A scientific theory

There is one very vile habit that the pedants have, and that is explaining to a man why he does a thing when the man himself can explain quite well — and quite differently.  If I go down on all-fours to find sixpence, it annoys me to be told by a passing biologist that I am really doing it because my remote ancestors were quadrupeds.  I concede that he knows all about biology, or even a great deal about my ancestors; but I know he is wrong, because he does not know about the sixpence. 

Now you may very well ask, indeed I hope that you do ask, just what the hell this is all about. Well, it is about Mr. G. K. Chesterton, or more to the point, about an argument he is making which is quite worth making. And that point is that we cannot actually explain everything about ourselves by presuming to understand our remote, prehistoric past. 

Such presumption can be rather arrogant. It is being made about cultures which we have not and cannot see. We do not know that our ancestors were quadrupeds precisely because we did not live with our ancestors; in fact we do not know with any certainty who they are or were. We might make guesses, and very educated guesses about them indeed. But that is all we're doing. 

Science has its limits, particularly science which has no power of observation. And that is why I do not trust presumed science. It is all too often inference rather than observation based. With science, inference, while sometimes necessary, isn't fact. And that's the fact of the matter.