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Religion is not the opposite of science.  Science is not something to BELIEVE in: it is a method for understanding and describing the objective universe.

I would agree with the first statement, and disagree with the latter.

Science is the belief system of this last couple thousand years (give or take, depending on where on the planet you look at it.) It causes people to say with a strait face

It [scientific method] is the known method that most reliably weeds out wrong inferences and theories.  And that is an empirically supported statement. Migeru-Dec 24th, 2007

It reminds me that there are hundreds of thousands of movies and songs that are pure dreck, yet we remember the classics of the [50's, 60's, or 1720's, 1780's] with fond regard as if that is all their are.

Science and the scientific method have had billions of wrong forks, some of them quite consequential (like the eugenics party thrown as part of WWII.)

But the belief system says and relies upon and proves that in the end, we know (or, will know) ____. Empirically.

Perhaps it is true. And, perhaps it (the method) will be scoffed at in a few hundred years like the previous methods are scoffed at today. It certainly only says that given enough time, (enough weedkillers of wrong inferences and theories that have to be worked through) some things will work out right, and if you throw enough time and energy at a situation, (and enough people to experiment upon in some cases) perhaps (if the background information is straight and the technology and mentality of the time is ready) that a slice of truth will be dusted off and put on a shelf as understood, usable in another context, and often, available to slap others with.

That spirituality has sometimes progressed and slid in a similar manner in the last several thousand years, sometimes (often???) used to slap others with, well, I don't have to be an apologist for Saddam Hussein and religion in the same decade. But it can be done, in the same way that I am certain that [any clever person] is able to parse their own statement and find them as false as they are true.


If it were only as bad as 1984.

by siegestate (siegestate or beyondwarispeace.com) on Tue Jan 1st, 2008 at 03:42:10 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Science and the scientific method have had billions of wrong forks, some of them quite consequentia

Well yes. That's how it works, though your chosen example isn't really science, as far as I know, but science abuse.

The problem with "spiritualism" is that no-one even seems to be able to define what it is unless one accepts that it is meaningful to start with.

by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Tue Jan 1st, 2008 at 03:51:00 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Well yes. That's how it works, though your chosen example isn't really science, as far as I know, but science abuse.

Yes, that is how it works, and it is what you (and others) have been defending, regardless of how off the rails it can be for however short or long it takes to get back on track again.

Well, yes. That's how it works, and it means that there is, or can be, a propagation of 'not true' into the loop without feedback until some other variation comes along...which itself will be continuously refined and/or modified until the Great Truths that Explains All Truths is derived.

'Yes, that's how it works' means to me that you can take any 'after the fact' analysis and say, well, obviously, that wasn't science, or it was science abuse. It also means that I need to have faith in your science and someone to tell me which is the real stuff and importantly, to keep a straight face.

To the side detail point, the science of eugenics was very well accepted at the time and accepted as derived from very scientifically researched theories. Its ramifications still haven't been wrung from the system.

The problem with "spiritualism" is that no-one even seems to be able to define what it is unless one accepts that it is meaningful to start with.

Yes; I'm pretty certain that you could make the same argument of science as well if you wanted to. (I haven't thought about this, but will pretend to be a science guy.)

You would start by pointing out that words generally are created in an experimental fashion that favors science, that science is tailor made for labeling things...sometimes, that it all it is good at. Things don't need to be understood, but they sure can be named.

Then a nice hustle with a pejorative post-fix, call it scienceism and...

OK; that's enough of that. I'll let you nail science for all that it is not by yourself.

Don't get me wrong. I'm glad that we can play with double-helix models in the bio lab and the physics lab (even if they might have different words and models for explaining the same things in different ways. I am not a church goer, I don't get into spiritualism, and I don't like people ripping people off of money or time or anything else.

I do believe that there is an area of study in an area of non-bio, non-physical essences. If it is important to have a set of words for that, I'll work on it and perhaps present it in my first diary. But having a name or set of words for it isn't critical for those who are looking to find it and get benefit from it. Perhaps that is why they get nailed by charlatans so often.

That science and religion have both littered the present field, and that neither explain or handle more than they do (with a lot of work left over for the future), that they have both been used for harm (perhaps equally), that they both seem to give their adherents a sense of superiority (or inferiority that needs to be rigorously defended), doesn't mean that the future needs to be the same way.

If it were only as bad as 1984.

by siegestate (siegestate or beyondwarispeace.com) on Tue Jan 1st, 2008 at 06:23:15 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Brilliantly clear exposition.  I would really enjoy your diary.

Our knowledge has surpassed our wisdom. -Charu Saxena.
by metavision on Mon Jan 7th, 2008 at 06:07:26 PM EST
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