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You're certainly entitled to your opinion. Are you also going to object to previous posts from fellow agnostics/atheists and skeptics who apparently are in basic agreement with my assertion?
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Originally Posted by EinsteinsGhost
You may claim to love Science, use it, but you surely don't understand it. Here is why... Science is an ongoing process. It doesn't constrain itself to anything.
"Science is an ongoing process."
Then you would agree that science doesn't qualify as a world view unto itself? Please explain...this all seems to be rather contradictory.
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Originally Posted by EinsteinsGhost
It is those who find their beliefs challenged go bonkers. Take creationism for example. Science is used to try and discover how we came about and trace a lineage combining the knowledge base we have along with new discoveries. This gets creationists worried for their beliefs. Any notion of learning that what they believe might not have happened is unwelcome and "absurd".
"Science is used to try and discover how we came about..."
Startling admission here. It seems to me that you've opened the door for the "Goddunnit" hypothesis.
Quote:
Originally Posted by EinsteinsGhost
Scientific world view is nothing but engaging the brain, for its ability to observe and analyze, combining the knowledge base and discovering/inventing new things along the way, as opposed to just be able to read and follow as the irrefutable truth (the unscientific, dead-brain, worldview).
...didn't you just get done making the simple assertion that science is an ongoing process? What is your position here? Does science qualify as a world view or not?
We all have some sort of scientific worldview. We are all always measuring, observing and testing variables all the day long. It is the scientism worldview that is an absolute. It only leaves room for/tolerates atheism.
Why would I do that when you have the link that goes into detail? I'am not the originator of the term so put your gun down.
You should, if you're in a discussion forum. Providing links without personal opinions don't make for a reason to be in a discussion forum. And the moderators of these forums shouldn't allow that.
Last edited by EinsteinsGhost; 09-02-2011 at 08:53 AM..
Of course science has limitations. However, religion has the same limitations that science has, don't fool yourself. The difference? Science employs a methodology to remain within it's limitations. Religion feels free to speculate, rather freely, outside it's limitations. And, I would add as politely as I can, much of religion's speculations move beyond abstract and/or absurd when you give them an honest review.
Religion is a product sold to explain that which seems to be inexplicable. People who buy the product end up with a worldview manufactured by men with intent. That intent is apparent to anyone who digs into religious history.
Science is quite dangerous to religion. Rather than relying on explanations provided by ancient desert dwellers, the scientific method offers a way for individuals to gain and share knowledge about the things we are capable of understanding. As humanity progresses, through science, so too does our capacity for understanding, based on accumulated knowledge. If something can't be analyzed through the scientific method, then science simply acquires no knowledge of it.
Science is dangerous to religion because it disassembles those explanations of our desert dwelling ancestry and discovers that there are real, natural, detectable mechanisms to explain our world. Science never reinforces the abstract supernatural speculations of religion.
But, to give credit where it's due... the big business of religion has figured out how to make the "line in the sand" quite dynamic, the "Religic Method"; simply maintain the stance that their supernatural buddy is always responsible for whatever happens to be just beyond human understanding. As science is used to actually understand our world, ancient explanations and stories are turned into "metaphors". Brilliant adaptation, the evolution of religion. The inflexible 'literalists' survive only because they are bolstered by the flexible, who need them for contrast in order to maintain an air of reason.
You're certainly entitled to your opinion. Are you also going to object to previous posts from fellow agnostics/atheists and skeptics who apparently are in basic agreement with my assertion?
I prefer to engage in a discussion, not as a collective but as an individual. We shall see how far you're willing to go on those grounds.
Quote:
"Science is an ongoing process."
Quote:
Then you would agree that science doesn't qualify as a world view unto itself? Please explain...this all seems to be rather contradictory.
Science is not absolute. It is not a view, if offers a variety of views, each of which have room to grow. Science is all about observation and analysis. How exactly do you mange to call it a world view? Science is about thinking objectively while world views are subjective.
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"Science is used to try and discover how we came about..."
Quote:
Startling admission here. It seems to me that you've opened the door for the "Goddunnit" hypothesis.
Only for those who're stuck on that premise, a world view that can't do without "God" as being the target. Science is all about what you see, analyze and draw conclusions from. Discoveries themselves aren't guaranteed to be end game either. They stand to be challenged as Science progresses, with the ever-increasing knowledge base. Goddunit is nothing but a cop-out, for don't-make-me-think-and-question minds.
Quote:
...didn't you just get done making the simple assertion that science is an ongoing process? What is your position here? Does science qualify as a world view or not?
Did I not make my position clear? Are you still unable to see my take on World View versus a Scientific View? If your answer to either or both is a no, let me know. But I must also add that your question on my assertion is amusing. Do you even know what an ongoing process would be, and how Science ties to it?
You should, if you're in a discussion forum. Providing links without personal opinions don't make for a reason to be in a discussion forum. And the moderators of these forums shouldn't allow that.
Want a personal opinion? Here goes one...you probably need to back away from the computer screen and chill the ___ out.
Addenum:
What are you wanting me to do? Are you wanting me to point out similiar character traits held by the various communities that that tend to follow this belief system? Are you wanting me to suppose the agendas behind this belief system? Not doing it.
For the record, I do not believe every person whom's belief system is scientism has an agenda.
Last edited by gabfest; 09-02-2011 at 09:40 AM..
Reason: addenum
Scientism may be a worldview, but very few actually adhere to it. Certainly not the majority of functioning scientists. They are too busy to live in some sort of falsehood and philosophy.
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Originally Posted by lucknow
The fact that there has been so many great scientists who were aso great men and women of God makes your post into nothing more than an ignorant rant.
Hmmm....OK.... Please tell us which part(s) of my post is irrational and then I'll tell you which part of yours here is but an ad hominem. (typical... )
I bet'cha can't! All I did was clarify some acts. It's types like you who hang on the idea of some irrational entity called "Science", embroiled in "Scientism".
As to the supercilious "so many great scientists believe..." idea, we've already categorically dismissed that silly majority-rules viewpoint of the desperate theists. (Remember when the huge majority of people frantically believed the Earth was flat? So frickin' what? What other nonsense to YOU still believe?)
You can give us ten, a hundred, or even ten thousand so=called Christian scientists. WE can then point to the literally hundreds of millions of career cientists in this world who do not. As wel, each and every year, there are anohter few million scientists who graduate into teh world, all believing in teh ever-more substantiated facts you choose to run and hide from. OK then!
As as functioning, experienced and very accredited scientist, I can show you the pathway to any particular bit of truth that is presented today in biology, geology, etc.
By direct comparison, you cannot even rationally discuss the reasons behind the things you condider to be inviolate facts. All you do is believe what others tell you to think. Bbbaahhhhhhhh....
Finally, "Scientism" is just another denialist term, like "Darwin-ISM". It is meant to be derrogatory. Science is, (again, if you'd actually read and thought about my "so called "rant-post") but a toolbox.
But I don't expect you to ever change and learn. O: enjoy that ark, dank cave.
It's a worldview (Scientism) promoted by evangelical atheists like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris.
I sure hope they don't. I hope that what they advocate is a rational and evidence based worldview in which science is just an important method of getting reliable information.
It's worth looking at 'Scientism'. Like 'Darwinism' it can be used in a particular sense but also in a very perjorative and actually rather incorrect way. Of course it can be useful to point up the dangers of over - applying science method or dismissing anything that isn't science as of no value, but that isn't the same as saying that is what science does or all scientists do or is advocated by any scientists that one might have a particular interest in discrediting (e.g outspokenly atheist ones) or that science is somehow untrustworthy because of such a view foisted on them by persons such as our posting pal here.
(Wiki) Scientism is the notion that natural science constitutes the most authoritative worldview or most valuable part of human learning.[1] The term is used by social scientists such as Friedrich Hayek,[2] philosophers of science such as Karl Popper[citation needed], and philosophers such as Hilary Putnam[3] to describe (and criticize) what they see as the underlying attitudes and beliefs common to many scientists, whereby the study and methods of natural science have risen to the level of an ideology.[4]
The term is used in either of two equally pejorative directions:[5][6]
To indicate the improper usage of science or scientific claims[7] in contexts where science might not apply,[8] such as when the topic is perceived to be beyond the scope of scientific inquiry; or there is insufficient empirical evidence to justify scientific conclusions. In this case it is a counter-argument to appeals to scientific authority.
To refer to "the belief that the methods of natural science, or the categories and things recognized in natural science, form the only proper elements in any philosophical or other inquiry,"[6] or that "science, and only science, describes the world as it is in itself, independent of perspective"[3] with a concomitant "elimination of the psychological dimensions of experience."[9][10]
The term is also used to highlight the possible dangers of lapses towards excessive reductionism in all fields of human knowledge.[11][12][13]
It thus expresses a position critical of (at least the more extreme expressions of) positivism.[14][15]
For sociologists in the tradition of Max Weber, such as Jürgen Habermas, the concept of scientism relates significantly to the philosophy of positivism, but also to the cultural rationalization of the modern West.[4]
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 09-02-2011 at 10:25 AM..
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