A fascinating piece by Adam Gopnik on how scientific consensus is attained and its societal implications –
Gopnik concludes rather wisely:
“One way or another,
science really happens. The claim that basic research is valuable because it
leads to applied technology may be true but perhaps is not at the heart of the
social use of the enterprise. The way scientists do think makes us aware of how
we can think. Samuel Johnson said that a performer riding on three horses may
not accomplish anything, but he increases our respect for the faculties of man.
The scientists who show that nature rides three horses at once—or even two
horses, on opposite sides of the universe—also widen our respect for what we
are capable of imagining, and it is this action, at its own spooky distance,
that really entangles our minds.”