The Truth?

The April 2011 Astronomy Magazine has an excellent editorial by the magazine's editor, David J. Eicher. I quote him in red and my comments are in black.

"The philosophy of truth begins with the most primitive technique, intuition (favored by astrologers), which amounts to believing that which someone dreams as premonitions of reality."
Beside astrology already mentioned, this is where I would place homeopathic medicine.

"Slightly more trustworthy is the authoritarian method - believing what authority figures tell you to believe, whether they are parents, teachers, clergy, or government."
This is where I would place religious fundamentalists, creationists, the Tea Party, and far right Republicans. This is where Republican politicians (and talk-show hosts) know they can take advantage of the rank and file, saying anything they want, no matter how false or misleading.

"The rational methods, computation, analogy, and logic, are far better yet."
This is where I would place the Democratic majority. Long before reading this editorial, I had considered Democrats to be more logical than Republicans. Democratic politicians take it for granted that people understand the logic and don't feel like they need to be aggressive, thus appearing meek. I also have long considered Democrats to be more compassionate (more Christian) than Republicans. Look at Democratic and Republican philosophies, and ask "What would Jesus do?". Provide social programs for the people, or give tax breaks to the wealthy?

"But the best way to determine what is true is the scientific method - empiricism, which demands observation, experiment, and verification."
This is where I would place scientists, atheists, and me. I would go on to say that the scientific method demands making a prediction, where "if this is true, then this other thing should be true", and verifying the prediction through observation and measurement. A prediction can also come from mathematics. A profound example is Einstein's inadvertent mathematical prediction that the universe is expanding, even though no one knew this at the time (and which Christian fundamentalists still deny). Einstein had to introduce his cosmological constant to make expansion go away in his equations. Many now believe that his cosmological constant is Dark Energy.