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Dennis Joiner’s Let The Playing Field Level The Playing Field helps with understanding world situations through the language of science and robust scientific inquiry.

In Dennis Joiner’s Let The Playing Field Level The Playing Field, he lays out a systematic view and understanding of world situations through the language of science and strict scientific inquiry. 

This is because, despite all notions against the idea, it is the scientific inquiry that is the most useful tool for understanding and making sense of the world. While the more spiritually minded might decry the idea, they can only do just that because they have no standing nor merit for their disapproval, especially compared to the almost endless amounts of evidence on the side of the scientific method.

What Exactly Is Science?

Science is more than just a school of understanding the world; it is a process and an active engagement with the world and its discernible qualities. While there have been attempts to dislodge its place as humanity’s most valuable tool for knowledge, science is still the only thing that helps society inch closer to the truth of reality.

That is because the scientific method is the method with the least bias associated with it—when properly applied, of course—and the one that is most stringent and self-correcting. There has never been a case where science was disproved by anything other than science. It is only scientific inquiry that can debunk the results of scientific inquiry.

Science generally follows these steps:

• The first step of the scientific method starts out with a general observation of the world and developing hypotheses that help to explain the natural processes around the observer.
• After developing a sound hypothesis—essentially a highly educated guess—the observer then formulates experiments to better make predictions about their ideas and basically tries to prove that there is a basis to their hypothesis.
• As experimentation goes on, the observer is also looking for sound and reasonable evidence to help ground their ideas. The amount of evidence gathered directly corresponds to a higher likelihood of the hypothesis being true. 
• Of course, collecting data and gathering evidence is not the be-all and end-all. More testing is needed to further refine the hypothesis, taking more concepts and stuff into account.

The capacity for testing hypotheses is important to scientific inquiry. Statements and ideas that cannot be tested are not scientific claims. Therefore, anything that cannot be falsified is not scientific and, thus, is beyond the realm of realistic possibility.

What Makes Scientific Inquiry Great

The capacity for testing hypotheses is important to scientific inquiry. Statements and ideas that cannot be tested are not scientific claims. Therefore, anything that cannot be falsified is not scientific and, thus, is beyond the realm of realistic possibility. Falsifiability is a very important aspect of scientific thinking.

Being limited to time and space, humans cannot, even those who specialize in such things, test everything by themselves. That is why cooperation and consensus are so important. It is only through proper interaction between communities of scientists that answers found in scientific inquiry can be verified and actually confirmed. 

This is why everyone should always be skeptical of any claims made by a singular authority, although this does not mean disbelieving anything anyone says, especially if they are experts in their field.

What Benefits the Scientific Method Has Provided Society

As a method for seeking out more about the world through the development of ideas, the refinement of pre-existing ones, and the search for novel phenomena, science has been one of the major pillars of progress and development. 

The knowledge gained through scientific inquiry has been—at least, in the modern era—associated deeply with these developments:

New Applications—scientific knowledge provides novel ways to look at the world and examine problems. It was through the scientific process that various chemicals found practical use in daily life. A great example would be that of nitrous oxide, which was primarily a substance used for laughing gas and found use as the main chemical for anesthesia.

New Discoveries—through insights acquired from rigorous scientific knowledge, new discoveries and routes to knowledge can be discovered. For example, when Einstein first proposed his theory of relativity, it directly led to the expansion of physics and adjacent fields of study, which led to the discovery of black holes, gravitational forces, etc.

New Scientists—with every point of knowledge that science manages to glean from the natural world, more people are inspired to take on the reins of inquiry and skepticism, thereby leading to more aspiring scientists.