A new toaster arrives.
It is quickly unboxed and set up on the counter.
There is no need to read the instructions, it’s a toaster.
And since it has been weeks since the old one died,
it is time to make some toast.

Experience of the old toaster guides the first setting, but the toast comes out too light. The next day, after thinking some and making a small adjustment, the toast is still too light, but less so,.. and also uneven. After a month of such fiddling, the toast finally comes out perfect.

This process, in a nutshell, is science. Start with a theory about why the toast is not perfect, develop a plan to alter a variable, measure the outcome, then start over by adjusting the theory. Over and over again. The Scientific Method. Everyone does it, whether they know it or not. With the academic institutions and other laboratories it is more formal and bureaucratic, but it really is the same thing.

Add to this my own theory of the Evolution Cycle:
1. Physical Mutation (buying a new toaster)
2. Mechanical Adaptation (learning how it functions)
3. Behavioral Adaptation (learning to make it fit our needs)

As this cycle rolls forward, how we make something fit our needs(3) informs the next new step (1). A writer and a photographer might buy the same first computer, but the second one they buy will be completely different from each other. Or, how our ancestors used their thumbs dictated how our hands evolved.

The Scientific Method can be applied to each step in this Evolution Cycle:
1. It can be used to discover something new,
2. it can be used to figure out how something works, and
3. it can be used to make something fit our specific needs.

We are at a place where the scientific institutions have discovered many new things (1) and figured out how they work (2), but they arrogantly believe that it is up to them to change people so that their world can grow and spread. The excuse they use is that science is too complicated for the average person to understand. 

This is exactly how organized religion evolves. They form a new church (1), develop how it should function (2), and then try to force people to abide; saying that only a chosen few can understand. The true third step (3) is allowing people to adapt on their own. If the new church has real value, it will flourish.

The Catholic Church had to learn this the hard way. It took them centuries. How long will it take the Church of Science?