Starboy

I've read the same article. I think the one major problem area as stated was prediction of dark matter theory vs. MOND in relation to interstellar gas.

Have you heard about this? And what is the difficulty?

Starboy

Shadowy Man

I think it was intercluster gas, not interstellar. But no, I don't really know much about that.

Starboy

I post to this thread again because I think it address some of the comments made by others regarding the essentially dishonest nature of religion when it comes to the "Truth".

Starboy

Richiyaado

Starboy, I think it is a mistake to tar all religious people with the same brush, or perhaps I misunderstand you.

As I see it, the problem is that some religious people (and some non-religious people as well) are unwilling to make distinctions between different ways of 'knowing'. And since the scientific enterprise has been spectacularly successful over the past few hundred years, the notion that science is the only way to 'truth' has gained currency.

Thus, we have a growing outcry from people who believe that religious 'truth' and scientific 'truth' must be one and the same. For them, Mythos must become Logos (in the words of Karen Armstrong). But I'm not sure if it's dishonesty so much as it is an emotional yearning for concordance. (I do think that some of the people who exploit this yearning are dishonest, though.)

Fortunately, there are still some people, including many religious people, who recognize that while the scientific enterprise has been and continues to be enormously successful, it works only within certain limits. But what many don't understand is that it's only by respecting these limits that science will continue to be successful. So while science may edge ever closer to penultimate 'truth', ultimate 'truth' may forever be beyond its grasp.

One of the great strengths of science is that it's public and inclusive—anyone can join in, irrespective of any particular religious or metaphysical world view. So I'd certainly agree that it's dishonest to insist, as leaders of the ID movement do, that science should ultimately be subsumed by their particular, exclusive theology.

Albion

Sounds suspiciously like evolution, really. No wonder they hate it.

Starboy

Richiyaado,

The dishonesty begins when people base their entire lives around supposed religious “truth”. Many become extremely defensive when science demonstrates that their “truths” do not work. Unless a religion has the good sense to restrict their “truths” to the supernatural or to keep it simple by relying purely on faith, it will collide with science. Religious “truths” that do not work scientifically become disconfirming events. That is where the dishonesty ends but the religious pain begins. It is also when the ranks of atheists grow.

The basic dishonesty of religion starts and ends with its claim to the “truth”. The scientific method is not designed to produce “truth”. It is an a-theistic method designed to create explanations that work. This is why it has been so successful and has garnered such great respect from society. If religions wouldn’t monger truth I do not think there would be the conflict between religion and science that we see today. And if your aunt had balls she would be your uncle. A religion that did not monger the “truth” would not be a religion, so by its very nature it is deceitful.

Starboy

Richiyaado

I see that this will be my 100th post on this board, so I guess I should try to put some effort into it.

Starboy,

Actually, I think most people base their lives around a confluence of "truths"—religious, social, political, etc. The trouble starts when people come to believe their particular confluence of "truth" constitutes the canonical world view, which must be universally acknowledged. Historically, such thinking has had disastrous consequences, and it's certainly plaguing us today.

Again, I'm not sure if you're referring to religion generally, or only those religions which insist that absolutely everything, including science, be subsumed by some overarching doctrinal authority. I think there are many people, religious and non-religious, who see the dangers in such thinking, and who actively oppose the efforts of those religious people who would remake science in their image. I think it's a mistake to think that all religious people pose a threat to science, or that religious people are incapable of doing good science.

I agree that science must remain a-theistic in order to produce reliable results. And I agree that this is why scientific methodology has been so spectacularly successful. Science is limited by the kind of questions it can address, which aren't necessarily the same questions addressed by religion and philosophy. But I don't think science makes religious and philosophical questions not worth the asking. On the contrary, I think science prompts us to ask more informed, interesting questions.

Starboy

Congratulations Richiyaado on your hundredth post. I too have only been posting here for a short time. I can’t begin to express my joy at having found this place of like-minded people. This forum is both stimulating and informative.

If there are religions that do not claim to have the “truth” and do not hawk these “truths” in the city bazaar like so many pounds of potatoes or precious antiques, I say have at it. They are welcome to their myths. It is those religions that parade their myths as the “truth” and wield those “truths” as a weapon in a battle to vanquish all opposing myths that I take exception with. What irks me most of all is that in their frenzy they now have science in their sights and will not rest easy until they destroy it.

It is time that mankind progressed beyond the myth as “truth”. What science has given us is a way to understand the universe without resorting to the “truth”. Science has shown that pragmatism works! It isn’t necessary to come to terms with the universe by searching for the mystical “truth” of things. The dishonesty is that those aggressive religions we speak of know this and yet continue to bandy “truth” as a smoke screen to accomplish their ends.

Starboy

HRG

Let's not forget that Newtonian mechanics is the limit (in an exact mathematical sense) of relativistic mechanics when the speed of light goes to infinity - which means for all practical purposes when it is much larger than all other velocities which occur in a particular system.

So I wouldn't even say that it is "flawed at íts core". It is a worse approximation to reality as more modern physical theories; but they, too, are approximations. Just better ones.

Regards,
HRG.

Starboy

Greetings HRG,

Maybe it is harsh to call it flawed at the core but it is missing a couple of important pieces. 1) All inertial frames are equivalent for the formulation of all physical laws. 2) Light signals in vacuo are propagated rectilinearly, with the same constant velocity c at all times, in all directions in all inertial frames.

Some might call a dish that is missing two key ingredients flawed. It would be like serving a cheeseburger without the cheese or the bun.

Starboy