and science

In his book "Enlightenment Now," Steven Pinker meticulously points out the tremendous progress that the human race has made since it very gradually placed science and mathematics above its previous reliance on superstition. As a result, great progress in sanitation, health care, communications and many other industries have been made. It isn't but a few centuries ago that the best educated among us believed that demons inhabited forests and the plague was the work of witches. Thankfully, these days are mostly behind us.

But the tension between these two forces is visible today, especially in the political realm of COVID-19, where those who wish to follow the science and those who wish to open the economy regardless is at play. As a young boy on a dairy farm, I witnessed science daily as the cause and result relationship between work and output and then during my career in engineering where the truth of whether or not your design works isn't a matter of superstition but the result of scientific testing and mathematics.

So, put me in the group of those who follow the science in order to save the most lives. If you want to send someone to the moon safely, you have to know what you are doing. You can't employ hubris, pound your chest and hope your way to the moon.

John S. Strauss