[glial]

> What concerns me is that science is ever changing

“Science” is just a set of methods for finding out about the world. Scientific findings are our best-guess beliefs about the world. Those beliefs change as new evidence is uncovered. What would you rather?

[diabeticApe]

Also the rapid pace at which scientific progress is made may overwhelm society's ability to cope with the changes. That may be a moot point because i think were only talking about science serving as an advisory function but where do we draw the line as to what is an acceptable rate of change and what is not? See thing is there are a whole bunch of issues that need to be worked out. Im glad that this is being discussed in a public forum but as ive already suggested it seems these decisions have already been made for us and our discussion over them is mostly irrelevant. Its more a matter now of justifying what has been done over determining what we should do as a society. Nobody voted for this. But thats whats happening. So now we just have to deal with it and try to keep it from turning into something ugly.

[diabeticApe]

Furthermore especially in the early stages of any scientific venture, the scientific method basically necessitates trial and error. Is that really an optimal approach over agreed principles AKA the social contract? Im hesitant to jump to conclusions but just because things are a mess doesnt seem to me an adequate reason to totally throw away the current approach without a careful assessment of potential pros and cons

[glial]

Yes, knowing how the world works and what one should do are very different. Knowing the dynamics of a system (how the world works - science) and defining an objective function (aka a desirable outcome) are totally separable, and it'd be unfortunate if we didn't see that.

[diabeticApe]

Well assuming a lack of political incentive i would agree that this would be the best course of action. What im trying to get at is how do we keep them from devolving to politicians with scientific titles.