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Posted by Jenos (Member # 12168) on :
 
I've seen/heard a fair amount of people use the argument "science has been wrong in the past, it will be wrong in the future, therefore science today is not a valid source of information". Something about this argument seems wrong to me, I was wondering if anyone knows if there is a formal name for this argument and what the logic for and against it is?
 
Posted by Juxtapose (Member # 8837) on :
 
I'd call it a non sequitur.
 
Posted by Anthonie (Member # 884) on :
 
I don't know any formal name for said argument. I do find such argument reasonable and in some aspects compelling.

I have believed for years that the probability science is incorrect greatly exceeds the probability that it is correct.

We may be able to manipulate actions and reactions for the purposes of medicine, communication technology, home convenience, etc; but when it comes to science explaining why things are the way they are, science is infantile.
 
Posted by Juxtapose (Member # 8837) on :
 
Infantile compared to what?
 
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
 
I think the italicized why indicates a misapprehension of what, exactly, science actually proposes to answer. Usually when such a why presents itself, what is being considered is a point of philosophy, not science. And yeah, if your philosophy makes a claim answerable by science then chances are science is where the correct answer will be found.
 
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
 
What MattP said.
 
Posted by C3PO the Dragon Slayer (Member # 10416) on :
 
This argument is a form of inductive reasoning:

Science has been wrong in the past
Therefore, it will be wrong in the future

Inductive reasoning is not as sound as deductive reasoning because it is not mathematically logical, and relies on inferences which may or may not be true, depending on many unknown variables.

I'm sure science 50 years or 100 years from now will look very different from modern science, just as modern science is different from science a century ago. That doesn't mean science is unreliable; it just means science changes. Science describes, to the best of its ability (which depends on the availability of data and the reasoning of their observers), natural phenomena in the universe. As we find new data with new ways to obtain it, it is very possible, if not likely, that we will have to revise some current scientific theories. Insofar as scientific theories today are not contradicted by any evidence, we can use the same form of inductive reasoning that concludes science is unreliable to assume that these theories are true.
 
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
 
My favorite example of flawed induction is, I believe, a Chinese parable about the dangers of Confuscianism:

A poor farmer was walking through his drought-ravaged field when he startled a rabbit. It sprang up frantically and ran from him -- directly into an old tree stump. Its neck snapped. He took the rabbit home for supper, and his family ate meat for the first time in months.

For the rest of the season, his fields lay neglected; the farmer kept a watchful eye on the stump, waiting for more rabbits.
 
Posted by Anthonie (Member # 884) on :
 
Infantile compared to who knows what, really, since science doesn't know it yet. Infantile compared to all that is knowable in the universe.

In two or three milennia scientists will likely regard the science of our generation as infantile. At what point can science say it has grown up?

Sorta like the Star Trek movie where Bones travels back in time and give the grow-a-new-liver pill to the woman awaiting a liver transplant and refers to our current medicine as barbaric.
 
Posted by Anthonie (Member # 884) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by C3PO the Dragon Slayer:
Insofar as scientific theories today are not contradicted by any evidence, we can use the same form of inductive reasoning that concludes science is unreliable to assume that these theories are true.

I see your point. Makes sense. Thank you.
 
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
 
quote:
Infantile compared to all that is knowable in the universe.
Doesn't that apply to basically everything? It doesn't seem meaningful to call out science as being infantile when every other form of inquiry and field of study is just as young and limited.

Also, you were previously talking about science being infantile only when answering certain kinds of questions. What did you mean by "why things are the way they are"? What is an example of science answering one of these questions in an infantile way?
 
Posted by Tresopax (Member # 1063) on :
 
The structure of the argument is this:

"X has been wrong in the past, X will be wrong in the future, therefore X is not a valid source of information"

Start filling in things for X. Road signs, wikipedia, doctors, school textbooks, and so on have all been wrong in the past and may be wrong in the future, so if we were to accept this line of reasoning then none of those would be valid sources of information. And if we eliminate all those sources of information then suddenly we are left with almost no information at all.

This line of reasoning would imply that anything that makes mistakes is not a valid source of information. It would imply that the only valid sources of information are infallible things. Since there are very very few, if any, infallible sources of information in the world, that is a problem.

Fallible information is better than no information, if there's reason to believe it is likely to be true.
 
Posted by Pegasus (Member # 10464) on :
 
Perhaps ad hominem tu quoque is close.
 
Posted by Anthonie (Member # 884) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by MattP:
quote:
Infantile compared to all that is knowable in the universe.
Doesn't that apply to basically everything? It doesn't seem meaningful to call out science as being infantile when every other form of inquiry and field of study is just as young and limited.

Guess it was not wise to label it infantile. I didn't intend it as a pejorative.

I guess it is a matter of perspective. Looking far enough back in time, science and other forms of inquiry and study may seem infantile to us. Yet the scientists at the time would not feel they were infantile. For information available at the time, they were working on new questions and developing new innovations. They were cutting edge.

My claim about science in the future looking back and regarding our current science as infantile was itself an inductive argument, and thus not reliable. I was basing that argument on what happened in the past and what is happening in the present, and then projecting that it will continue to happen in the future. Perhaps it won't.

Also, I didn't mean to call out science separate from other forms of knowing. I would have included other methods of obtaining knowledge if they had been the subject of the thread.


quote:
Also, you were previously talking about science being infantile only when answering certain kinds of questions. What did you mean by "why things are the way they are"? What is an example of science answering one of these questions in an infantile way?
Again, I didn't mean infantile as a pejorative. Science often addresses "why" questions. Attempts to answer them lead to deeper "why" questions, which lead to even deeper "why" questions, etc... Thus, the first question was merely an infant in the chain of questions. If there is almost always a deeper "why," then science has not explained ultimately why things are the way they are. That was why I used the term "infantile" about science explaining why things are the way they are. (I should have used the phrase "in an infant-like state.")

For some examples: it seems people are always looking for or discovering yet another subatomic particle that explains why other particles behave as they do. New forms of matter/energy (dark matter, dark energy) keep altering explanations about why the universe behaves as it does. Biological engineering keeps delving deeper into why the body works the way it does. Genetics looks deeper and deeper into why the genome behaves as it does. Similarly, we could look at geophysics, materials engineering, chemistry, etc....
 
Posted by Tresopax (Member # 1063) on :
 
quote:
Again, I didn't mean infantile as a pejorative. Science often addresses "why" questions. Attempts to answer them lead to deeper "why" questions, which lead to even deeper "why" questions, etc... Thus, the first question was merely an infant in the chain of questions. If there is almost always a deeper "why," then science has not explained ultimately why things are the way they are. That was why I used the term "infantile" about science explaining why things are the way they are. (I should have used the phrase "in an infant-like state.")
I think this is an issue with "why" questions in any discipline, not just when it comes to science. Is there any way to answer a "why are things like this?" question that doesn't in some way lead to another "why" question?
 
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
 
Jenos,

"Science has been wrong in the past, it will be wrong in the future, therefore science today is not a valid source of information."

This is a pretty silly argument for anyone to make (and I'm sure some folks around here will get a kick out of hearing me talk like this:) ) for a whole bunch of reasons. One being that 'science' is not just one thing. Science is a way of looking at the world, a way of asking questions and attempting to discover answers. Because of that, it will always be 'wrong in the past' at least to an extent. That's, y'know, the point of science. Built into the approach of science is 'discard the wrong, incorporate the right'.
 
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Jenos:
I've seen/heard a fair amount of people use the argument "science has been wrong in the past, it will be wrong in the future, therefore science today is not a valid source of information". Something about this argument seems wrong to me, I was wondering if anyone knows if there is a formal name for this argument and what the logic for and against it is?

This argument is known as the pessimistic induction. It's supposed to be a criticism of scientific realism, the view that science gives us accurate information about the unobservable features of reality.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pessimistic_induction
 
Posted by CT (Member # 8342) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Rakeesh:
Because of that, it will always be 'wrong in the past' at least to an extent. That's, y'know, the point of science. Built into the approach of science is 'discard the wrong, incorporate the right'.

Yep. The kicker is that the alternatives to science are not reliably more right, at least about science-y topics. You have to assess the full panoply of options, and then -- even if none are perfect -- chose the best one to address your needs.

This is a great term paper topic.
 
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
 
Eh, I suspect this is the type of term paper topic that has been done to death.
 
Posted by Jenos (Member # 12168) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Destineer:
quote:
Originally posted by Jenos:
I've seen/heard a fair amount of people use the argument "science has been wrong in the past, it will be wrong in the future, therefore science today is not a valid source of information". Something about this argument seems wrong to me, I was wondering if anyone knows if there is a formal name for this argument and what the logic for and against it is?

This argument is known as the pessimistic induction. It's supposed to be a criticism of scientific realism, the view that science gives us accurate information about the unobservable features of reality.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pessimistic_induction

Ah, thank you! Thats what I was looking for, now I can actually look at the history of the argument and see the real meat of it - the people who I heard say it aren't exactly philosophers of any sort so the true depths of the argument were never explored.

Also thanks to everyone else who was pointing out the fallacies one could use to argue against it. Whenever I heard that argument used I'd simply throw back modern medicine as a counterexample as to something from science they obviously shouldn't use if you can't follow scientific conclusions, but the formal explanations make it a lot easier for me to try and argue against it.
 
Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Raymond Arnold:
Eh, I suspect this is the type of term paper topic that has been done to death.

All the best ones are like that.
 
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Jenos:
I've seen/heard a fair amount of people use the argument "science has been wrong in the past, it will be wrong in the future, therefore science today is not a valid source of information". Something about this argument seems wrong to me, I was wondering if anyone knows if there is a formal name for this argument and what the logic for and against it is?

This is a type of composition fallacy (the assertion that because some subset of a group have characteristic A, all members of that group will have characteristic A).

It's also a good example of cherry picking, i.e. selecting cases which support your bias while ignoring all the cases which contradict your point. "One could just as easily say, science has been right in the past, science will be right about things in the future, therefore science is certain to be right today."
 
Posted by Dr Strangelove (Member # 8331) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by CT:

This is a great term paper topic.

If it's done right. If not, it is incredibly obnoxious to read and grade. [Smile]
 
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
 
quote:
Ah, thank you! Thats what I was looking for, now I can actually look at the history of the argument and see the real meat of it - the people who I heard say it aren't exactly philosophers of any sort so the true depths of the argument were never explored.
I can recommend some sources if you like.
 
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Destineer:
quote:
Originally posted by Jenos:
I've seen/heard a fair amount of people use the argument "science has been wrong in the past, it will be wrong in the future, therefore science today is not a valid source of information". Something about this argument seems wrong to me, I was wondering if anyone knows if there is a formal name for this argument and what the logic for and against it is?

This argument is known as the pessimistic induction. It's supposed to be a criticism of scientific realism, the view that science gives us accurate information about the unobservable features of reality.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pessimistic_induction

Pessimistic Induction has been used frantically against political polls in recent years, especially as they have become surprisingly accurate and exposed means by which to determine electoral outcomes. So it's neat to see an extrapolation of the phenomenon in other places.
 
Posted by CT (Member # 8342) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dr Strangelove:
If it's done right. If not, it is incredibly obnoxious to read and grade. [Smile]

Ah. I was going for subtext. [Smile]
 
Posted by Ecthalion (Member # 8825) on :
 
Originally posted by Dr Strangelove:
If it's done right. If not, it is incredibly obnoxious to read and grade. [Smile] [/QUOTE]
Yea i feel for you. Reading all those freshmen and sphomore papers.... Makes my skin crawl just thinking of their existence...
 
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
 
My Freshmen year composition teacher didn't let us write essays about abortion because she was sick of grading the same two essays. The Pro-life kid in class was pissed because he really wanted to write a pro-life essay. I was pissed off because I wanted to write a "the abortion debate is meaningless" essay which I suspect would have been, if not original, at least not any more tedious to grade than whatever topic I ended up picking instead.
 
Posted by Jenos (Member # 12168) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Destineer:
quote:
Ah, thank you! Thats what I was looking for, now I can actually look at the history of the argument and see the real meat of it - the people who I heard say it aren't exactly philosophers of any sort so the true depths of the argument were never explored.
I can recommend some sources if you like.
I'd appreciate that very much, I'm woefully uneducated in knowing where good philosophy writings can be found.
 
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
 
Peter Godfrey-Smith's book Theory and Reality is a good starting place. A classic paper on the subject is L. Laudan, "A Confutation of Convergent Realism."
 
Posted by JonHecht (Member # 9712) on :
 
Just thought I'd bump because (potentially) half of our upcoming midterm is about the Laudan article.
 
Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
 
I mentioned this in the JonHecht's thread where we've been arguing epistemology, but my contention is that the problem of pessimistic induction goes away with a slight conceptual change about the purpose and progression of science (or any interaction). Instead of viewing scientific theories as "more right" or closer to the truth with each successive theory, we can view the progression of science as theories that are less in error than previous theories. We don't know what an ultimate theory of everything will look like, and we haven't in the past. It's also true that scientific theories are overturned regularly. It's also true that some of our most powerful current theories cannot in the end be correct (not completely), including general relativity and quantum theory. But we do know that over time each new theory accounted for some subset of interactions in ways that were in error under fewer conditions than the theories they replaced. It is precisely this that gives us warrant for accepting them.

It's also worth noting that it's misleading to think that because new theories replace older theories that the older theories were "wrong". That's an over-simplistic view. Newtonian mechanics is still relevant for a large subset of our interactions with the physical world, and is still very effective under those conditions. Relativity is just able to account for more than Newtonian mechanics could.
 
Posted by Darth_Mauve (Member # 4709) on :
 
"Science was wrong in the past. Science will be wrong in the future. Hence Science is not a good source of information."

on the other hand we can easily point out that....

"Science has been right in the past. Science will be right in the future. Hence science is a good source of information."

Science has produced a system where I can flick a switch and light comes on.

Amazing.

Other sources of information, while with various levels of validity, have not produced such a definitive proof.

The Bible, for all its truth and wonder, will not allow us to produce light when needed without the aid of a source of fire.

You can sit in front of a light bulb and no matter how free of sin you are, no matter how pious and pure, no matter how many times you've been born again, you can pray all you want, and that bulb will not light up with out some science connected to it.
 
Posted by Aris Katsaris (Member # 4596) on :
 
I'd recommend checking out the entry on Wronger than Wrong.

"When people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together" - Isaac Asimov.

---

Current science is wrong. Superstition is wrong. But if you think that science is just as wrong as superstition, then your view is wronger than both of them put together.

So in short, Jenos -- your counterargument should be that the use of science is LESS WRONG as a "source of information" than any other source of information out there.
 
Posted by Rawrain (Member # 12414) on :
 
Slippery slope!
 
Posted by Tresopax (Member # 1063) on :
 
quote:
Other sources of information, while with various levels of validity, have not produced such a definitive proof.

Actually, many sources of information have a similar degree of seemingly definitive proof. For instance, when I was very little my mom told me that if I flipped a certain switch, the light would go on. And so I tried it, and it worked! At first glance this would appear to be definitive proof that my mom was a very accurate source of information. But as time went on, I learned that she could make mistakes.
 
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
 
quote:
At first glance this would appear to be definitive proof that my mom was a very accurate source of information.
But, as you got older, you realized that first glances cannot, by definition, constitute definitive proofs of epistemologies. [Wink]
 
Posted by Juxtapose (Member # 8837) on :
 
You are wronger than wrong to compare your mother with all of science as a source of information. You are also wronger than wrong to compare a very small child with a full grown adult as an interpreter of information. [Smile]
 
Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:
At first glance this would appear to be definitive proof that my mom was a very accurate source of information.
But, as you got older, you realized that first glances cannot, by definition, constitute definitive proofs of epistemologies. [Wink]
Hark, do I hear a qualia debate approaching?
 
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
 
quote:
For instance, when I was very little my mom told me that if I flipped a certain switch, the light would go on.
My mother told me that if I was well behaved that a powerful man with supernatural powers would reward that behavior. It was very convincing, but alas, armed with more powerful epistemologies and a more developed sense of reason, it has been demonstrated to my satisfaction that this man doesn't exist.
 
Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
 
Santa isn't real?
 
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
 
WHAAAATTT!!!!????
 
Posted by Darth_Mauve (Member # 4709) on :
 
I am Santa and I am real, so there.

I cashed a check made out to Santa earlier this month. Well, maybe not cashed, but received.

I just wanted to add my own deep and unbiased response to such arguments, learned from the Zen master--Wesley.

"Science works. Anyone who tells you differently is selling you something."
 
Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
 
Or in the immortal words of Randall Monroe, "Science, it works b$tches!"
 
Posted by Darth_Mauve (Member # 4709) on :
 
Science proves Santa Claus does exist.
 
Posted by Tresopax (Member # 1063) on :
 
quote:
But, as you got older, you realized that first glances cannot, by definition, constitute definitive proofs of epistemologies.
Well, yes, this is more or less my point - a sense of awe that science told us how to make a lightbulb light up does not really constitute definitive proof of how trustworthy it is.

Many sources of information can do the same thing (if you don't like my mother as an example then wikipedia is another, or a textbook on lightbulbs, or the collective American education system, and so on), or other similarly awe-inspiring things, and plenty of them are probably not so trustworthy.
 
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
 
The beauty of it is, trying different experiments to decide how effective your epistemology is = science. [Wink]
 
Posted by Darth_Mauve (Member # 4709) on :
 
Tres, I agree that the modern wonders created by people of science does not prove science is the best or the greatest, or the only source of information that we can use.

However, it does point out that it is a source that can and has been right in the past. It is not, as the original post hints, a useless waste.

Its track record is not perfect, but it is one of the few sources of information that seeks to correct itself.

Every other source of information has been wrong in the past, and will be wrong in the future, with the possible exception of divine inspiration, or divine writings, and even those have had errors in their interpretations.

And while scientific debate can get hot and heated, it has yet created a religious war where death and torture were used by folks using those writings as their infallible guide.
 
Posted by Tresopax (Member # 1063) on :
 
quote:
Tres, I agree that the modern wonders created by people of science does not prove science is the best or the greatest, or the only source of information that we can use.

However, it does point out that it is a source that can and has been right in the past. It is not, as the original post hints, a useless waste.

Agreed.

quote:
And while scientific debate can get hot and heated, it has yet created a religious war where death and torture were used by folks using those writings as their infallible guide.
This doesn't really relate to its validity as a source of information though. Astrology, as far as I know, also hasn't started any wars.

(And vice versa, if the question is what source of information leads to more violence, I don't think religion has yet created a nuclear bomb, or chemical weapons, or tanks, etc. while folks using the writings of science did.)
 
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
 
quote:
And vice versa, if the question is what source of information leads to more violence, I don't think religion has yet created a nuclear bomb, or chemical weapons, or tanks, etc. while folks using the writings of science did.
Well, this is a bit of a dodge. [Smile] Science has provided the means for more powerful sorts of violence, but that is IMO a rather distinctly different observation. (That science has provided the means for practically everything, whereas religious epistemologies are absolutely terrible at providing any useful mechanisms for understanding the world, means that science is generally responsible for anything on Earth that requires tool use.)
 
Posted by Tresopax (Member # 1063) on :
 
The "means" to create violence is the only sort of way you'd expect science to cause violence, though, because science is not particularly good at any other sort of knowledge - it gives us "means" rather than "shoulds". Science is not really equipped to answer questions like what is morally right, or who should owns what piece of land, or who ought to be governing us, or any of the other issues that tend to inspire wars. However, if science gets into the business of telling nations and peoples what they deserve and what they are morally required to do, I'm sure that would also eventually bring it into the business of triggering wars. (Extremist environmentalism is an example of this, as people have done violence, although thankfully not yet wars, in the name of what they believe science told them was necessary.)

Darth Mauve's point seemed to be that science is in someway better than religion or other epistemologies because it doesn't trigger wars. My point is that it simply leads to violence in its own way (given the sort of knowledge it provides.)

...

Side note: you are using "science" in a way that effectively makes the term meaningless if you define ANY useful study of the mechanisms of the world as science. Much of religion would be included in science if you defined it that way. It does a disservice to science if you ignore the rules that differentiate a scientist performing science from all the people who learn things about the world in much more casual ways.
 
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
 
quote:
Side note: you are using "science" in a way that effectively makes the term meaningless if you define ANY useful study of the mechanisms of the world as science.
Why? There's casual religion, bad religion, and thoughtful religion; in the same way, there can be casual science, bad science, and thoughtful science. No?
 
Posted by Darth_Mauve (Member # 4709) on :
 
Tre, let me rephrase what I was trying to say, but this time I won't take short cuts.

When ever I hear the phrase, "Science has been wrong in the past, and will be wrong in the future, so is not where you should get your information from." it has always been followed with something like, "The Bible (Koran, Torah, etc) however, is universal and always correct."

The universal perfection of any religious text is a matter of faith. As such, it is not something easy to debate.

However, even assuming that your holy text is divinely perfect, translations and interpretations of it have proven to be wrong in the past and since we have such differing opinions in religious scholars today, they are wrong now. Hence even gathering your information from your understanding of the Bible is wrong, according to the thesis of "It was wrong, is wrong, and will be wrong" that started this thread.

The example of when such interpretations have been wrong include wars, persecutions, torture and other historically accurate depressing episodes in Christian history (or Islamic etc).

Questions in whether information is correct or incorrect in the sciences result in lost funding, name calling, and email flaming.

Questions in whether information is correct or incorrect in the areas of religious interpretations of the Bible have resulted in blood.
 
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
 
Humans barely need an excuse to kill each other. Religion is no more to be blamed than capitalism. A whole lot more war has been conducted to grab someone else's resources - including 95% of the wars blamed on religion.

That things are not done in the name of science only means that science is not connected to human beings' hearts and identities.
 
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
 
quote:
The example of when such interpretations have been wrong include wars, persecutions, torture and other historically accurate depressing episodes in Christian history (or Islamic etc).

Questions in whether information is correct or incorrect in the sciences result in lost funding, name calling, and email flaming.

You are being way too generous to science. "Bad Science" has been used to justify things like genocide and slavery. "Bad Science" can have very serious consequence, ranging from explosions to cancer. We are all a couple of IQ points lower because of bad science (tetra-ethyl- lead). Right now, "Bad Science" is being used to justify a lack of action on climate change. "Bad Science" is as dangerous as any other kind of "bad" information.
 
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
 
quote:
"Bad Science" has been used to justify things like genocide and slavery.
The key difference though is that religion is prescriptive and science is not. Science doesn't tell you to do things. As soon as you say "and therefore eugenics is good!" you are doing something other than science.
 
Posted by Darth_Mauve (Member # 4709) on :
 
I think more importantly, science is self-correcting. Religion--not so much.

You are right that bad science has caused death, destruction, explosions, disease, even genocide.

But science eventually finds it errors and corrects them with better science.

Eugenics and racial disparity were promoted by bad science, and by bad religion.

However it was science that proved eugenics and racial disparity were wrong. Many religions, including unfortunately, the LDS, that were behind others in making that same correction.

Kath. I never said, nor ever will say that religion is the major, or a major cause of war. Capitalism may be--or just plain greed--but in this discussion no one has ever suggested we should use greed, or capitalism as a source of our information.

That is what we are talking about here--what source can we trust to get our information from.

I never blamed religion or The Bible for atrocities. I said that erroneous interpretations of them have had bloody results.

If pressed, I believe that the atrocities that some blame on religion are more rightly blamed on ego and us-vs-them thinking--what I call Bi-Polar Thinking.

Bi-Polar thinking has nothing to do with the psychological disorder of that name. It is thinking in black and white only, good and evil, us vs them. If there is only one Good, I will try to be that Good. If I fail I am evil, and I know I am not evil, so I am the Good. That means that anything not like me is not Good. Not Good, in bi-polar thinking = Evil. So the more you are not like me--the more Evil you must be. Evil must be hurt and destroyed because that is what evil will do to us. So wars are waged, deaths are created, and religion is blamed.

When actually the culprit is some short-sighted bi-polar thinking leaders who are afraid of "the Other".

But I digress.

I think we can all agree that Science is a fair to good source of our information. It is no better than some, but no worse either.
 
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
 
quote:
However it was science that proved eugenics and racial disparity were wrong.
Science can't prove whether eugenics or racial disparity is "wrong" unless you carefully define what "wrong" means in objective, measurable terms. If you are talking about moral wrongness then science has absolutely nothing to say on the topic. Religion could go either way, depending on which religion you subscribe to and where that religion is in its evolution.
 
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
 
quote:
I think more importantly, science is self-correcting. Religion--not so much.
You are correct in suggesting that the strength of science is that it prescribes clear methodology for rejecting ideas that are wrong. You are however incorrect in suggesting that religion is not self-correcting. Any study of the history of religion will show that religions do change and do correct themselves. The fact that some religions have been slow to change certain things is irrelevant. The scientific community has also, at times, been slow to accept change. In fact, there have been many occasions when a generation of scientists has had to die off before new theories could be fully accepted.

What you are missing, is that the weakness of science the methodology it prescribes can only be applied to physically measurable phenomena. It is useless for asking questions about what is morally or ethically right and wrong. Science can not determine what is lovely or virtuous.

The problem with comparing science and religion, as methods of knowing, is that there is extremely little overlap between the questions which can be addressed by science and those that are most commonly addressed by religion. When science and religion are in conflict (say Creationism vs Evolution), I'm fully in support of accepting the scientific view over the religious one. But what about all the questions that science can not begin to address? Some would argue that these questions are unimportant, but they are not unimportant to me and the billions of religious people on the planet.
 
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
 
Trying to use science to answer the "why" questions is like trying to use a seismometer to measure sugar.
 
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
 
quote:
But what about all the questions that science can not begin to address?
That'd be the realm of philosophy.
 
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
 
quote:
But what about all the questions that science can not begin to address? Some would argue that these questions are unimportant, but they are not unimportant to me and the billions of religious people on the planet.
Yes, yes, but religion doesn't answer these questions either; that is, it gives something that looks like an answer, but you have no idea whether it's true or not. At some point you're just going to have to deal with not knowing.

Trying to use religion to answer the "why" questions is like trying to use a sieve to measure sugar.
 
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
 
quote:
The problem with comparing science and religion, as methods of knowing, is that there is extremely little overlap between the questions which can be addressed by science and those that are most commonly addressed by religion.
Frankly, I just don't buy this. Historically religion has claimed to answer all kinds of scientific questions, and made no effort to correct itself until science came and figured out the truth.

Nor has religion made an effort to correct itself when it comes to, say, recommending that we stone children that curse their parents to death. Religious ethics change, but rarely do so before society had changed anyway.

As for science and ethics: no, science won't tell you how to frame your moral worldview. But most of the work you do in determining right and wrong has to do with what the actual consequences of the action will be. And those are questions science is perfectly qualified to answer. Sometimes the answer is pretty simple (stabbing someone in the heart will kill them) and sometimes its complicated (dumping toxic waste into the ocean will cause a wide array of ecological damage which will harm animals and humans both). It's up to you to decide if you care about harming animals and/or humans, but once you've made that decision, it's science that will tell you how to best prevent it.
 
Posted by capaxinfiniti (Member # 12181) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by King of Men:
[QUOTE]At some point you're just going to have to deal with not knowing.

easier said than done. you may have reached an acceptable appeasement to the absurd contradiction of living yet never knowing why, but to expect others to surrender their pursuit is not realistic. we all push our own rock.
 
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
 
quote:
Frankly, I just don't buy this. Historically religion has claimed to answer all kinds of scientific questions, and made no effort to correct itself until science came and figured out the truth/
Perhaps you can give some examples because all the ones I can think originated in Aristotelian "science" not religion.

quote:
quote:

But what about all the questions that science can not begin to address?

That'd be the realm of philosophy.
And what does secular philosophy have to recommend itself over religious philosophy? There have been more than enough atrocities committed in the name of secular philosophies.
 
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
 
quote:
Perhaps you can give some examples because all the ones I can think originated in Aristotelian "science" not religion.
Young earth creationism. (this includes *many* scientific claims) Israelites in ancient America. Global flood. (see: YEC)
 
Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:


quote:
quote:

But what about all the questions that science can not begin to address?

That'd be the realm of philosophy.
And what does secular philosophy have to recommend itself over religious philosophy? There have been more than enough atrocities committed in the name of secular philosophies.
Good secular philosophy is informed by scientific fact and itself follows a process akin to science in being open to correction and change in light of new evidence. It is an ongoing process of attempting to explain and understand the world, rather than assertions with no rational base. Bad philosophy is dogmatic. Many of us that have issues with religion don't have them solely because of what we believe to be false views on the existence of the supernatural, but also just as importantly, the dogmatic philosophies that underlie them.
 
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
 
quote:
And what does secular philosophy have to recommend itself over religious philosophy?
Simplicity, for one thing. Honesty about its axioms, for another.
 
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by MattP:
quote:
Perhaps you can give some examples because all the ones I can think originated in Aristotelian "science" not religion.
Young earth creationism. (this includes *many* scientific claims) Israelites in ancient America. Global flood. (see: YEC)
Read my original post on the topic. I already listed this as an exception where at least some religions are in conflict with science. Ray implied there were many more. I would like to know what he is thinking of because I'm not coming up with any.
 
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:
And what does secular philosophy have to recommend itself over religious philosophy?
Simplicity, for one thing. Honesty about its axioms, for another.
So your now you are saying there is no such thing as "bad philosophy", or "casual philosophy"? I disagree. There are plenty of secular philosophies that are needlessly comples and many that are no more honest about their axioms than astrology. There is as much irrational secular philosophy out there as there is irrational religion.

It is not intellectually honest to compare secular thinking at its best with religious thinking at its worst. Your reasoning is so colored by user bias as to be absurd.

[ December 09, 2010, 08:38 AM: Message edited by: The Rabbit ]
 
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
 
quote:
So your now you are saying there is no such thing as "bad philosophy", or "casual philosophy"?
No, not at all. But good philosophy, unlike good religion, is not unnecessarily complicated and honest about its axioms, whereas good religion is not.

A religion that is both uncomplicated and honest is a philosophy; it ceases to be a religion in any meaningful way, since it has dispensed with supernaturalism, prime mover arguments, doctrine, etc.
 
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
 
So to you the only "good" religion is indistinguishable from philosophy. You have a bad definition.
 
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
 
That's not necessarily the case. I don't know how you'd decide what constitutes a "good" religion from a "bad" religion in any authoritative way; I'm merely taking it on faith that religions can be so distinguished.

However, I was pointing out that philosophy has two primary advantages over religion: simplicity and honesty. If the response is that some religions have these things, my response is that they cannot have them and remain religions.
 
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
 
When you disagree with someone, that doesn't mean the other person is automatically lying. Your assumption is that there is no divine, so any claim of the divine must be a lie.

None of this is a problem with religion.
 
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
 
I don't think they're necessarily lying. They may also be deluded, one way or another.
 
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
 
My issue is not whether they are lying or even deluded, my issue is that when I have multiple religions telling me different things, they don't provide me with a means to figure out which one is right.

For the record, I DO think religion can be valuable, and I judge a good religion by whether it provides comfort, stability and community to people who need it, without also instilling an attachment to false scientific claims that will create a negative influence on a person's life (faith healing on a micro scale, creationism on a macro public-policy-influencing scale).

Religion by no means has a monopoly on comfort, stability and community, but it can accomplish those things effectively. None of those things have to do with reliable epistemology though.
 
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
 
Well, yeah. The question I was answering was, remember, "what does secular philosophy have to recommend itself over religious philosophy," not "do you think religion is incapable of being useful to people?"

*laugh*
 
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
 
Your declaration that religions are not being honest hinges on your assumption their claims untrue and therefore lies.

All this comes from your original assumptions, which are less enlightening about religions than it is of your biases.
 
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
 
not really, because assuming a claim is untrue is not assuming that these claims are automatically, therefore, lies.
 
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
 
Saying the religion is not honest means you think the claims are deliberate lies.
 
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
 
No. I mean intellectually honest. Lots of people, for example, do not perceive existing logical paradoxes in their beliefs (religious or otherwise); this does not mean that they are lying about their beliefs, but rather that they are unaware of the flaws. (Someone who says, for example, that he hates all root vegetables but is unaware that steamed carrots -- his favorite food -- are root vegetables is not lying. He's simply wrong about the particulars of his belief, and has therefore misstated it in a way that presents an incorrect model to a listener.)

They are not being dishonest, but neither would their statement of belief be intellectually honest; it is incomplete in ways they have not perceived.
 
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
 
All of this comes back to you disagreeing, and you blaming their inadequecies for causing the disagreement.

No matter how you try to put it, you disagreeing doesn't mean there is a problem with them. It is revealing only of your own assumptions.
 
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
 
quote:
All of this comes back to you disagreeing, and you blaming their inadequecies for causing the disagreement.
Broadly, yes, this is true.
However, the things about which I think they're wrong are not quite as facile as you're supposing; while I do in fact disagree with "them" on, say, the issue of the existence of a particular god, that's not the core of the problem. We disagree on the quality of their axioms, and even what those axioms are, and therein lies the rub.

They are wrong, and I am not. I suppose you could uncharitably (if technically accurately) label this an "inadequacy" if you want, and insist on blaming them for it as if it weren't simply an honest mistake, but this isn't something I'm interested in doing.
 
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by katharina:
Saying the religion is not honest means you think the claims are deliberate lies.

Again, you are wrong. It is possible for someone to not be intellectually honest without lying.
 
Posted by JonHecht (Member # 9712) on :
 
On the topic of philosophy of science, check out my (partly take-home) final for the class. http://pdfcast.org/pdf/phil
It's pretty much a beast. Assigned tonight and due on Monday.
 
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by JonHecht:
On the topic of philosophy of science, check out my (partly take-home) final for the class. http://pdfcast.org/pdf/phil
It's pretty much a beast. Assigned tonight and due on Monday.

What a bunch of gibberish.

[Wink]
 


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