Real World Philospohy

[deccan]

Originally posted by narf poit chez BOOM:
science has a lot of guesswork, scientists are priests. you speculate on the the nature of the microwave background, when as far as i know, we still havn't >taken a sample from another planet in our own solar system.<

I've done this many times, and I'm way too tired and busy to do this right now, but what the heck, once more into the fray in defense of science and against the enemies of organized religion!

Science is more than a collection of facts and theories (though it is also that). It is above all a methodology to discover facts and formulate theories. Though it is true that most of the general public regard scientists as high priests, that is only because most people have allowed that to happen, i.e. let themselves fall behind the research curve so much that the arguments, speculations etc. of scientists have become wholly unfathomable to them.

The most wonderful thing about science in my opinion is that in principle, anyone, limited only by their own time and interest, can follow in the footsteps of the work of scientists and verify scientific results on their own.

Narf seems to argue that science doesn't offer the same kind of certainty from which stems spiritual satisfaction that most forms of organized religion. I agree that this is probably true for the vast majority of people. But then science isn't "meant" to satisfy any spiritual urges. It doesn't have to be a bromide, to use a word beloved by Ayn Rand, it only has to be "true".

One of my conceptions of paradise is the world described by Greg Egan in his novelette "Border Guards". In it, humans are immortal, all but indestructible, with all but infinite powers at their disposal (though none have the power to truly hurt another being without his/her/its consent), and above all with constant access to the huge database of human knowledge. In this world, a talented few actually push back the frontiers of knowledge, but the vast majority only follow far, far behind, living lives not unlike that of many university students, studying for the raw pleasure of study, intersped by moments of play, conversation and love.

[Atrocities]

Who the hell really knows?

[Loser]

Originally posted by Jack Simth:
Ever read Mark 2:27?

Of course. But I was responding to your claim that you follow the Ten Commandments, not the apparently implied claim that you follow the Ten Commandments as modified by certain later scholars and holy men. That would be different.

[DavidG]

Originally posted by narf poit chez BOOM:

oh, and death isn't as scary once you know it's not the end.

Which probably contributes to the fact there is so much killing going on.

[Erax]

Hmm... this is difficult to translate, but basically my motto is "Let others be if they let you be." Don't try to impose anything on people who are not being actively disruptive.

Conversely, don't try to impose anything on me. I'll make my own choices, thank you very much.

At the same time, I try to be supportive of other people, help them whenever I can. Knowledge should not be hoarded.

[DarkAngel]

my views are my views and your views are your views.it's only when everyone realizes that everyone's views are different and unique to their own and can look past that will mankind ever truly be able to move forward

[Loser]

You are right, Narf, there are a lot of similarities between Science and Religion. The big difference between Science and all the other Dogma out there is that science is wrong. No other Dogma is willing to admit that it is wrong, if that ever happens, it is abandoned and people invent a new one, maybe giving it the same name, but the words of higher powers are never wrong.

Science, on the other hand, is wrong. It is allowed to be. It is constantly correcting itself, improving, and moving forward. True science does not require faith, because "faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen", and science is not about hope, or the unperceivable. Real science deals only with what can be proven, and most importantly what can be proven repeatedly by different scientists. If an experiment does not get reproducible results the theory it 'proves' is not proven, and not part of Hard Science.

Some areas commonly associated with science are difficult to prove, but that doesn't stop people from trying, and from taking the results and forming new theories. The psychology of an individual and certain actions or trends of great scale, like astrophysics, evolutionary biological trends, or even economics, may still be highly theoretical simply because we do not yet have the technology to make the needed measurements, let alone to run or reproduce an experiment. So these might not be Hard Sciences, and these might, for now, require 'faith'. We're working on it.

Now you might point out that you are not able to reproduce, personally, the experiments on which many modern principles of Science depend. And you might claim this moves Science into the realm of faith. And you might point out that the lingua sancti of Science, Math, has grown so large that no one man can understand all its fields, in fact I believe that Last man to do so was John Herschel, who died in 1871. And you might have a point. But they can be proven, where faith is reserved for those thing that can't.