Word: standen
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...wispy-haired Anthony Standen, 43, the world is divided into two groups-"scientists, who practice the art of infallibility, and nonscientists, sometimes contemptuously called laymen . . ." By any standard, Anthony Standen is no layman...
...Standen has decided that scientists are overbearing, overpraised, and overindulged. In a sweeping and savage little book called Science Is a Sacred Cow (Button; $2.75), he tries to tell...
Mystical Virtues. Individually, says Standen, scientists are pleasant and even modest fellows. But their "collective ego" is something else again. They are so infatuated with their own scientific minds, that "they seem to think they are entitled to pour scorn on other subjects from a very great height." Standen does not deny that their practical results are admirable ("Better things for better living . . .," etc.), but unfortunately "it is not the results of science that they advertise most; it is always the 'scientific method' or the 'scientific attitude,' or a variety of other hidden, mystical virtues...
Meanwhile, laymen also have come to believe that science is a "cureall for mankind," infallible and above criticism. This, says Standen, "is a delusion . . . What with scientists who are so deep in science that they cannot see it, and nonscientists who are too over-awed to express an opinion, hardly anyone is able to recognize science for what it is, the great Sacred Cow of our time...
Probable Opinion. The sciences, Standen continues, range from "fairly good through mediocre to downright bad." Physics is "science at its best," and much of chemistry ("an art [often] related to cooking, instead of a true science") passes muster. But even these have serious contradictions. They make claims to the discovery of immutable truths, and yet scoff at all philosophical absolutes. Actually, their truth is not truth at all, but "a body of well-supported probable opinion only, and its ideas may be exploded at any time...