Science is only ‘one’ of the many instruments people invented to cope with their surroundings. It is not the only one, it is not infallible and it has become too powerful, too pushy and too dangerous to be left on its own.
Interpretation
Science is a useful tool among many, but it must be handled with care and not given unchecked power.
In this quote, Paul Feyerabend emphasizes that while science is a powerful instrument for understanding and interacting with our environment, it is not the sole method of doing so. He warns against the dangerous reliance on science as an infallible authority, advocating for a more balanced view that recognizes the limitations and potential hazards of scientific dominance in society.
In practice
In a discussion about the role of science in policymaking, one could use this quote to highlight the need for caution.
The idea of a method that contains firm, unchanging, and absolutely binding principles for conducting the business of science meets considerable difficulty when confronted with the results of historical research. We find, then, that there is not a single rule, however plausible, and however firmly grounded in epistemology, that is not violated at some time or another.
Science is essentially an anarchic enterprise: theoretical anarchism is more humanitarian and more likely to encourage progress than its law-and-order alternatives.
No theory ever agrees with all the facts in its domain, yet it is not always the theory that is to blame. Facts are constituted by older ideologies, and a clash between facts and theories may be proof of progress. It is also a first step in our attempt to find the principles implicit in familiar observational notions.
The separation of state and church must be complemented by the separation of state and science, that most recent, most aggressive, and most dogmatic religious institution.
The only absolute truth is that there are no absolute truths.
The separation of science and non-science is not only artificial but also detrimental to the advancement of knowledge. If we want to understand nature, if we want to master our physical surroundings, then we must use all ideas, all methods, and not just a small selection of them.
An attempt to study the evolution of living organisms without reference to cytology would be as futile as an account of stellar evolution which ignored spectroscopy.
Better understanding of the natural world not only enhances all of us as human beings, but can also be harnessed for the better good, leading to improved health and quality of life.
If you look at all the serious scientists in the world, there is no big disagreement on the basics of this...it would be absolute lunacy to act as if climate change is not occurring.
My ambition was to bring to bear on medicine a chemical approach. I did that by chemical manipulation of viruses and chemical ways of thinking in biomedical research.
At the heart of quantum mechanics is a rule that sometimes governs politicians or CEOs-as long as no one is watching, anything goes.
Nobody spends any money on smallpox unless they worry about a bio-terrorist recreating it.
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