Vorkosigan

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Bede:

Science is governed by an authority that broaches no argument, that allows no dessent. She cannot be swayed by appeals to mercy or reason. Instead, like a merciless God she has condemned us all to death - her servants and her enemies. Her laws are cast in iron and we can only try to find out what they are - she did not even deign to tell us. They are often inimical to human asperations and hopes but she does not care.

I was referring to social arrangements, not natural ones...

I'll take a look at your site later.

Michael

Undercurrent

I disagree with your notion that the statement "the scientific method is the only reliable means of obtaining knowledge of the world" can not be known through the scientific method (and is, hence, self-refuting).

We can certainly imagine an experiment in which several sets of people are given an identical problem to solve, or system to discover the nature of, and one of which uses the scientific method, and another uses some other method (voodoo, praying for revelation, &c.) At the end of the experiment the solution to the problem or knowledge of the system is tested in some quantitative way.

One could also imagine a qualitative anthropological study where for cultures throughout history the extent of scientific though is correlated with the advancement of the human condition of those times and cultures.

The efficacy of science (and the companion notion of the inefficacy of other methods of knowledge generation) is certainly not beyond the ability of science to examine.

I also deny that christianity has a significant positive correlation with scientific advancement. If the claim were true, we would expect that great scientific advancement would have taken place from the moment of christianity's inception until today. This is historically not the case. The advancement of science has historically taken place in many places predominated by many faiths over the centuries (e.g. The arabs, Chinese, &c.) The christian faith can hardly count itself unique in that regard.

In fact, you yourself contradict this assertion later in the essay by claiming the works of Aristotle are a "precursor of science." This would imply that science is rooted with the pagan Greeks, with chistianity at best an incubator for what was already there.

Also, I might add, Einstein added in the cosmological constant to hist equations because (1) it was proper to do so -- leaving it out was like leaving out a constant of integration, and (2) because he believed that the constant would make his equations imply Mach's principle (It was a later found that there were non Machian solutions even to the ammended equation, and later caluations showed that a cosmological constant of greater than some ridiculously small number is inconsistent with the stability of the solar system (but some modern obervations imply that it is not exactly zero).)

I'm not quite sure of the history, but I vaguely remember learning that Einstein didn't even solve his equation sufficiently to even determine that it implied an expanding universe, and that this
was pointed out later by others.)

m.

Bill

Bede:

Once again, you are confused (not surprising). This time, you confuse subject and object. Science is not a stand-in for either "reality" or "objective truth." Instead, Science is an approach to epistemology (discovering "truth"). As I'm certain you are aware, approaches to epistemology should not be confused with their metaphysical products, natural or otherwise.

=====

Religion and science are competing approaches to epistemology. They can be made compatible only by strictly controling their areas of operation (a la Gould's "Non-Overlapping MAgisteria" proposal). Unfortunately, most people refuse to put science and/or religion into their properly constrained boxes. I've gone and let science spill over into the study of religious matters and ended up an agnostic. Many fundamentalists let religion spill over into scientific matters and we get Creationists, or their disgusting minority, the Young-Earth Creationists.

But for my money, religion and science are two choices for epistemology. Since science is grounded in empiricism, it gains its authority from "reality" rather from any internal source. Religion, on the other hand, has no external source of "authority" (at least, not one that is provable in the halls of empiricism), so it must generate its authority within itself. That is how religion wins the battle over which is most authoritarian.

== Bill

Ted Hoffman

I havent read the page the link refers to but I will answer the question K asked off the top of my head.

YES science and religion conflict.

Science under "floatation" shows that bodies that are "heavier" than water will sink in water.
Religion says, Jesus walked on water. Sceince says that men, however holy, do not stroll on water.

Science says that energy can neither be created nor destroyed. Religion says "God said, and it was so". Water was converted into wine without any alcohol being brought into the excersise.

Science classifies bats differently from how the bible does. Leviticus.

The idea of whether or not the rabbit chews cud or not in science is contradicted by that in the bible. Leviticus.

Science, through evolution, shows that man evolved from "lower" life forms. Religion says man was created intelligent, with sophisticated understanding of the world and rituals and that man started wearing "garments" almost immediately.

Science says women give birth because mammals evolved to do so, religion says its because the woman ate the apple.

Science says we die when certain things happen to make life sustenance "impossible" eg when your head is cut off. Religion says we die because Adam ate the apple.

Science says when we die we are join another part of the carbon cycle. Religion says we will one day rise and be judged.

And so on and so forth.

They are diametrically opposed to each other. As Bill said, they offer alternative world-views.

Strictly speaking, they are mutually exclusive. But people are capable of being bishops and sodomising kids, so in the same way, you find people who are scientists and they claim to be theists.

The fact that man is capable of holding radically confliting viewpoints in the same mind should not be used to insinuate that science and religion are compatible or, not in conflict.

Any illusion of compatibility is transitory and misplaced.

Bede

Actually, there is nothing epistimologically special about science although this is a fond illusion. We use the same method of thinking in science as we do in most normative religions.

For a given statement to be validated in either science or religion it is compared to the relevant authority by the qualified people. Michael trying to differentiate between a social and natural authority isn't really relevant except to try and paint religion as authoritarian. Certainly something that creates its own authority that it can mould and reform is less authoritarian than something that is subject to an exterior authority it cannot change.

Also, science is not a worldview but a method. It restricts itself to methodological naturalism but I can happily do science without believing that naturalism is true. Rather it provides a framework like the rules of soccer. If you pick the ball up, you are playing a different game.

IntenCity, of course, is being very shallow. His contradictions are simply proto-scientific statements that got incorporated into a religious text. Clearly, when the scientific and religious authorities say different things we have a de facto conflict, but at a pretty rudimentary level. For following orthodox Jewish law a bat is lumped in with bird and for taxonimists it is a mammal. I tend to agree with NOMA as long as we aren't dogmatic about it.

Yours

Bede

<a href="http://www.bede.org.uk" target="_blank">Bede's Library - faith and reason</a>

madmax2976

<strong> As a nontheist, I'm going to have to ..sorta... disagree here as well. There is too much wiggle room in such a statement. It all depends on which science and which religion we're talking about.

If we were to first define these terms, then it might be that they will conflict. But it is entirely conceivable that a religion could be compatable with and work in tune with science.

What I think is far more telling than just religion vs. science, is the success of the naturalistic approach in contrast to the failure of supernaturalistic approach in determining facts about the world. Supernaturalism has never demonstrably explained anything, while naturalism has been able to explain a great many things. This is good evidence that naturalism is more likely to be true than supernaturalism. This also shows that religion vs science is a bit irrelevant since it may miss what is the real conflict.

Bede

No, supernaturalism has explained a great deal but not in such a way as you can use naturalism to test the explanations. If we make naturalism the judge and jury it's hardly surprising it wins all the cases.

Yours

Bede

<a href="http://www.bede.org.uk" target="_blank">Bede's Library - faith and reason</a>

Toto

I don't quite understand this. Supernaturalism can explain anything - just posit a deus ex machina, and all your theoretical difficulties are solved.

But it can't predict and control things. You cannot ask forgiveness for smoking and have you emphysema cured. You can't elect a Christian president who has been faithful to his wife and avoid terrorists attacking your cities.

madmax2976

I see. So instead we should use supernaturalism as the "judge and jury" in order to validate supernaturalism?

Reason, prediction, falsification, repeatability and testability have been honed to a fine edge under naturalism, but naturalism hardly invented them. They existed before naturalism and it was these tools that have shown naturalism to be superior to supernaturalism.

But I'm curious, exactly which of these criteria, if any, would you advocate getting rid of in order for supernatural claims to have a chance to become validated? What would you add? Does it require an a priori assumption that supernatual entities and forces actually exist?

Lets make it more direct: Please list the criteria by which supernaturalism validates its claims and give a working example. It would be most helpful.

Vorkosigan

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Bede:
[QB]For a given statement to be validated in either science or religion it is compared to the relevant authority by the qualified people. Michael trying to differentiate between a social and natural authority isn't really relevant except to try and paint religion as authoritarian.
Certainly something that creates its own authority that it can mould and reform is less authoritarian than something that is subject to an exterior authority it cannot change.[/b]

Hilarious. I am referring, again, to social values of the two groups. One values freedom of inquiry, the other control of thought. One values openness and sharing of information, the other strict control. One believes information is obtained by revelation, the other by study of the world around us. Those are diametrically opposed sets of values.

Of course, you know this perfectly well. Saying science is "authoritarian" because there's no appealing natural law is absurd. Religion is authoritarian because its major interest is power and control of the minds and bodies of others, not because its modes and methods of control evolve through time. The same impulse that compelled the ancient Church to burn pagan writings and smash pagan temples is the same one that drives the Pope to call for regulation of the internet, lest people think for themselves.

Also, science is not a worldview but a method.

Never said it was a worldview. But underpinning the method are a set of values that conflict with religious values. Too many people forget that religion was tossed out of science not only because it had nothing worthwhile to teach about the natural world, but because religious values are incompatible with scientific values.

Michael