It intrigues me that there are people who still believe the earth is flat AND they have arguments to support their belief.

I saw the movie “Moneyball again last week and was reminded of the friction between intuition and science. 

We humans are hardwired to be suspicious of new things – our intuition and instinct for survival lean away from the unknown. Science often pushes against our instincts and we naturally push back. However, both science and intuition are based on the evidence we have in front of us at the time and neither is absolute. 

Good science, relying on existing evidence and available tools, requires that the outcome of any experiment be tested multiple times. A good scientist accepts that they might be wrong and verifies. When new tools are developed, old and new scientific theories can be tested yielding discoveries that invite us to see things differently. 

Relying on our intuition and experience is important – it protects us from making poor decisions. Being curious and open minded enables us to embrace new ways to doing things – being nimble and elastic in our thinking helps us adapt to an ever-changing world. 

In the end, both intuition and scientific evidence matter.  I say the smart money is on those who are discerning and question both before deciding what to believe. 

But still, we know for sure that the earth is not flat … don’t we?