Quote of the Day by Chuck Johnson

The universe of human thought is vast.
The universe of available facts is vast.

By picking and choosing, just about any idea can be justified, and that justification can look logical, reasonable, well-supported empirically, etc.

But religionists are powerfully motivated to prove that their religious beliefs are true. This motivation has been present for many thousands of years. This is a political motivation, the need to be successfully persuasive.

Scientists, on the other hand, are powerfully motivated to learn the truth, to discover more truth, and to share discovered truths with our fellow human beings. This is a scientific motivation, to discover the truth and to then let that discovered truth do the persuading.

The religionists indulge in groupthink, and then they believe that they have discovered the truth.

Scientists engage in independent thinking, discussion and contention, and empirical testing of new ideas.
This is so that groupthink is kept to a minimum and true, useful, well-thought-out, well tested-facts and theories are presented to the scientific community.

Groupthink is an ancient, intuition-based way to arrive at answers.
Science is a modern intuition-based plus empiricism-based way to arrive at answers.

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