[SEQ RERUN] Outside the Laboratory

Today’s post, Outside the Laboratory was originally published on 21 January 2007. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):

Written regarding the proverb “Outside the laboratory, scientists are no wiser than anyone else.” The case is made that if this proverb is in fact true, that’s quite worrisome because it implies that scientists are blindly following scientific rituals without understanding why. In particular, it is argued that if a scientist is religious, they probably don’t understand the foundations of science very well.

Discuss the post here (rather than in the comments to the original post).

This post is part of the Rerunning the Sequences series, where we’ll be going through Eliezer Yudkowsky’s old posts in order so that people who are interested can (re-)read and discuss them. The previous post was Some Claims Are Just Too Extraordinary, and you can use the sequence_reruns tag or rss feed to follow the rest of the series.

Sequence reruns are a community-driven effort. You can participate by re-reading the sequence post, discussing it here, posting the next day’s sequence reruns post, or summarizing forthcoming articles on the wiki. Go here for more details, or to have meta discussions about the Rerunning the Sequences series.