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<strong>Interlude</strong><br />
Scientific-Truth and Useful-Truth<br />
Sometimes I like to play with ideas. Lately I’ve been mulling<br />
over the distinction between scientific-truth and useful-truth.<br />
Scientific-truth: I believe that the universe is an under-<br />
standable place, with objective facts that we can discover by<br />
using the scientific method.<br />
Useful-truth: I believe that individuals are sometimes better<br />
<strong>of</strong>f believing things that may not be scientifically true.<br />
What if believing in God makes people happier and more successful,<br />
independent <strong>of</strong> whether God actually exists? In this<br />
case, believing in God would be a useful-truth, whether or not<br />
it is a scientific-truth.<br />
Suppose that we could find a useful-truth that is scientifically<br />
false. Should we believe it? An idea like this would be like<br />
magic, because scientifically we know it isn’t true, but believing<br />
it makes our life better anyway. Any science involving human<br />
thoughts and ideas is difficult, but for the sake <strong>of</strong> argument,<br />
let’s suppose that we could scientifically prove that this scientific-falsehood<br />
was a useful-truth. That would create a paradox:<br />
many assume that the scientific method produces the most<br />
valid truths, but in this situation, science itself would be showing<br />
that it is best to believe a scientific-falsehood.<br />
We might hope that for every useful-truth, there is a scientific<br />
argument explaining why it is useful. Then, instead <strong>of</strong><br />
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