Bumped into this today and it seemed to reflect my awakening to reality when leaving Mormonism.



"Anne!" Anne was seated on the springboard; she turned her head. Jubal called out, "That new house on the far hilltop - can you see what color they've painted it?"

Anne looked in the direction in which Jubal was pointing and answered, "It's white on this side." - Stranger in a Strange Land

True-life scientists and skeptical investigators must often (tentatively, provisionally!) piece together imperfect clues. Nonetheless, Heinlein's fictional Fair Witnesses anticipated central commitments of modern skepticism:

1. Primacy of empirical evidence over armchair reasoning;
2. Obligation to accurately state the limits of the available evidence;
3. Refusal to reach conclusions prior to investigation.

I submit that this is the heart of skeptical practice."

http://skepticblog.org/2010/10/22/burden-of-proof/

Trust me on this one, I first read "Stranger in a Strange Land" as an idealistic and precocious high schooler in 1970...

I re-read it at least several times more before I returned to college in the 80's, taking an "Introduction to Science Fiction" course as part of my major... At the end of it, both the professor and I--each "refugees" from the 60's counter-culture movement--were disappointed with it... We had both originally been taken by its "New Age, Free Love" themes, but after giving it critical scrutiny, it sort of fell on its ear as "visionary, idealistic Utopian fare."

Reading a Playboy interview with Heinlein confirmed that one... The author described the work "grok" as representative of a human child, raised without language, attempting to mimic human speech...

Human sexual mores, business practices, religious matters, and a host of other "targets" were fair game for Heinlein's "mature vision," and he effectively lampoons them all...

The other side of the house might not be white, but that's the sane way to bet...

Grok?