The three most important words in all of human scholarship? “I was wrong.”

We are bombarded with science “news” thrust upon us by Cautious academics – almost all of it tendentious.

Here’s an example from earlier this month: Science Says the First Born Child Is the Most Intelligent. A first-born child is an only child until the first sibling comes along, and, accordingly, will tend to be more highly rewarded for demonstrating adult behaviors, especially Cautious behaviors. To its credit, the cited “science” notes some of this. What it misses is that it measures only “intelligence” as it is prized by “science,” missing out on the wonderful expressions of human ingenuity more often exhibited by second- and later-born children. First-born children look more like nerds to nerds, and this is all the “study” actually demonstrates.

This week’s Church of Splendor homily takes up the tendentiousness of science “news” with a very simple practical demonstration – teaching children how to make common hand signals:

What can we learn from such a simple example? Simply this: The people telling you that you know nothing and they know everything know quite a bit less than they claim to, and much of what they claim to know is wrong. When they have guts enough to admit their errors, that’s when they can be trusted.