Neo-Scientific Thinking

This thinking thing, apparently, is not merely sitting in your armchair and musing about the thusness of things. It is supposed to be used to come to conclusions about all sorts of things. Including, but not limited to, what you should have for lunch. In the initial days, when people had not gotten around to complicating things, conclusions were derived based on 'Oh! That is what it says in the Holy Book' or, even, 'My grandfather says so' or some such thing. If there was any dispute about the correct conclusion it was resolved on the basis of whose grandfather was more respected. Failing that, the conclusion depended on who was better at fisticuffs. (Why not based on which of the disputants was more powerful, without dragging in grandfathers? Ah! Well! If one the the two was himself more powerful, would there even BE a dispute?) That, apparently, was not the scientific way of doing things because the science of fist-fighting was not acceptable as the correct science for these purposes. So, then, people started looking down upon coming to conclusions without the facts. The right way, apparently, was to collect and analyze the facts and allow them to lead to a conclusion. If there were insufficient facts, as normally proves to be the case, you were allowed to form a tentative conclusion - called a hypothesis. The funny thing was that they insisted that you should discard the conclusion/hypothesis if a fact does not agree with it where the natural thing is to discard the damn fact. I mean, come on, if a brick sticks out of a building do you discard the damn brick or the building? But, no, scientific thinking says that it is the building that is wrong, not the brick! And, you know what, the number of metaphorical buildings that have turned out to be wrong, or not completely right, because a brick would not fall into place is truly astounding. There are always people, though, who do not like being lead. So, of course, this idea of facts leading them by the nose to whatever conclusion they chose was very irksome for them. This scientific thinking was too raw, too tame, and needed refining. So, they decided to improve the method. You know, facts can be interpreted multiple ways. Like, the soup can be too salty OR the eater can be the one who likes lesser salt in his soup. So, at first, the easiest way to stick to scientific thinking, and still not allow the facts to dictate the conclusions, was to simply reinterpret the facts. That did not suffice. Some solution had to be found for those stick-out bricks which brought down buildings. You know, those inconvenient facts that did not fit your conclusions. So, the next step of refining, obviously, had to address them. A twofold approach of refinement was added to the process. The first thing was to ensure that you never did anything that could locate such a fact. You know, like you never do a study that checks for the impact of sugar intake on health but concentrated on what fats do. The second thing, of course, was that if you DO stumble on such a fact, you ignore it totally. Over a period, you could become such an expert that no such fact intrudes itself on your attention even if it bit you in the ass. That worked for quite a while but, when everyone wanted to come to their own conclusions without waiting for experts to lead them, it became a problem. It took long practice, from childhood in some cases, to become an expert at selectively noticing and interpreting facts in a truly refined scientific manner. Not something everyone could do, so... Neo-scientific thinking was born. The hegemony of facts was done with. Why should we allow conclusions to be the slaves of facts? From now on, facts shall be the product of conclusions. We will CREATE the facts that suit our conclusions. (Somewhat like my practicals at engineering college. I KNEW what the results ought to be, thanks to ten bucks to the lab attender, but I could never get the experimental readings that would allow me to get those results. So, I used to work out what the experimental data should be, based on the results, and voila...) What do you mean that it is old wine in a new bottle? That, in all probability, those original guys who said it was in the Holy Book had probably not even laid their eyes on that tome, even if they knew how to read, and were only creating their facts? Or that their grandfathers' only communication with them was a kick on their backside, so all that rot about what the venerable gentlemen said was a fact created to support their conclusion? That there is nothing new or scientific about 'Neo-Scientific thinking'? Isn't that precisely the point, you dolts? If it is not there in the content, at least put it in the label!