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Don't get me wrong, I actually love science. The purpose of this thread is to illustrate the absurdity of the claim that science basically qualifies as a world view unto itself. In other words, to illustrate the error of supposing that certain beliefs or elements in one's world view that cannot be empirically proved via the scientific method should logically be disqualified from consideration.
Naturalism is simply a philosophy - a philosophy/world view among many competing world views, all of which claim to be supported by the same scientific data which many of those holding to naturalism often try to claim as exclusively their own.
Dr. Craig very clearly and concisely explains this in the following clip (fast forward seven minutes) where he lays out five examples of things logical to believe that cannot be scientifically/empirically proved:
Science isn't a worldview, it's just the best way of pursueing the truth. If you exempt god from scientific inquiry then you have to exempt every weird and ridiculous claim from scientific inquiry.
I think us theists make the error of thinking that science is a substitute for Religion. We also make the error of thinking our religious scriptures are a scientific manual.
Both are wrong concepts. We need to realize science is incomplete and will always be incomplete until every possibly explanation for everything is found and and the true explanations are proven true beyond all dispute.
Science is no less and no more than fact finding, measuring, qualifying and replicating on demand. there is no single thing called science, it is mathematics, chemistry, astronomy, biology, etc. In fact everything that is studied and measured can be called a science. About the only things that can even approach not being a science are the abstract fields on the intangible such as Religion, philosophy, Art, Literature. Even than that is not necessarily true as the effects of them can be and are measured.
There need not be any conflict between them as long as both are true. If there is an apparant disagreement about anything, one needs to seek for reasons of the disagreement.
For every religious concept there is probably a scientific explanation. So, what is the problem if one does not make the other excluded? there are at least 4 possibilities for the pairing of religious and Scientific exlanations
One is true the other is false
Both are false
Both are true, depending upon the circumstances
They support each other.
If we find a disagreement, yet both seem to be true, there is a very good chance that we simply misunderstand one or both. Truth should support truth, no matter what the source.
I think us theists make the error of thinking that science is a substitute for Religion. We also make the error of thinking our religious scriptures are a scientific manual.
Both are wrong concepts. We need to realize science is incomplete and will always be incomplete until every possibly explanation for everything is found and and the true explanations are proven true beyond all dispute.
Science is no less and no more than fact finding, measuring, qualifying and replicating on demand. there is no single thing called science, it is mathematics, chemistry, astronomy, biology, etc. In fact everything that is studied and measured can be called a science. About the only things that can even approach not being a science are the abstract fields on the intangible such as Religion, philosophy, Art, Literature. Even than that is not necessarily true as the effects of them can be and are measured.
Fairly accurate, Woodrow, but perhaps a slightly more accurate description is that science is but a well-developed and thorough toolbox for getting the most accurate answer possible with the methodologies available at any given time. Since specific questions almost always lead to further questions, it's safe to say that the following very misleading post is fundamentally wrong in several ways.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lucknow
I think we can take for a fact that science knows .000000000000000000000000000000000000001% of what there is to be known in the universe!!!
No you can't, in fact. WRONG answer.
1) Science is NOT an entity. It's a tool set. Science per se "knows" nothing. Science reveals things, and then logic and deduction provides possible interpretations, which may well lead to further confirmatory studies. Eventually, a "theory" of known facts and reasonable conclusions are produced. This is not the same as a guesswork "hypothesis".
2) Since the number of questions and thus answers is infinite, science can never know "ANY percentage of "all the possible answers" in the universe.
3) Trouble is, even if we did peg some artificial number or percentage of "known facts" in the universe, the bumbling, emotion-driven, faith-based but completely unobservable thing called religion cannot hope to hold even 1/10,00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 (enough? Get the picture? If not, I could hold the key down longer...) of what science has already indisputably uncovered.
4) A key element of any proper scientific study is that it MUST provide exacting information so that any doubter or person interested in following up can duplicate the experiment themselves, for themselves, to prove, or disprove it. Go ahead: that's what the Methodology Section is there for! Knock yourself out!
5) Oddly, Christian objectors never take the opportunity to do this; at least to the point of creating a publishable-quality document and seeing it though the peer-review process that good science processes also demand. Nope; rather they just try to debunk ideas they don't like, and they listen without skepticism to whatever the nutball fringe elements (such as AiG or The Creation Institute) say in demonstrably dishonest rebuttals.
6) Religion remains forever stuck in it's olden times days, with a set of "facts" it clings to, unabated.
7) Science not only continues to uncover new information, but it's capable of (and endlessly enthusiastic about...) continuously upgrading and improving the information it has already determined. Thus it's always improving the quality of it's conclusions, to the dismay of it's detractors.
Anyone want to debate that?
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It is a massive philosophical misdirection of most all fundamentalist Christians to call "science" down, as if it's a tribe of religious zealots with some hardened book of facts. Again, how can you criticize a hammer, a screwdriver or a set of socket wrenches when the task at hand is to carefully and correctly take apart a problem and see how it ticks?
This only demonstrates the continued fear and loathing that organized religion has for the Scientific Method's demonstrated ability to clarify and uncover, with repeatable, documented empirical and trustworthy evidence, the unknowns in this world.
I think us theists make the error of thinking that science is a substitute for Religion. We also make the error of thinking our religious scriptures are a scientific manual.
Both are wrong concepts. We need to realize science is incomplete and will always be incomplete until every possibly explanation for everything is found and and the true explanations are proven true beyond all dispute.
Science is no less and no more than fact finding, measuring, qualifying and replicating on demand. there is no single thing called science, it is mathematics, chemistry, astronomy, biology, etc. In fact everything that is studied and measured can be called a science. About the only things that can even approach not being a science are the abstract fields on the intangible such as Religion, philosophy, Art, Literature. Even than that is not necessarily true as the effects of them can be and are measured.
There need not be any conflict between them as long as both are true. If there is an apparent disagreement about anything, one needs to seek for reasons of the disagreement.
For every religious concept there is probably a scientific explanation. So, what is the problem if one does not make the other excluded? there are at least 4 possibilities for the pairing of religious and Scientific explanations
One is true the other is false
Both are false
Both are true, depending upon the circumstances
They support each other.
If we find a disagreement, yet both seem to be true, there is a very good chance that we simply misunderstand one or both. Truth should support truth, no matter what the source.
Spot on. Newton compared his findings to picking up a few pebbles on a beach and it hasn't...well, actually, I think that we've picked up a couple of bucketfuls about the known universe. The unknown is another beach entirely.
All that I and the other...I think 'scientific skeptics' I suppose we might be called ....say is that it is science has revealed those 'pebbles' to us. Mythological speculation has revealed nothing reliable. In fact it has only misled us. I'm sorry to give any offence, but it's true.
That said, of course there are a lot of things that we enjoy that science can't provide.
"About the only things that can even approach not being a science are the abstract fields on the intangible such as Religion, philosophy, Art, Literature. Even than that is not necessarily true as the effects of them can be and are measured."
That's correct is a sort of vague way. I think that the scientific method of research could tell us a lot about why we have art, music, politics, religion, laughter, word association, morality, anger, prurience and a good deal about those things which it has often been said 'science can tell us nothing'. That is assuming a good deal too much and smacks of: 'we would rather it didn't'.
Philosophy I see as a useful logical tool which asks a lot of questions and makes rational speculations and science can then think up ways of testing them.
The Worldview here is
Science gives us reliable technology and verified information.
Philosophy throws up hypotheses which might be testable.
The rest is human invention or speculation.
The question is whether one takes speculation as reliable fact or not.
Your comments on the pairing of science and religion are fine and I would agree except that in actual application, where science does not come up with the answer religion wants, then science is dismissed as wrong, inadequate, a fallible invention of limited human minds and unable to answer a lot of questions.
This is where religion and science conflict and cannot be paired. One has to opt for the only reliable method for finding things out or preferring to rely on speculative unknowns, unverified claims or doubts about the validity of science as giving reliable information.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 09-02-2011 at 01:29 AM..
Don't get me wrong, I actually love science. The purpose of this thread is to illustrate the absurdity of the claim that science basically qualifies as a world view unto itself.
Others have corrected you here.
Quote:
In other words, to illustrate the error of supposing that certain beliefs or elements in one's world view that cannot be empirically proved via the scientific method should logically be disqualified from consideration.
We all have to make assumptions to get along. That doesn't make all such assumptions equal. For example, "I exist" is far different than "God loves me and sent his only begotten son to save humanity from himself by sacrificing and then resurrecting his son, who is also himself, in place of the punishment God arbitrary picked for man behaving as he created them." Both are assumptions which guide various worldviews, but you can hardly claim that they're both reasonable assumptions necessary to make progress in life.
Quote:
Naturalism is simply a philosophy - a philosophy/world view among many competing world views, all of which claim to be supported by the same scientific data which many of those holding to naturalism often try to claim as exclusively their own.
Naturalism isn't supported by science. It's the basis of science. Sure, the fact that science works shows that it's a reasonable basis, but you've got cause and effect all backwards here.
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