Have you ever met someone who wanted to distance themselves from the concept of woo woo practices, like astrology or the acknowledgment of magic, by asserting that they believe in science, or money?

To be transparent, this is a triggering topic for some astrologers (ahem, raises hand). Personally, it’s easy to get snarky about this before realizing that my cat-like reflexes don’t do much for me in circumstances like this. But I do I find it helpful to model the professionals who approach the irony and ignorance (and sometimes arrogance) of this with deeper thought and a show of respect to the process of learning that we’re all responsible for. So the interesting thing about people that lean in to the “I believe in science” or “I believe in money” statements is that it puts science on a pedestal and perpetuates the philosophy of materialism (that “nothing exists except matter and it’s movements and modifications”).

It points out that science is indeed it's own culture and not an absolute truth, despite its marriage to the concept of objectivity. But even as a culture of ideas and values that people subscribe to, it isn't something to be believed in, is it? The scientific method is about disproving or failing to disprove. Science stands by evidence, consistency, objective reality (which is really about a collective subjective experience in so far as everyone agrees on standards of measurement and interpretation...so consensus), theories, and experiments. Arguably, people who say things like, "I believe in Science" are obviously not scientists. They say this as a way of declaring belief in numbers, published studies, and consensus findings which they often don't fully understand. Supporting science, even if we don’t fully understand it isn’t the issue.

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