Once upon a time, there was a man who was convinced that he possessed a Great Idea. Indeed, as the man thought upon the Great Idea more and more, he realized that it was not just a great idea, but the most wonderful idea ever. The Great Idea would unravel the mysteries of the universe, supersede the authority of the corrupt and error-ridden Establishment, confer nigh-magical powers upon its wielders, feed the hungry, heal the sick, make the whole world a better place, etc., etc., etc.

The man was Francis Bacon, his Great Idea was the scientific method, and he was the only crackpot in all history to claim that level of benefit to humanity and turn out to be completely right.¹

That’s the problem with deciding that you’ll never admire anything that much: Some ideas really are that good. Though no one has fulfilled claims more audacious than Bacon’s; at least, not yet.

But then how can we resist the happy death spiral with respect to Science itself? The happy death spiral starts when you believe something is so wonderful that the halo effect leads you to find more and more nice things to say about it, making you see it as even more wonderful, and so on, spiraling up into the abyss. What if Science is in fact so beneficial that we cannot acknowledge its true glory and retain our sanity? Sounds like a nice thing to say, doesn’t it? Oh no it’s starting ruuunnnnn . . .

If you retrieve the standard cached deep wisdom for don’t go overboard on admiring science, you will find thoughts like “Science gave us air conditioning, but it also made the hydrogen bomb” or “Science can tell us about stars and biology, but it can never prove or disprove the dragon in my garage.” But the people who originated such thoughts were not trying to resist a happy death spiral. They weren’t worrying about their own admiration of science spinning out of control. Probably they didn’t like something science had to say about their pet beliefs, and sought ways to undermine its authority.

The standard negative things to say about science aren’t likely to appeal to someone who genuinely feels the exultation of science—that’s not the intended audience. So we’ll have to search for other negative things to say instead.

But if you look selectively for something negative t...

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