About 30 years ago I was a brand-new shelter manager of a small humane society in Oregon. Soon after my hiring I was responsible for performing and supervising euthanasia – a necessary part of the job. One morning I was attempting to give a fatal injection to an adult Lab mix. I was still learning my craft and a little hesitant with presenting the needle. As the needle kissed his skin, the dog jerked his foreleg back and tried to bite my hand.
Good science does not propose rules that are not confirmed by objective observation of nature. Good science reveals nature as it is. If reality contradicts science, then it’s not really science. This is the “Emperor’s New Clothes” phenomenon. If a child correctly perceives objective reality it doesn’t matter how many highly educated people wish to contradict the obvious. For instance, if you drop two balls of unequal weight from a high tower, you will personally k
now about terminal velocity. If you suggest that the heavier ball hits first, everyone in attendance can check your statement. The child who says, “They hit at the same time” is correct, regardless of how many peer-reviewed papers wish to question his report. (OK, if you want to be totally anal retentive, if they are Galileo’s balls, used in his free-fall experiments, the ball of larger diameter touches a millisecond before the smaller diameter ball. That doesn’t change terminal velocity – the phenomenon controlled by earth’s gravity.) Likewise, a traditionally trained dog with a bird in its mouth is an observable fact. If the science-based training does not lead to a dog pointing and then retrieving the bird, that, too, is observable.
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