Religion
In reply to the discussion: The dictionary is wrong – science can be a religion too [View all]TalkingDog
(9,001 posts)But often doesn't. (BTW, religion is also subject to "rapid and radical changes", take a few history courses that have an emphasis on Religion if you don't believe me. Protestant Reformation anyone?)
History is rife with examples of scientific ideas and theories that were reasonable, well-researched and correct, yet were mocked and rejected by well-respected scientists of the day who clung to the dominant paradigm, sometimes for decades... even centuries. These are the fundamentalists. People who insist on adherence to (scientific) doctrine as it is.
Now, is that religion? No, it's faulty thinking. Yet, when a fundamentalist Muslim tries to force women to wear a burka or a fundamentalist Christian blows up an abortion clinic somehow they are not guilty of faulty thinking, they are guilty of imposing their flawed religion on others.
If one wants to place blame for the attempts to push science into the category of religion, one needs look no further than people who insist that when they behave in a certain way, it is acceptable or within the historic "norm" but insist that when "others" do it, it's based on a superstitious belief.
People who can't or won't see past labels to note the underlying similarities in things, be they power structures or other complex systems, really don't end up making very good scientists.