Science-Like a Fairytale and Modern Religion

I would have never compared fairy tales and myths to the natural sciences. It seems an unimaginable comparison to make, however, once putting some thought into it, it doesn’t seem like that far of a stretch.

Stories told orally, over time, tend to get more and more added to them overtime. Think about the game you played when you were younger, Telephone. When playing this game, through whispers and misinterpretations, some details can either be lost or added throughout the circle. If I said to you, in a whispered tone, “I love smart water”, it could be altered to “I love art water” or something else as the game goes on.

This helps me think about the comparison of fairy tales and science. Joe Moran compared these two things and I wasn’t sure I agreed with what he was saying, but after thinkingabout this for a while, I decided I agreed with his comparison. His comparison…

Science is the modern religion, with no greater claim to ultimate authority than Voodoo or witchcraft. But while freedom to practise any religion, or to be an agnostic or atheist, is enshrined in most modern constitutions, there is no freedom to dissent from scientific knowledge, since it is taught and disseminated as a universal truth in schools, universities and else- where. Feyerabend therefore argues that we must ‘free society from the strangling hold of an ideologically petrified science just as our ancestors freed us from the strangling hold of the One True Religion!’ Science should be taught in schools, but only as a historical phenomenon alongside other ‘fairy tales’, such as the myths of so- called ‘primitive’ societies which also seek to explain the natural and physical world.”

Science is ever changing, same as a fairy tale or oral told stories. Science, like fairytales, is always being added to or altered. Natural sciences are magical: scientists find answers to questions we didn’t have an answer to before, test and stride for innovation, perfection and acceptance of things that are imperfect, and make flat out awesome projects and experiments.

Moran making this comparison opened my eyes to a new way of looking at science, science is sometimes not able to be explained, or proved, and sometimes just magical, just like fairytales. Cinderella’s fairy god mother came out of thin air and turned mice into horses, a pumpkin into a carriage, and rags of clothing into a beautiful dress. Sleeping Beauty could only come out of her coma with true loves’ kiss, and when she was kissed, she was instantly out of the coma. Jack grew a bean stock from magic seeds, and it grew tall enough to reach the giants in the sky. All the events I listed from three of the most popular fairy tales, are all unexplained magical events, and when we were growing up, we didn’t question the stories, but just knew it was magic.

Moran’s comparison of science to the modern religion also caught my attention. This didn’t take so much thinkingabout to agree with. Back hundreds of years ago, people looked towards The Bible as an explanation for things that otherwise couldn’t be explained because science wasn’t caught up yet. However, less than a year away from 2020, science has caught up and now instead of looking in The Bible for an explanation of things, most people look towards science for an explanation of how and why the world works the way that it does. I am not an atheist, I do believe in a greater power, however, I am a firm believer and supporter of scientific proven facts.  Science is the new, up to date way of explaining natural occurring events and many phenomenons.

 

 

 

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