In science you do not only have to beleive /trust in scientists.. somehow... the important thign is that yo have to believe , understand or think as relevant the scientic mythology or paradigm.
Notions like facts, experiments or reality as an object as understood in our science businenss is pure mythology.. just as another myhtology. An as any other mythology which is quite ingrained we can not avoid believing in it if we are in the business.
For a lot of people science is just a status genrator.. like religion used to be.. but for the people doing scince or understanding the notions of "fact".. and the "how"question and other basic scientific mythologies.. the real leap of faith is believing in science, whcih we do nto feel like a leap of faith because we consider ours special (as any other perosn with other mythology would do).. in the sense that it is a myth as any other one.. and as obvious as any other religion could be to a religios person or buddhism to a buddhist or any gender relation learnt or spatial symbolic strucutre in any given society.
A pleasure I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact. Levi-Strauss, Claude
Here's how it goes: the enlightenment produced both Kant's epistemology which made it clear that we don't know what there is (noumenon) but only our perceptions (phenomena) that we assume caused by a noumenon and so allow us to infer things about it. The enlightenment also produced the narrative of the scientific revolution and the scientific method, and the belief that reason is a powerful force that can ultimately address and solve any problem. Then people like Humboldt founded anthropology. And then anthropology shows us just how fragile the basis for rationalism, the enlightenment and the scientific method is: it's just a narrative, and not a particularly appealing one at that.
We're doomed, I tell you, doomed. "It's the statue, man, The Statue."
But we are not doomed (well maybe .... I just hope not)... if we apply your ideas about a scholars and my ideas about using magic thinking to transmit ideas about science...everything is solved :)
That would make science particularly appealing!!!!!
A pleasrue I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact. Levi-Strauss, Claude
A scholar performing the functions we have just described may not be a good teacher.
But I beg to differ: I think there is a difference between the religious belief/creed and the rational belief/trust. The difference lies in the revocability of trust and the radical doubt that is at the heart of the scientific culture (and which you practise with incomparable virtuosity...). The religious belief/creed in science leads to scientism, as Migeru says somewhere in this thread. "Ne te courbe que pour aimer..." René Char
And sure.. there is a difference..absolutely .. no doubt.. each mythology is absolutely different, and of course religion and science are...
Although Kant envisioned that both would address different issues...pity, people did not like Kant and his "!how" and "why" questions.
So in mythologies, mechansims and basis , the same.. content, different... and I guess you know which mythology I like more... or trust more :)
