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| A typical scientist, relaxing at home |
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| source |
For example, the "light" that your eyes perceive is only a tiny sliver of the electromagnetic spectrum. The average human being can see "colours" (which is how we interpret the variation in wavelengths) in the range just inside of the Ultraviolet and Infra-red sections. That means that if our eyes were just a little better adapted, we could have heat vision, or actually be able to see (much more reliably) whether or not we're going to get a sunburn before we go outside. Of course, our evolution didn't take that route, but some of our best friends did.
And of course, even within the spectrum that we do perceive, there's a lot of room for illusory manipulations...
The same concepts apply to our other senses as well, for example, we can hear some lower frequency sounds than our canine companions, but they can hear some higher frequencies.
But all of these limitations can be overcome with the proper application of knowledge gathered using the scientific process. Those limitations on the "visible spectrum" have been adjusted in both directions. We don't just use the other portions of the spectrum for communication, they actually have a real impact on such fundamental concepts as how we maintain our bodies. For example, X-Ray imaging takes advantage of the fact that our skin is transparent... if you can see the right wavelengths.
Our senses and thought processes have evolved to be supremely adapted to life on the African Savannah, eating what can be found there and using tools cobbled together from the most easily accessible materials that environment had to offer. However, since the development of agriculture human society has rocketed through an incredible number of technological revolutions in such an incredibly short amount of time that evolution hasn't been able to keep up. We are still more or less the same animals that invented the wheel, but show that original inventor a set of two-way radios, and how would he interpret them? Well, you talk to one and the other imitates you, with no connection between them. They must be magic! He has no way to perceive the radio waves being emitted and sensed by these machines, built by human science. Yet a large portion of our modern lives rely on these inventions of science.
Then there's our ability to really pay attention. For illustration, try this selective attention test:
Did you see the gorilla? Wait, let's try that again with a clearer video:
And that's just our perception of things as they happen, what about our ability to recall detail?
Not so great, as it turns out. Numerous studies have been performed and shown how incredibly easy it is to implant a false memory in the mind of even the most reliable subjects. So many, in fact, that studies have been funded just to compare the methodologies in the previous studies.
In the face of these limitations and vulnerabilities, and with access to technologies that can overcome them in controlled environments, how can we allow our own, personal experiences to influence the process of understanding nature and improving our lives?
The fact is that scientific progress is built on observation, both of the natural world and controlled laboratory environments, and we can now use equipment many, many, many times more sensitive and reliable than our human senses. As I've said before, science doesn't really claim to “prove” anything to be true, but it can certainly show all the mountains of evidence that, for example, the positions of distant stars and planets relative to the earth don't actually affect your personality, and the lack of real evidence that they do. It's true that lack of evidence is not the same as evidence of lack, but that in itself is not a valid basis for shaping your world-view. My coffee intake jumped from maybe one cup most days to an average of three cups per day about three years ago, and I also haven't had a sunburn in the past three years. There's no evidence the coffee isn't protecting me, but if I started recommending coffee intake as an alternative to sunscreen I would be endangering the health of the people who listened.
On the other hand, if scientists were able to identify a substance within the coffee that, when ingested in sufficient concentrations, provided protection against UV to the skin, and this effect could be tested and demonstrated reliably, (meaning, other teams could reproduce those results without serious anomalies), then a product could be created that delivered this substance more efficiently.
A real-world example is penicillin. This is an anti-biotic medicine that comes from mould - something we commonly associate with rot, and which most people outside of a laboratory environment would automatically react to with disgust. Many ancient healers understood that the moulds did have medicinal properties, but only with modern advances in science and technology were we able to take full advantage, refining and concentrating it to a more effective, efficient dose, and revolutionizing the field of medicine.
Basically, what I'm saying here is that anecdotes and everyday experiences are pretty much irrelevant to science, but science can certainly help us out in our day-to-day lives. In fact, whether you realize it or not, there is science involved in everything you do.
Now, the same person pointed out that they didn't have much experience with the scientific process, which is a fair point - most people don’t see the research being done, aren't familiar with how it works, and can get a very distorted view. There has been a real effort in recent years however to change that, and I for one hope that the efforts of people like Neil deGrasse Tyson, Bill Nye, and Lawrence Krauss, in projects like Cosmos, StarTalk and the ASU Origins Project can help to change that.
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