I usually have the deepest respect for PZ Myers and his writings, but today he deeply disappointed me.
In this article here he criticises the idea that science can be used to make moral decisions.
He criticises it because there were people, way back when, who had high moral ideals but only bad data, rudimentary knowledge of society/biology/psychology, which lead them to come to morally bad conclusions. That’s right. He says that scientific morality is a bad idea because bad data gives you bad outcomes.
Why, that’s true for every scientific endeavor, PZ! Bad data, bad hypotheses, huge gaps in understanding, they produce bad outcomes, regardless if you are researching human wellbeing or the embrionic development of zebra fish.
And guess what? We know better now. Why, you ask? Because of magic? No! Because SCIENCE led us to get better data, to close the gaps in our understanding, to develop better hypotheses.
Science – the self-correcting method.
Fuck, PZ, how could you get that one wrong??? I am disappoint and I hope that you reconsider your stance on the subject.
When the Universe goes 'Whoah!' 