Customised science as a reflection of protscience

Abstract

We live in a time when taking science seriously means taking it personally. This change in attitude is arguably comparable to the shift that took place during the Protestant Reformation, the moment when Christianity ceased being a unified doctrine delivered with enormous mystique from on high. Thereafter, it became a plurality of faiths, whose followers staked their lives on their own distinctive understandings of the Scriptures. In the case of science, I have dubbed this process Protscience (Fuller, 2010, Ch. 4), by which I mean to include a pattern evident in the parallel ascendancies of, say, intelligent design theory, New Age medicine and Wikipedia.