Science in Perspective (and Politics, Too)

We cannot limit our understanding of something to what is known about it. I sometimes get the sense that soi-disant rationalists and skeptics (of the Dawkins/Harris "new atheist" variety, for example) would want us to observe such a limit. If there's no "scientific evidence" for it, they'll say, we should not try to understand it. Sometimes I even think they would have us believe things we don't understand ("...this I know, for the science tells me so!")

(The political analogue: We cannot center our obedience in the power other people have over us.)