Mysterious Answers — LessWrong

This sequence asks whether science resolves the problems raised so far. Scientists base their models on repeatable experiments, not speculation or hearsay. And science has an excellent track record compared to anecdote, religion, and . . . pretty much everything else. Do we still need to worry about “fake” beliefs, confirmation bias, hindsight bias, and the like when we’re working with a community of people who want to explain phenomena, not just tell appealing stories? Imagine looking at your hand, and knowing nothing of cells, nothing of biochemistry, nothing of DNA. You’ve learned some anatomy from dissection, so you know your hand contains muscles; but you don’t know why muscles move instead of lying there like clay. Your hand is just . . . stuff . . . and for some reason it moves under your direction. Is this not magic? It seemed to me then, and it still seems to me, most probable that the animal body does not act as a thermodynamic engine . . . The influence of animal or vegetabl

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• SUJASH AGRAWAL