A Scientist's Estimate of Scientific Data.
Prof. Karl Pearson, of England, one of the world's noted men of science, the author of "The Grammar of Science," flatly declares that "at least 50 per cent. of the observations made and the data collected are worthless, and no man, however able, could deduce any result from them at all. In engineer's language, we need to 'scrap' about 50 per cent. of twentieth-century science." Among the notoriously inaccurate, Professor Pearson specifies meteorologic and medical statistics; and even of lower value biological and sociological observations ordinarily. It is devoutly wished, but little hoped, that this frank avowal by this scientist might relieve some of our theologians from the superstitions which science has cast upon them. It will sometime be seen—we pray God it may not be too late—that the Book of truest science and philosophy, after all, is the grand old Bible, which men have discounted from conclusions often drawn from the scrap heap of scientific data.