Bittersweet Humor - Science v. Everything Else And Delta's Breakup Letter To Juneau

This certainly is relevant to this blog's theme of how we know things.

Click to enlarge and focus - Found in LA Times Jan 20, 2015

My immediate reaction was a bittersweet smile.  So true.  So sad.  But this really depends on how one defines science.

Full blown rigorous western science with quantification and experimenting doesn't answer every question, but not everything can be broken down and measured.  Particularly social behaviors.

And there are less rigorous (in a pure science sense) ways of knowing.  Scientists in Alaska have learned to pay attention to traditional Native Alaskan knowledge on things like weather, animal behavior, ice conditions, medicinal herbs etc.  There's just a long accumulation of knowledge over generations.

Even the divide between simple, quick, superficial answers versus more complex ones can be questioned.  Many biblical justifications we hear are long and complex.  They can also be just wrong. And there is also a lot of wisdom in the bible, but like with the Constitution, it has to be interpreted in the context of what science has since revealed.  For instance the requirements to rotate crops, to leave the leftover harvests on the ground for the hungry, the ideas about jubilee years when debts are forgiven, are all good for social animals to heed.

I'll leave it at that.  It's a heavy, grey, rainy day on Bainbridge Island, makes Anchorage inviting, especially with the reports I'm seeing on great auroras.   I've got a short time here before I'm playing grandpa again..

So let me offer you, for another bittersweet smile,  this link to Delta's breakup letter to Juneau posted on One Hot Mess Alaska.