Humility and Science

I just read this quote from M. Scott peck, which echoes what Karl Popper emphasized a century ago: "Humility is the very basis of the scientific method." Indeed and since humility has, by just about any measure, plummeted in public life, our political discourse has gotten unquestionably less scientific. Sacrificing the education and well-being of millions of students by clinging to a discredited "Close schools to prevent spread of COVID" notion is a case in point. I’m one of those who wrote an angry letter to my local school administrators last March demanding they close our schools, but I've since apologized and admitted my error. Both political tribes fire the charge "anti-science" at each other, but inasmuch as society as a whole and, in particular, ideologues of both tribes, are more given to doubling down than admitting error, then our society has become--at the public level at least--extremely "anti-science."