I am fascinated by how human nature interferes with science. This article in the Wall Street Journal helped me understand one way this happens.
A civility campaign in Howard County, Maryland, centered on a book called Choosing Civility: The Twenty-five Rules of Considerate Conduct (2002) by P. M. Forni, a John Hopkins professor of romance languages. Rule 7, for example, is “don’t speak ill.” The book bothered Heather Kirk-Davidoff, a pastor. She visited Professor Forni. “Jesus didn’t say, ‘I am the rule,’ right?” she told him. Professor Forni agreed. “Yes, Jesus said, ‘I am the way.’ If I had met you before, probably I would have used way. The 25 Ways of Being Considerate and Kind,” he said.
Hmm. The way versus the rule: similar. The way versus a way: big difference. Neither the professor nor the pastor noted that a better title would omit the: 25 Ways of Being…
The writer of a book about civility — in that very book — fails to grasp a big point about civility. The pastor who points out the problem makes a similar omission. Our tendency to turn tools into rules must be strong.
If you invent a useful tool, you have made the world a better place. If you denigrate non-users, the improvement is less obvious. Randomization, for example, is a tool. Many scientists treat it like a rule. Were I to write a book on scientific method, it would contain a paragraph beginning: “A few years ago, the head librarian of the Howard County, Maryland, county library bought 2300 copies of a book called . . .”
Twisted skepticism.