Humanist Beliefs and Science

IT IS NOT too difficult for a group of Humanists to agree on generalities about their beliefs. Humanists are non theists and non teleogical natural-ists, basing their ethic on human dignity and decrying relationships that are demeaning, debasing, and which violate concepts of liberty, equality, and community. They are opposed to rigid conformity, inequality, and egocen-tricity. Humanists hold existence to be potentially good and believe that being is not regrettable. They try to base their beliefs on reason subject to verification. They continue to affirm their confidence in free inquiry and the uses of critical reason. Humanists place a major reliance upon science and hold it is the best way yet developed to establish a belief pattern. This is not because sci-ence has the final and ultimate truth but because the methodology of sci-ence emphasizes that ideas should be subject to experimental testing and in-dependent verification. Science also puts a premium on keeping an open mind, on the necessity of change as new understandings develop, and em-phasizes that behaviors which benefit society as a whole also benefit indi-viduals. It is not so much these assumptions or principles or beliefs whic