Science is a one of the ways of knowledge. Others are faith, testimony, written word, revelation, intuition, emotions. All of these can be used by science as raw material of scientific knowledge. So scientific research can start with seemingly unscientific ways.
Kekule had a dream about chemical structure of benzene. Ramanujam saw theorems as gift of goddess. Einstein performed fantastic thought experiments on light waves.
What distinguishes science from non-science and pseudoscience is insistence on independent verification, embededdness in theoretical framework ,openness to doubt and various other measures to bring objectivity into it. So we may have many psychological intuitions but to qualify them as science we have to pass them through acid test of scientific method.
End result may look obvious but it is tried and tested result. Even then that result may be overturned by different observational criteria and theoretical framework. So science is always tentative. Tentativeness of science is its strength. It is always arriving at the truth. Science never attains absolute truth unlike religion. Religion claims certainty. So religion will always give peace of mind.
Our brain craves certainty like sugar. Science cannot give you false hopes . Religion will always remain popular for this reason. Though people will use gadgets ,instruments and systems based on science their soul will remain with religion. Only education which teaches critical thinking, scientific method may make them rational .But our emotional brain continues to be burdened by superstition, fear and magical thinking. Our reason is hijacked by our emotional brain for its own end. So animals are not prey to religion even though their brain is lacking frontal cortex. They are simply unable to spin webs of myths, miracles and spiritual mumbo-jumbo that is the hallmark of human symbolic world.
Both emotion and reason contribute to creation of religion. Surprisingly both emotion and reason are also necessary for the advancement of science.
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