Scientism and Critiques of Science

[noddy]

if science stops taking evidence above opinion it will have turned itself into a religion.

which is nice... humans are reliably human and that involves alot of egos and politics and petty prejudices... what can i argue about that, if it happens it happens and lavender happened.


its not just all the fields of biology that are backing evolution , its also geology and plate techtonics in that all the theories they have about which bits of land have been attached to other bits of land, that matches the spread of animals and their variations, all of it lines up and backs the picture painted.

which to me means their is just so much detail in all those fields behind the "final story" that bickering about "it" is almost irrelevant.

the only focused group of people who get all upset about evolution are the creationists in various forms - its not like anyone else in the genral population really cares about the theories on billions of years ago or has a vested interest in such things... its a cute documentary every now and then, nothing more.

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

if science stops taking evidence above opinion it will have turned itself into a religion.

"I F*ing Love Science!" crowd says "hold my beer"

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

Can a Religious Person Be a Good Scientist?

In the culture of science you occasionally run into the sort of person who believes as an apodictic fact that if one is religious one can not by their fact of belief be a good scientist. You encounter this sort of person at all levels of science, and they exhibit a range of variation in terms of the volume of their belief about beliefs of others. I don’t want to exaggerate how much it permeates the culture of science, or at least what I know of it. But, it is a tacit and real thread that runs through the world-views of some individuals. It’s a definite cultural subtext, and one which I don’t encounter often because I’m a rather vanilla atheist. A friend who is now a tenure track faculty in evolutionary biology who happens to be a Christian once told me that his religion came up nearly every day during graduate school! (some of it was hostile, but mostly it was curiosity and incomprehension)

This is on my mind because a very prominent person on genomics Twitter stated yesterday that Francis Collins by the very fact of his evangelical Christianity should not hold the scientific position of authority that he holds (the individual in question was wondering if they could sign a petition to remove him!). The logic was very straightforward: science by its nature conflicts with religion, and those who engage in the sort of cognitive processes which result in religion will be suboptimal in terms of scientific reasoning. As I indicated above the people who promote this viewpoint treat it as a deterministic scientific law.

The idea that only one side gets their panties in a knot is silly.

[noddy]

Absolutely

[noddy]

the various battles between the aggresive new atheist's and new conservatives are a seperate topic to me.

as i dont have a problem with evolution and am an in the agnostic/atheist sphere, i dont lump all this stuff as easily as some might do

after a lifetime of programming and systems design, im also a tad more ermm, cynical/comfortable about the limits of human rationality than many, so my views on religion and on science are a bit more tempered than the keener proponents of both.

i also LOVE the irony of believing in the freemarket of economics to self correct but not believing in the freemarket of science to do likewise OR believing in the free market of science to self correct but not the economic one.

both get attacked via a strawman arguments of failure , or not self correcting fast enough for the idealogues tastes.

this particular split in the current state of the american debate is amusing to me

[Mr. Perfect]

Can a Religious Person Be a Good Scientist?

In the culture of science you occasionally run into the sort of person who believes as an apodictic fact that if one is religious one can not by their fact of belief be a good scientist. You encounter this sort of person at all levels of science, and they exhibit a range of variation in terms of the volume of their belief about beliefs of others. I don’t want to exaggerate how much it permeates the culture of science, or at least what I know of it. But, it is a tacit and real thread that runs through the world-views of some individuals. It’s a definite cultural subtext, and one which I don’t encounter often because I’m a rather vanilla atheist. A friend who is now a tenure track faculty in evolutionary biology who happens to be a Christian once told me that his religion came up nearly every day during graduate school! (some of it was hostile, but mostly it was curiosity and incomprehension)

This is on my mind because a very prominent person on genomics Twitter stated yesterday that Francis Collins by the very fact of his evangelical Christianity should not hold the scientific position of authority that he holds (the individual in question was wondering if they could sign a petition to remove him!). The logic was very straightforward: science by its nature conflicts with religion, and those who engage in the sort of cognitive processes which result in religion will be suboptimal in terms of scientific reasoning. As I indicated above the people who promote this viewpoint treat it as a deterministic scientific law.

The idea that only one side gets their panties in a knot is silly.

Lol this guy is only 50 years behind the times.

[Typhoon]

Can a Religious Person Be a Good Scientist?

In the culture of science you occasionally run into the sort of person who believes as an apodictic fact that if one is religious one can not by their fact of belief be a good scientist. You encounter this sort of person at all levels of science, and they exhibit a range of variation in terms of the volume of their belief about beliefs of others. I don’t want to exaggerate how much it permeates the culture of science, or at least what I know of it. But, it is a tacit and real thread that runs through the world-views of some individuals. It’s a definite cultural subtext, and one which I don’t encounter often because I’m a rather vanilla atheist. A friend who is now a tenure track faculty in evolutionary biology who happens to be a Christian once told me that his religion came up nearly every day during graduate school! (some of it was hostile, but mostly it was curiosity and incomprehension)

This is on my mind because a very prominent person on genomics Twitter stated yesterday that Francis Collins by the very fact of his evangelical Christianity should not hold the scientific position of authority that he holds (the individual in question was wondering if they could sign a petition to remove him!). The logic was very straightforward: science by its nature conflicts with religion, and those who engage in the sort of cognitive processes which result in religion will be suboptimal in terms of scientific reasoning. As I indicated above the people who promote this viewpoint treat it as a deterministic scientific law.

The idea that only one side gets their panties in a knot is silly.

Lol this guy is only 50 years behind the times.

Twitter is for twits.

Pew RC | [US] Scientists and Belief

As science concerns itself with the physical universe and religion with the metaphysical, their intersection is the null [empty] set.
What has changed is that phenomena previously attributed to divine intervention are now understood to be part of the physical universe.
In other words, what is included in each set has changed.

Offhand.

The most obvious counterexample is Newton who after developing calculus and the first physical laws of motion spent much of his life studying the Bible, esp the Book of Revelations.

Mendel, a monk, founded the field of genetics.

Lemaître, a priest, solved the equations of general relativity and found that they predicted a dynamic expanding universe.

[noddy]

the definitive work on computer programming that lifted it from the hackers and alchemists and into proper engineering is

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_o ... rogramming

which was done by Donald Knuth who also happens to be a devout Lutheran, and has also done several books on that subject.

[Mr. Perfect]

its not just all the fields of biology that are backing evolution , its also geology and plate techtonics in that all the theories they have about which bits of land have been attached to other bits of land, that matches the spread of animals and their variations, all of it lines up and backs the picture painted.

Some people are comfortable in the safety of the herd.

Other people like to think independently.

Also you must not know of the fallacy of affirming the consequent. Personally I try not to build the foundations of what I think of existence on a fallacy.

[Mr. Perfect]

Twitter is for twits.

Pew RC | [US] Scientists and Belief

As science concerns itself with the physical universe and religion with the metaphysical, their intersection is the null [empty] set.
What has changed is that phenomena previously attributed to divine intervention are now understood to be part of the physical universe.
In other words, what is included in each set has changed.

Offhand.

The most obvious counterexample is Newton who after developing calculus and the first physical laws of motion spent much of his life studying the Bible, esp the Book of Revelations.

Mendel, a monk, founded the field of genetics.

Lemaître, a priest, solved the equations of general relativity and found that they predicted a dynamic expanding universe.

I'm not sure that is the issue.

This is more the issue.

The following is moronic on many levels. First Dawkins doesn't believe that Jesus existed, so he was invented by various writers. Any intelligence Dawkins attributes would be attributed then to the writers. Said writers believed in God and were trying very hard to sell the concept.

So a person that intelligent believing in God is direct contradiction to this moron.

dQ5QG3MUTtg

Also here, this moron doesn't understand that hundreds of millions, even billions of people have read these books and ended up believing in them. Reality being diametrically opposite of his proposition.

E3rGev6OZ3w

[Parodite]

The words religion, religious experience, the physical, the meta-physical, belief, dogma, fantasy etc... are containers that can hold so many different things that a better word for them would be trash cans or even dumps. Or sewage systems, which can be interesting though.

Garbage can be full of interesting life and some are trying make sense of it... even grow some roses there.

JBP: Facts and Values/Science and Religion: Notes on the Sam Harris Discussions (Part I)

A meeting is scheduled with Mama Nature (MN) and Papa God (PG) to slash through this, if this new type of direct farming on pure waste has a future.

[noddy]

its not just all the fields of biology that are backing evolution , its also geology and plate techtonics in that all the theories they have about which bits of land have been attached to other bits of land, that matches the spread of animals and their variations, all of it lines up and backs the picture painted.

Some people are comfortable in the safety of the herd.

Other people like to think independently.

Also you must not know of the fallacy of affirming the consequent. Personally I try not to build the foundations of what I think of existence on a fallacy.

we dont know the foundations of existence.

i never understood people having opinions on the infinity of time and space, might aswell discuss the colour of the floop doops on wibblestorf... i get that some people i love are religous and it means something to them but for me its always been metaphor.

i also get that some naive kids might take the crap coming out of the media seriously and think science has solved these questions however 10 minutes with adults should correct them of that fantasy.

via science we prod and poke at the evidence that is available and form best effort stories around that evidence.

in the grand scheme of infinity and what we will probably know in 10 thousand years time, its mostly wrong, i have no doubts, we are bound to be the flat earthers of someone elses future.

nothing todo with metaphysics and morality and the grounding of your place with your fellow humans - that stuff is formed by your friends and family and the culture you grow up in.

[Mr. Perfect]

I hear that a lot too, "everything is fluid/negotiable EXCEPT evolution, MMGW, big bang, etc".

[Simple Minded]

the various battles between the aggresive new atheist's and new conservatives are a seperate topic to me.

as i dont have a problem with evolution and am an in the agnostic/atheist sphere, i dont lump all this stuff as easily as some might do

after a lifetime of programming and systems design, im also a tad more ermm, cynical/comfortable about the limits of human rationality than many, so my views on religion and on science are a bit more tempered than the keener proponents of both.

i also LOVE the irony of believing in the freemarket of economics to self correct but not believing in the freemarket of science to do likewise OR believing in the free market of science to self correct but not the economic one.

both get attacked via a strawman arguments of failure , or not self correcting fast enough for the idealogues tastes.

this particular split in the current state of the american debate is amusing to me

well said.

[Simple Minded]

As science concerns itself with the physical universe and religion with the metaphysical, their intersection is the null [empty] set.
What has changed is that phenomena previously attributed to divine intervention are now understood to be part of the physical universe.
In other words, what is included in each set has changed.

also well said.

[Simple Minded]

The words religion, religious experience, the physical, the meta-physical, belief, dogma, fantasy etc... are containers that can hold so many different things that a better word for them would be trash cans or even dumps. Or sewage systems, which can be interesting though.

Garbage can be full of interesting life and some are trying make sense of it... even grow some roses there.

JBP: Facts and Values/Science and Religion: Notes on the Sam Harris Discussions (Part I)

A meeting is scheduled with Mama Nature (MN) and Papa God (PG) to slash through this, if this new type of direct farming on pure waste has a future.

As long as it all gets finalized during my cognizant years, that's cool. If not, well, then it won't matter much to me anyway.

[Typhoon]

Twitter is for twits.

Pew RC | [US] Scientists and Belief

As science concerns itself with the physical universe and religion with the metaphysical, their intersection is the null [empty] set.
What has changed is that phenomena previously attributed to divine intervention are now understood to be part of the physical universe.
In other words, what is included in each set has changed.

Offhand.

The most obvious counterexample is Newton who after developing calculus and the first physical laws of motion spent much of his life studying the Bible, esp the Book of Revelations.

Mendel, a monk, founded the field of genetics.

Lemaître, a priest, solved the equations of general relativity and found that they predicted a dynamic expanding universe.

I'm not sure that is the issue.

This is more the issue.

The following is moronic on many levels. First Dawkins doesn't believe that Jesus existed, so he was invented by various writers. Any intelligence Dawkins attributes would be attributed then to the writers. Said writers believed in God and were trying very hard to sell the concept.

So a person that intelligent believing in God is direct contradiction to this moron.

dQ5QG3MUTtg

Also here, this moron doesn't understand that hundreds of millions, even billions of people have read these books and ended up believing in them. Reality being diametrically opposite of his proposition.

E3rGev6OZ3w

Well, the above is about atheism vs religious belief, another thread topic, not about science or the secular religious cult of so-called scientism.

However, I do wonder how many believers have actually read their religion's foundational book[s] cover to cover.
I certainly haven't, however, I did read the Bible cover to cover when I lived in the US, out of curiosity, and my conclusions were along the same lines as Penn.

Billions of people have believed and believe in lots of things. That beliefs are commonly held does not alone make them accurate.

Although, in my view, Penn is far too optimistic about the growth in atheism. The need to believe seems to be part of our evolutionary history.
People often simply replace traditional religious beliefs with secular ones and those have not had the benefit of centuries of sandpapering away the rougher edges.

[Mr. Perfect]

That's not really how the issue plays. The issue plays on what the Church of Scientism is trying to accomplish, that is the destruction of Christianity.

They create their own high priests of science who then use their priesthood authority to issue lies that would only be believed because they have authority.

Hence the 2 openly facile statements from these 2 priests.

You even took the bait. Nobody said every believer in Christianity or Islam had read the books. That's not even the conversation. This priest in the Church of Scientism said if you read the books you would become an atheist.

That's like say bunnies have wings and travel between planets. It's a fact that millions or even a billion have read these books in the last 2,000 years and a huge portion if not almost all believed them.

The statement is stupidly wrong. I am certain a small number read those books and discard them, but what Penn said is stupidly stupidly stupidly wrong.

Hundreds of millions have read them and believed them. What he said is the opposite of reality. It's in the realms of leprechauns and forest sprites.

[Nonc Hilaire]

I miss 'Jesus I Trust in You' and his live-streaming meditations on the passion of Christ. Our most devoted religious member, and also the clearest thinker on the philosophy of science.

[Parodite]

That's not really how the issue plays. The issue plays on what the Church of Scientism is trying to accomplish, that is the destruction of Christianity.

But it makes great fun! Mortal combat between antagonists HELL-bent on destroying each other. I started to like this about Merika. Turbo-charge every little disagreement into a matter of life or death, all things becoming bigger than life itself as a consequence. The will to never surrender. Going with the flow is for those who gave up. The American Dream is maybe less about achieving some goals of wealth and health via the road of freedom, and more about not being a victim of reality. Constraints? How you even spell that.

[Typhoon]

That's not really how the issue plays. The issue plays on what the Church of Scientism is trying to accomplish, that is the destruction of Christianity.

Well, that's simply evangelism, which should be familiar.

In history, there is never a permanent victor, rather only a never ending competition in the marketplace of ideas.

[Nonc Hilaire]

Maybe we should treat science more like sports. Sportscasters could rate the different schools and theories in each discipline. Off-track betting and awesome mascots.

[Typhoon]

Maybe we should treat science more like sports. Sportscasters could rate the different schools and theories in each discipline. Off-track betting and awesome mascots.

As long as there are eye-candy cheerleaders and beer.

[Mr. Perfect]

Well, that's simply evangelism, which should be familiar.

In history, there is never a permanent victor, rather only a never ending competition in the marketplace of ideas.

The Cult of Scientism is being very dishonest about it.

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

the definitive work on computer programming that lifted it from the hackers and alchemists and into proper engineering is

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_o ... rogramming

which was done by Donald Knuth who also happens to be a devout Lutheran, and has also done several books on that subject.

The Art of...The Art of...The Art of.......where have I heard that title before? And you say it is by a Donald Knuth?

Donald Trump, computer genius, confirmed.