SCIENCE AND FOLK SENTIMENTS

It is generally believed that traditional or commonsense beliefs that contradict scientific views must recede. I will argue that such an opinion is not always justified. In particular, I claim that the mod-ern scientific notion of the fundamental nature of the world and life may very likely prove to be false, whereas some relevant “unscien-tific ” folk sentiments may prove to be essentially correct. Science and traditional common sense, which both seek truth, are not adversaries. Science can even be regarded as a sophisticated and highly disciplined form of common sense. Therefore it might seem that we should always prefer scientific claims to traditional folk beliefs. It is undoubtedly true that folk sentiments cannot compete by any means with most of what science tells us. Scientific claims express the results of concerted efforts by large communities of highly edu-cated and trained specialists who use very complicated technica