- Feb 5, 2002
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Our knowledge about Ebola shows that medicine is a science of uncertainty and an...
- Thread starter Michie
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...but that won't stop people from worshiping at the altar of science/technology and acting as if it's the answer to everything, believing even when it's irrational to do so...then sneer at religion. 
Such is the age we live in it seems.
Such is the age we live in it seems.
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StRestlessHeart333
Chaldean Catholic
...but that won't stop people from worshiping at the altar of science/technology and acting as if it's the answer to everything, believing even when it's irrational to do so...then sneer at religion.
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MikeK
Traditionalist Catholic
Who is this author that is so ignorant of science? Uncertainty and probability are at the very core of science and anyone with even a basic understanding of scientific method would know that statement to be redundant. In all things, we calculate risk, we calculate the sun of uncertainties, and we make an educated decision. There is no absolute certainty in science, only educated guesses based on probability. This is how we determine how much insulation to put on a manned space vehicle for re-entry, how thick to construct a submarine hull for dives to a specific depth, and yes, how communicable diseases are transmitted.
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Cosmic Charlie
The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated
Hey, I'm impressed.
No, really.
Ok, not really.
In a crisis you can do one of two things:
Listen to people who know or ignore them.
The subject matter experts in this crisis have not been wrong on anything except the protocols for health care workers in the third world.
Yet, somehow, everyone thinks they're wrong on everything.
There has be 1 death by Ebola in the US. One. And he didn't even contract it in this country.
The health care workers who caught it from him 1) didn't die and 2) didn't follow CDC protocols.
And this "physician", using his WWII expertise and general mysticism is somehow divining that the experts have to be wrong because....
.....I don't know
OBAMA !!!!
(He did specifically call out the "goverment")
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MoonlessNight
Fides et Ratio
- Sep 16, 2003
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This is the mantra which every scientists must learn to repeat. Very few of them actually demonstrate an understanding of it in their actions though, especially in the social sciences. If they did, p-values would have been lost to the sands of time as something which does not tell us what we want to know.
And I would say that in science there is no more or less certainty than there is in any other non-mathematical/metaphysical area. In complicated situations there is more uncertainty, but in simpler areas we can be certain enough for all practical purposes. For example, we cannot be completely certain that if I let go of something it will fall to the ground, but we can be as certain about that as we can about anything else.
Probability only becomes relevant in more complicated areas, and even there it is important to remember that probability is only defined relative to our knowledge of the scenario at hand.
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Cosmic Charlie
The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated
I try never to speak for Mikey, but I think you have misconstrued what he was trying to say.
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