Paradigm Shift v2

Last month I wrote about paradigms, a word I would define as a shared mental model. What I set out to say...I don't think I quite said it.

There's a dominant paradigm afoot, one in which science is the new God. If a thing is to be of any merit at all, it must be "scientific." So much so that "non-scientific" is nearly an insult. Anything that cannot be proven scientifically does not exist, or is relegated to a secondary status. Two weeks ago I heard a Native American facilitator say that some grant applications require "science-based evidence" as part of qualification, a requirement that can contradict with indigenous ways of knowing and being.

I have no desire to retire scientific thinking. (Some might argue that new science undermines or re-writes the old.) I am reminded of a phrase, something like, "if your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail." It's my wish that scientific thinking would be placed in context, a particular thinking tool that's appropriate for some, though not all, sets of problems.

Scientific thinking isn't bad. Nor good. Bad and good aren't the relevant measures. Is scientific thinking useful? That, to me, is the interesting conversation. Some contexts--very useful. Other contexts--no so much. The truth is, in 99% of most of our days, our thinking and reasoning and process of discovering knowledge is not scientific. Mostly, we use other tools.