How we know II: bad dreams

dreams In my last column, we were discussing houses built on sand and the scientific method as a way of knowing. Most of us take it as given that this is a good way of knowing things about the world at large, and you and I were just about to agree completely with each other when I proposed that it is not, and that it can be a matter of life and death to argue otherwise. Well, like the Walrus and the Carpenter, let’s take a walk on the beach (need I mention that the sun is shining on the sea?) and talk nonsense. Yes nonsense, but nonsense that is fairly recent history and of such deep importance to any of us in biomedicine that it is astonishing that it isn’t taught as essential reading in Biology 101. It isn’t, mainly because those who know about it are ashamed and don’t like to talk about it.