Religion
Related: About this forumThe [in]compatibility of science and religion
While many of these books were critiqued in reviews there has been very little challenge presented in book length. So I was very pleased to see news that Victor Stenger has a new book, released in April, called God and the Folly of Faith: The Incompatibility of Science and Religion.
John W. Loftus at debunking Christianity has read a pre-release copy and is very impressed (see Stenger’s New Book: God and the Folly of Faith: The Incompatibility of Science and Religion). He calls it a tour de force.
Loftus says (in part):
“The reader is treated to the history of the conflict between science and religion where Stenger argues there is a fundamental conflict between the two. “Science” he writes, “has earned our trust by its proven success. Religion has destroyed our trust by its repeated failures. Using the empirical method, science has eliminated smallpox, flown men to the moon, and discovered DNA. If science did not work, we wouldn’t do it. Relying on faith, religion has brought us inquisitions, holy wars, and intolerance. Religion does not work, but we still do it.” (p. 15)”
I have often said that religion and science are not incompatible at the individual level. After all many scientists are also religious. But their basic approach to knowledge, their epistemologies, are incompatible. So I agree with this comment by Loftus:
“Believers generally do not trust science. Stenger’s book is the antidote. Believers will see just how science works and why it is to be trusted over anything religion has ever produced. “Science and religion are fundamentally incompatible,” Stenger argues, “because of their unequivocally opposed epistemologies–the separate assumptions they make concerning what we can know about the world.” (p. 16)”
http://www.secularnewsdaily.com/2012/01/19/the-incompatibility-of-science-and-religion-2/
I hope this book gets some mainstream attention.
Do you disagree with the premise? Why or why not?
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Scuba
(53,475 posts)
cleanhippie
(19,705 posts)
rrneck
(17,671 posts)at different things, and some of the successes on both sides have been disasters.
cleanhippie
(19,705 posts)Give a few examples of what you see as successes and disasters and how they are equivalent examples?
rrneck
(17,671 posts)Science and the practice of technology have given us air conditioning, ice in our Scotch, extended lifespans, instantaneous global communication and industrialized murder.
Faith and the practice of religion facilitate loyalty and sacrifice among members of the group, introspection, the arts, and human barbeques.
To my mind both are just tools that can be used for good or ill. The common denominator is people.
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)
darkstar3
(8,763 posts)Is it not possible, even likely, that it's the other way 'round? These things were, after all, around long before religion.
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)which is about the age of the oldest known art. If religion doesn't facilitate art they do at least seem to be contemporaneous.
Religions have always been used to promote group cohesion. Nothing fosters a group-sense like shared values, and that's what religion is all about - for better or worse. "Re-ligare" means "to bind together" after all. When religious observance fell away in the modern West it created a vacuum, and new set of binding values rushed in to fill the void. Unfortunately those were consumerism, human exceptionalism, and the myth of eternal progress.
darkstar3
(8,763 posts)1. 50,000 years is a very short time in human history, and if you'd taken some art appreciation classes you'd know that art dates back at least 200,000 years as a storytelling form.
2. Religion has been known not just to facilitate art, but also to quash art that it finds unacceptable to its sometimes arbitrary values.
3. Religious observance hasn't fallen away in the West. I know you live in Canada (now), but come on, take a look around. I can think of three places where Christianity alone is huge: USA, Mexico, Italy. All Western, and just the beginning.
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)I'm definitely open to the idea that religion and art have separate roots in the human psyche.
When I look back in recorded history, what I see is that religion has recognized the emotional (non-rational) power of art, and as a result has has co-opted art as a tool in religion's project of social control.
Regarding religious observance falling away in the West, my impression is that 100 years ago virtually every nation had a very strong religious underpinning. That's not the case today except, as you note, in a few countries. From the historical point of view, the trend of secularization in the West is very strong.
The oldest know human made piece of art tends do go further and further with new findings, don't know what is currently the latest word. And there is no reason to presume that art - material or linguistic - is limited to humans. Some birds decorate their nests very artfully, and the best artists get laid.
rrneck
(17,671 posts)I'm not aware of any significant work of art that wasn't hand in glove with religion.
darkstar3
(8,763 posts)When religious people talk about faith, they're talking about belief in what they cannot even attempt to prove.
When you accuse scientists of having "faith", you're talking about "confidence in the outcome of our testing and investigation".
They don't mean remotely the same thing, and it is disingenuous to imply otherwise.
rrneck
(17,671 posts)A prediction about how we will feel. Heaven and hell are materially vague concepts with very specific emotional definitions. There are any number of conceptions of hell but they are all unpleasant. The pearly gates and virgins are in heaven.
If scientists didn't expect the outcome of the investigation to be an emotionally positive experience I doubt they'd attempt it. A negative result would certainly be unpleasant.
I am "accusing" scientists of being human.
darkstar3
(8,763 posts)If we can all have our own definition of words, how can we understand each other? What if my definition of faith is so different from yours that they share exactly 0 similarities? Won't that just result in us talking past each other indefinitely?
Thankfully we can avoid that very simply by actually using words in the way in which they have been defined.
tama
(9,137 posts)you know when you do, you know those AHA! moments, NOW I get it, that was the meaning!
On the other hand putting MY definition and YOUR definition against each other and fighting over which one is right and which one is wrong tends to lead to much of misunderstanding and unwillingness to comprehend.
darkstar3
(8,763 posts)tama
(9,137 posts)From your post:
When you accuse scientists of having "faith", you're talking about "confidence in the outcome of our testing and investigation".
http://m.dictionary.com/d/?q=faith&o=0&l=dir
faith- noun 1. confidence or trust 2. religious belief 3.
darkstar3
(8,763 posts)My point not only stands, you've confirmed it. You're purposely conflating two orthogonal definitions of the word faith for your own rhetorical purposes, and it is disingenuous.
tama
(9,137 posts)depends on your definition of religion. No doubt for many religious believers there is no distinction between faith as confidence and faith as religious belief, which are just two different expressions to describe same feeling.
darkstar3
(8,763 posts)You're just stuck on being able to redefine words ad hoc for your own individual needs. That would be the very antithesis of what I've been talking about with you.
rrneck
(17,671 posts)unless you're using it as a metaphor. Ironic, ain't it?
Please name a successful scientist that didn't have faith in the positive outcome of their reasearch or their ability to make that happen.
darkstar3
(8,763 posts)Look it up.
rrneck
(17,671 posts)You know, the scientist that can't possibly believe his work will pan out but rises to the top of his field anyway? I'm guessing he looks something like Richard Lewis.
http://m.dictionary.com/d/?q=orthogonal&o=0&l=dir
or·thog·o·nal- adjective 1. pertaining to or involving right angles or perpendiculars 2. referable to a rectangular set of axes
http://m.dictionary.com/d/?q=non+sequitur&submit-result-SEARCHD=Search
non se·qui·tur- noun 1. statement unrelated to the preceding one
http://m.dictionary.com/d/?q=semantics&submit-result-SEARCHD=Search
e·man·tics- noun 1. the study of meaning in language
http://m.dictionary.com/d/?q=mathematics
math·e·mat·ics- noun 1. the science of numbers
http://m.dictionary.com/d/?q=metaphor&submit-result-SEARCHD=Search
met·a·phor- noun 1. figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or concept it does not literally denote in order to suggest comparison with its basic meaning- Related Forms sub·met·a·phor·i·cal- a
darkstar3
(8,763 posts)No. I'm uninterested in your weak-assed defense of poor word usage. You've already verified, through your own post, that your conflating of the two definitions of faith was wrong. Now get over it.
rrneck
(17,671 posts)Prove it.
On edit:
I wouldn't mind if you did. It wouldn't be the first time I was wrong.
ChadwickHenryWard
(862 posts)It entails basing an argument (sometimes a syllogism) on using two nonidentical definitions of a term. Confusing religious faith and the more colloquial usage of the term is perhaps the most common example.
tama
(9,137 posts)religious faith and confidence can be same matter, no matter what analytical distinctions try to divide.
Same matter, is of course a fuzzy notion, and can depend on what meaning you give to the Law of Identity: "a=a".
Cf: all electrons are "same", but spatiotemporally each is is unique.
cleanhippie
(19,705 posts)loyalty and sacrifice among members of the group - many ideologies and concepts facilitate that.
introspection, the arts - again, that can be facilitated by any number of things.
and human barbeques. - and again, religion is not alone here.
But the things you assign to science DO belong to science and science alone.
I have seen nothing that religion purports to offer that I cannot find elsewhere, where what science offers can only be found in science.
rrneck
(17,671 posts)although I'm not aware of any successful culture that didn't practice some sort of religion. Nor am I aware of any science generated art at all, much less of any significance.
Art has content, something science isn't able or designed to produce. Religion is just the expression of cultural content. For most of human history that expression involved a deity. After the enlightenment it didn't take us long to produce any number of abstract isms no more concrete than the gods they replaced. Hell, our capitalist economy is based on faith in our currency, And don't get me started on the stock market.
When you think about it science would never happen without faith. If a scientist didn't have faith in her hypothesis she'd never test it. If religion is an expression of faith, what does that make science?
This compatibility issue is a chicken or egg question with the human experience for an answer.
darkstar3
(8,763 posts)For countries, take a look at modern Estonia, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and the Czech Republic. For science generated art, try fractals, wave interference patterns, and far more...
rrneck
(17,671 posts)Then what do they mean? A fractal is an image generated from a mathematical matrix, really no different from a lithograph or any other type of print. They are a physical expression of a mathematical abstraction. They're just another way for humans to make an image, and they're hardly unique.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandala
In various spiritual traditions mandalas may be employed for focusing attention of aspirants and adepts, as a spiritual teaching tool, for establishing a sacred space, and as an aid to meditation and trance nduction.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractal
A fractal has been defined as "a rough or fragmented geometric shape that can be split into parts, each of which is (at least approximately)a reduced-size copy of the whole," a property called self-similarity.
...
Because they appear similar at al evels of magnification, fractals are often considered to be infinitely complex (in informal terms).
A fractal is just another type of Mandala used to express visually the infinite regression that is not really different from the objective of a meditative state. I don't see much difference between enlightenment and infinity.
Liberal nationalism is just another ism that defines a collection of people as a distinct group based on an abstraction no more concrete than that of a deity. There is no difference between a naturalized citizen and a religious convert.
darkstar3
(8,763 posts)That's a quick way to lose an argument. Buh-bye.
rrneck
(17,671 posts)Scientists are human and they have human desires. Those desires are the same as the desires that fuel organized religion, professional sports, and politics. The common denominator is and always be people that experience existence in terms of form and content. It's that simple.
cleanhippie
(19,705 posts)My bad if I misinterpreted your post.
However...
Nor am I aware of any science generated art at all, much less of any significance.
Allow me to show you something...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractal_art
?v=0 
If that ain't science generated art, I don't know what it is.
Google "fractal art" for more stunning images.
Art has content, something science isn't able or designed to produce.
Well, using just the one example of fractal art, I think it shows you to be mistaken.
When you think about it science would never happen without faith. If a scientist didn't have faith in her hypothesis she'd never test it.
That is just patently false and without merit or basis. A scientist test the hypothesis to see if it is falsifiable. The whole POINT is to try and prove it wrong.
Faith in a hypothesis? I think not.
rrneck
(17,671 posts)Please see post number 64.
Something gets scientists out of bed in the morning. Unless they're Vulcan's they must enjoy their work.
cleanhippie
(19,705 posts)Maybe I am just not understanding what you mean by that.
rrneck
(17,671 posts)so coherence is a little dicey. And I'm talking to two people at once to boot. You might check out post #53.
If it feels good do it whether it's science or the Funky Chicken. The practice of science itself excludes emotion, but human beings do not. If someone thinks their efforts will be in vain they simply won't make the attempt or at least try very hard. People just aren't machines and they project their feelings into the future right along with their ideas. There's really no way to avoid it. To my mind the whole notion of faith has gotten a bad rap because religion cornered the market on it and has spent the last several hundred years selling us something we've already got. Religion isn't the problem, I expect its marketing.
tama
(9,137 posts)As in personified force of nature? No problem, just one of the pecularities of this language. 
FarCenter
(19,429 posts)It is a matter of constructing, reinterpreting, or reforming the religion so that its dogmas do not conflict with science.
On the other hand, religions which already exist and which resist changing to accommodate new information do conflict with science.
cleanhippie
(19,705 posts)I mean, using the common definition of "religion", which is...
re·li·gion
noun
1. a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.
2.a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons or sects: the Christian religion; the Buddhist religion.
3.the body of persons adhering to a particular set of beliefs and practices: a world council of religions.
4.the life or state of a monk, nun, etc.: to enter religion.
5.the practice of religious beliefs; ritual observance of faith.
If one take's away the basis of what makes a religion a religion, which is a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs, so that it IS compatible with science would just make it science, right?
tama
(9,137 posts)in any common definition of religion.
cleanhippie
(19,705 posts)Let me know when you do so we can continue this conversation.
tama
(9,137 posts)to talk sense with those who believe in definitions and don't see or hear anything else. In the field of academic study of religions scholars don't believe in definitions, there is no common definition of the object of academic study, just family resemblance between various phenomena. Religious or spiritual experience, which the study of religions acknowledges being central issue, is by it's very own nature undefinable.
cleanhippie
(19,705 posts)when they refuse to define the words they use. If you want to have an ambiguous definition of words, then constructive and productive conversation is impossible.
Or maybe I'm just intellectually deep enough. Either way, you and I cannot have a conversation if we cannot agree on just what a word means.
tama
(9,137 posts)is general linguistics and languages and cultures, and I've made a career as a professional translator of classical literature etc. I don't intend this as bragging, but just to explain my approach and point of view.
So what - or rather how - is the meaning of meaning? American philosopher Korzybski said wisely, that "whatever we say about something, it's always something else, something different." Meaning has more to do with understanding and sharing than defining. Definitions are also useful, but only in right context. And the context of trying to win a point in a debate is not right for any meaningful definition of religion, not according to the ethical standards of translation and academic study of religions that I learned in my Alma Mater.
Science is about seeking comprehension, not about telling Mother Nature - which includes also religions - to behave according to our definitions. And as all other phenomena of cultural evolution, also religions evolve.
skepticscott
(13,029 posts)to say that religious scholars don't believe in "definitions", since that implies that they don't even agree on what the definition of "definition" is? The fact that the definition of a term may not be 100% precise and unambiguous does not mean that it is of no value at all. if it did, an awful lot of "definitions" would fall by the wayside, but people do manage to reach varying degrees of consensus on what words mean. Except when it is convenient for them not to, as in this case.
tama
(9,137 posts)definitions have their value in the right context ("may not be 100% precise and unambiguous" is the beginning of any right context). The sense is, as one professor of religious study said in his final lecture in my old university, that study of religions is anthropological study of world views, study of religions and "other" world views can not be separated. Anthropological study of world views does not exclude scientific world views (of which there is a multitude, not a single one). And the same professor stressed in the same lecture the importance of ethics in this academic field.
There are few posters in this group who act like "religious proselytizers" of their world views, which are of course difficult to define, but positivism, materialism etc. have been used, rightly or wrongly, to make some sense of their world views. They act as if they want to push their world views down the throats of others, and I dare say that most of us don't consider that very ethical behaviour.
mr blur
(7,753 posts)FarCenter
(19,429 posts)Bahá'í, for example, dates from 1844. Mormonism dates from the 1820s. Sōka Gakkai was founded in 1930.
There's no reason why a new religion should be incompatible with known or anticipated scientific knowledge.
It can deal with many topics which are unconstrained by observation and reason.
Existing religions can change those specific dogmas which are at odds with science. The Roman Catholic church has abandoned the earth-centered universe.
tama
(9,137 posts)is incompatible with scientific attitude. And the skeptical movement the author represents is a cult of dogmatic materialism.
skepticscott
(13,029 posts)"dogmatic materialism". And then provide actual evidence that the skeptical "movement" is a cult of whatever you define.
cleanhippie
(19,705 posts)unless he chooses to give it one, I think. Or something.
I really have no idea what he is talking about anymore.
firm belief that mind is just brain and nothing else. Judging from your nick etc. I guess you are connected, and not very receptive to criticism of that movement, so I'll hold my tongue.
Response to tama (Reply #19)
Post removed
skepticscott
(13,029 posts)That's the extent of your understanding of what you call the "skeptical movement"? If that's all you have to justify smears, then you really have descended into babbling irrelevance.
If you'd sincerely like to be enlightened about what modern skepticism is all about, then just say so, and I'm sure any number of people here would be glad to oblige. It's OK to admit you don't know much yet...honest. Better that than to make foolish declarations about a subject you're woefully uninformed about so far.
tama
(9,137 posts)My main criticism is the same as that of Marcello Truzzi, "one of CSICOP's co-founders, left the organization after only a short time, arguing that many of those involved “tend to block honest inquiry, in my opinion. Most of them are not agnostic toward claims of the paranormal; they are out to knock them. [...] When an experiment of the paranormal meets their requirements, then they move the goal posts.”[22] Truzzi coined the term pseudoskeptic to describe critics in whom he detected such an attitude.[23]"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_for_Skeptical_Inquiry
What I see in "real life", if Internet counts as such, is much of the same attitude in the most vocal (and angry) supporters of the skeptic movement that Truzzi criticized as pseudoskepticism. A movement that has - at least in large parts - morphed into spitting image of what it was supposed to oppose.
Now, do you deny that pseudoskepticism, as Truzzi describes, exists? And if you don't, can you enlighten me to what extent "modern skepticism" has overcome the problems that caused Truzzi and many others to leave CSICOP and other related organizations?
skepticscott
(13,029 posts)a way of thought and inquiry in which the strength of one's convictions is directly related to the strength of the evidence supporting those convictions. The degree of certainty with which a skeptical thinker regards something is based on the degree of support it has. Perhaps now you can tell us what part of that you find objectionable.
And do I deny that everyone has biases, including self-styled "skeptics", and that those individual biases sometimes interfere with rational inquiry? Of course not. Modern skepticism, and science in general, deal with that in the same way they always have (duh). By recognizing those inherent biases, and minimizing their effects by making rational inquiry a collective enterprise, where anyone's claim, or rejection of a claim, is always subject to review, re-examination and criticism by others, and is never taken as the final word. Does the system work with 100% effectiveness all the time? Of course not. What does? But it works very well indeed. How many of the things examined and investigated by the modern skeptical movement ("claims of the paranormal"
remain unaccepted despite strong and credible evidence in their favor (the burden of providing such being always on the claimant) Name us 4 or 5, and point us towards the strong affirmative evidence.
Are skeptics sometimes unduly dismissive of claims? Perhaps. But when you've investigated the same claim 100 times (dowsing, for example), even though it has no plausible mechanism, and you keep seeing the same utter failure to demonstrate it, and the same lame excuses and rationalizations for that failure, that's what happens. Real phenomenon and real abilities simply aren't that hard to demonstrate.
tama
(9,137 posts)a proponent of philosophical skepticism, and lately converted also gliderguider into pyrrhonian sceptic - well he was allready, just didn't know it had a name.
And you describe skepticism quite beautifully, thanks for that.
I don't follow much the paranormal study, anymore, Sheldrake is the only one with whose work I'm familiar with, and you can read his books, google his website, and check the evidence by yourself. And better, previous experience has taught me to avoid quote battles - they tend to bring out the bias and then get personal, so reading in solitude and taking time would be preferable.
One point more re:
"making rational inquiry a collective enterprise, where anyone's claim, or rejection of a claim, is always subject to review, re-examination and criticism by others, and is never taken as the final word."
No matter what the collective enterprise says, I reserve the right to be the final judge of my own experience, of how I feel and happen in this world - which would be considered just anecdotal evidence in terms of that inquiry. And that means that in terms of my world view, I'm not only skeptical of the theories and other world views that exclude my experience from the realm of possible, but I also falsify them. It's just a matter of self-confidence, not of expecting or demanding anyone to believe anything. I have had enough opportunities to share my experiences with others and to listen others, so that I don't need to feel alone.
skepticscott
(13,029 posts)whether Coke or Pepsi tastes better, and doesn't presume to be able to answer such questions of personal taste and experience, so how is any of that relevant? You're free to indulge your own personal biases when it comes to yourself, but when trying to understand and explain universal phenomenon, that's the very thing you decry.
tama
(9,137 posts)Calling experience bias shows your own bias. "Rational inquiry doesn't care" is a very telling topic of your post, which implies that compassion and kindness and generally human emotions are something outside and beyond rational inquiry. Cold and hard and uncaring, is that what rational inquiry means to you? Inquisition engaged in witch hunts no doubt considered their actions perfectly rational. Skeptical movement with it's biases, sadly, often gives the impression that it is the modern equivalent of the witch hunt inquisition.
If you are interested in Sheldrake's evidence, it shows that telepathic connections correlate with emotional ties. That is not in conflict with my experience and other anecdotal evidence, but it does not rhyme well with the uncaring kind of rational inquiry. Which, after all, is not so very rational.
skepticscott
(13,029 posts)I never called experience bias, so your implication is blatantly dishonest. But if you try to introduce personal experience as objective evidence in rational inquiry, you most certainly risk introducing bias of the same type that you claimed to decry as "pseudoskepticsm" in a previous post.
When I said that "Rational inquiry doesn't care", I was being figurative (you do know what the definition of "figurative" is, don't you?). Obviously the process of rational inquiry is not a thing with human emotions. Did you think I was unaware of that? It merely meant the the question I mentioned is not something that rational inquiry can be legitimately be brought to bear on, just like the question of whether Mozart or Beethoven was a "better" composer.
And rational inquiry looks at the physical world and how it behaves. Things in the natural world are the way they are, and are not necessarily going to make us feel better once we understand them well. Despite your rather lame attempts to smear rational inquiry, it is the nature being studied that is cold, hard and uncaring. Useful rational inquiry has to show us how things really are, not how we wish they were, and the results may not make us warm and fuzzy when all is said and done. if you can't cope with that, sorry. What exactly would you have rational inquiry "care" about, other than getting as close to the truth as possible?
As far as the Inquisition, where is your evidence that they were being rational? "No doubt" sound like more personal bias of yours, trying to manifest itself as demonstrated fact. They may have thought their actions were necessary, but that's quite another matter. And trying to conflate "witch hunts" (searches for things that people have irrationally convinced themselves exist, or are much more common than they really are, when the opposite is true) with Inquisitional investigations (and to try to compare those with evidence-based skepticism) shows that you really don't understand any of the three.
You really are getting tiresome, so it would be nice if you tried to educate yourself a little next time, rather than just flinging uninformed smears.
tama
(9,137 posts)"it is the nature being studied that is cold, hard and uncaring."
That is not an agnostic or skeptical position, it is your belief, which is not rational at all. I don't see how excluding emotions from nature is rational in any way, life is natural and life is emotional, animated, moving and touching relations.
So when phenomena like telepathy occur in natural world with emotional bonds, is it so surprising that the pseudoskeptical bias that you so honestly stated cannot and will not find them? Not with any amount of evidence available, because that would crush the bias or belief that you stated - which can be horribly frightening, at first.
skepticscott
(13,029 posts)Do a little research instead of just swallowing what he says whole because it happens to be the only thing out there you can find that reinforces your worldview. And actually look at the natural world, both animate and inanimate and see just how cold, hard and uncaring it is. How many examples would you like? Yes, there are being with emotions that make up a minuscule fraction of the physical universe, but so what? Why do you presume that they are central to anything?
And if you can't answer the substantive points that have been raised, please don't waste my time.
humblebum
(5,881 posts)GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)It's seen as pejorative by some, but I don't know a better term for the operation of the "belief system" of science within human culture (as opposed to the process of science or the scientific method itself, which is value-free).
skepticscott
(13,029 posts)that justifies that statement?
humblebum
(5,881 posts)"The belief that the investigative methods of the physical sciences are applicable or justifiable in all fields of inquiry." - American Heritage Dictionary.
Yep, sounds alright to me. Totally material, and dogmatic.
Response to humblebum (Reply #45)
cleanhippie This message was self-deleted by its author.
skepticscott
(13,029 posts)"Scientism is generally used to describe science when it is given the status of a religion" Which characterization is correct?
And where does any scientific organization advocate either either position? And how does either make science a "belief system" within human culture?
humblebum
(5,881 posts)though it isn't officially referred to as such. I see no problem with the statement. Fits the dictionary definition like a glove.
skepticscott
(13,029 posts)and you also have no evidence. Nor any answer to the questions. How typical.
humblebum
(5,881 posts)I'm sure you'll deny that exists, too.
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)[div class="excerpt" style="border:solid 1px #000000"]Scientism refers to a belief in the universal applicability of the scientific method and approach, and the view that empirical science constitutes the most authoritative worldview or most valuable part of human learning to the exclusion of other viewpoints.
darkstar3
(8,763 posts)
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)Do you have a different definition for the word?
darkstar3
(8,763 posts)Awaiting definition because too many people read it somewhere on the internet and began using it in their own way to further their agenda of painting science as a religion?
Either one of those work for me. Why? Because the word doesn't seem to exist at WordNet, it has one definition at Merriam-Webster that isn't backed by any other respectable dictionaries, and the rest of the definitions I find online come from apologetics websites accusing people like Carl Sagan of being a prophet of a new religion called Scientism that is anti-bible.
skepticscott
(13,029 posts)to point to any group (atheist, skeptical, scientific or otherwise) that holds to whatever it is that you call "scientism", you run and hide. In fact, you've never even been able to point to individuals who champion "scientism" as their worldview.
humblebum
(5,881 posts)you can point to an occasion I did use it, please enlighten.
skepticscott
(13,029 posts)"It could easily be said that 'scientism' is the religion of may atheists today"?
Or "Scientism is generally used to describe science when it is given the status of a religion"?
humblebum
(5,881 posts)enlighten us. But I certainly agree with those statements. As far as addressing the subject often, i'm guessing that those are probably the only times and certainly not as often as you insinuate. And, indeed scientism has already been shown to not be a "made up" term.
skepticscott
(13,029 posts)And a little while ago, you couldn't remember any, and now you're guessing there are no more. Curious how you're trusting your memory now. And show me where I ever "insinuated" that you used them "often". Right...you can't. You're down to making things up, as usual.
And unless the term "scientism" has existed forever, someone obviously made it up. The question is not whether such a term exists, and you can't point to anywhere that I said otherwise. The question has always been (and you've always ducked it), what groups or what individuals actually adhere to what you call scientism as their worldview? Still waiting for your list.
humblebum
(5,881 posts)Last edited Sun Jan 22, 2012, 01:11 AM - Edit history (1)
I would say that Dawkins, and Hawking, and Lawrence Kraus, are examples of "scientism" put into practice. What is there to "duck" about scientism as you call it? Pretty self-explanatory.
"Unless the term "scientism" has existed forever, someone obviously made it up," I figured you would claim it just popped into existence from nothingness. Being a little coy are we?
skepticscott
(13,029 posts)I'm sure you would, but so what? You can't show us anywhere that any of them, or any scientific organization advocates what you define as "scientism" as a worldview, despite being challenged multiple times to do so.
And I never accused you of ducking scientism. Just more made up BS by you to deflect from your inability to answer the questions posed.
We're done here.
humblebum
(5,881 posts)GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)I originally posted this in A&A, but it seems so germane to this discussion that I thought it would be worth reiterating.
[div class="excerpt" style="border:solid 1px #000000"]On one side of the divide are the materialists - to them the universe is a purely physical place, and all human subjective experience is an emergent property of the brain's electrochemistry.
On the other are those I might call phenomenologists, specifically those who ascribe in some way to the phenomenology of mind or spirit, as outlined by Hegel (GG: and Husserl). To such people (speaking from personal experience), the working of the mind assumes a degree of independence from the brain. In many cases the perception is of a "Self" that is has little to do with the physical brain/body at all.
From my perspective, the gulf between the two positions is largely a product of the rationalist culture that has grown up since the Enlightenment. The rules of evidence for the two sides are quite different, as are the definitions of "truth", "meaning", "value" and even "reality".
The materialist worldview has been in the ascendant for the last couple of hundred years, and has had enough success at restructuring the physical world that the correctness of the position seems axiomatic. For a variety of reasons, this position seems incomplete to the phenomenologists, who point back to thousands of years of non-materialist human culture as evidence for the evolutionary correctness of their position.
To bring it back to the terms of reference for the group, this difference mirrors the theism/atheim and religion/science debated so closely that I wonder if it might be the underlying driver of most such conflicts. Perhaps we're dealing here not so much with truth and falsehood, but simply with people who perceive the world in different ways. If this is the case, the best we can hope for is to increase each side's understanding of the other, but converting each other through argument is a lost cause.
humblebum
(5,881 posts)each concerns a different aspect of human existence. At the same time they certainly need not be incompatible. Where each fails is in trying to restrict human thought and reason to the individual, unique, narrow confines of either discipline.
The Straight Story
(48,121 posts)Science was, by some, seen as a revelation of God and his works.
It is akin to finding a plant that heals and giving god credit for making the plant, and not saying 'see, who needs god, we have this plant. Or if God existed we would not need this plant, because how I see god working is how I would do things, etc'
As much as we some in the religious community over the centuries view science as a threat, there are many who did not see it that way.
Humanist_Activist
(7,670 posts)a medicinal plant is just that, a medicinal plant, and can be easily integrated into any faith as provided by a divine being, spirit, etc. Saying that a natural process lead to that plant evolving, and that's when the conflict occurs.
tama
(9,137 posts)when there are competing definitions of what nature is and is not. And that's all part of nature.
tama
(9,137 posts)(and mushrooms etc.) like ayahuasca, peyote etc., and those familiar with them say that they teach them about other medicinal plants, divine being, spirit, etc., about everything, and that there is no limit to what they can teach. Medicinal plants that create also religions...
darkstar3
(8,763 posts)One works toward a solution, the other works backward from a chosen solution.
Therefore, yes, they are incompatible.
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)Surprised? 
darkstar3
(8,763 posts)But what you have to ask yourself is, does working backward from a posited solution allow you to understand anything real?
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)In science you start with the hypothesis and work backwards through testing to arrive at understanding.
Of course science has much more rigorous rules for testing the hypothesis than most religions do, but most human investigation in any domain begins with the question "I wonder if this is the way things work?"
skepticscott
(13,029 posts)In science, hypotheses that don't measure up to facts and observations are discounted. In religion, facts and observations that contradict the preconceived answer are discounted. Religion doesn't test hypotheses, and doesn't begin with that question. It begins more commonly with a statement "This is how things are" and then proceeds to selectively trumpet evidence that supports that view and dismiss evidence that doesn't.
darkstar3
(8,763 posts)GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)Part of that rigour is the rule that when the data don't fit the hypothesis then the hypothesis must be modified or discarded. Most religions I'm aware of discard data as well as modifying the hypothesis. The way religions modify the hypothesis is what has given us the "God of the Gaps": "Well OK, maybe God does everything ... except that..."
tama
(9,137 posts)the four noble truths of Buddhism consist of axiom based on experience, testable hypothesis and methodology of testing.
But then, you can always argue that Buddhism does not fit into the definition of religion you are using.
skepticscott
(13,029 posts)that there is no self been tested and demonstrated by Buddhism?
tama
(9,137 posts)is that it is possible to liberate from dukkha. It can be tested and proven only positively, by doing it.
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)Five years ago I was either going to change my middle name legally to "Dukkha", or commit suicide. Instead, I popped out of the box.
The problem with this attempt at communication is that skepticscott is what I call a materialist, while you and I seem to be phenomenologists. The two frames of reference are orthogonal.
tama
(9,137 posts)is that when we ask theoretical physics what 'matter' is, what is the scientific definition of it, you get answers about four forces, which are a puzzle that they can't at the moment put together (especially gravity) in math, which would be the exact definition. What they got is already very weird math that is beyond common mortals. Then if you ask what math is, the are many answers, the materialist answer being "it's just figment of mind". It's all very wonderful and magical.
And from the little glimpses I've seen, the most creative physicists and mathematicians have a special talent of imagining geometric forms, new and wonderful geometric forms and their various relations - you don't really get math if you can't imagine it by identifying with the shapes, being them "materially". So, phenomenologically there is no difference between scientific magic and other magical imagination, and in a "dynamic holographic universe" it would be no big surprise that empirical evidence tends to respond (relatively) well to scientific imagination...
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)is that it doesn't help one design nuclear reactors. Although there are those who don't see that as a very big problem.
While that may sound like a flippant observation, it's anything but.
tama
(9,137 posts)brewed with electricity from nuclear reactors and what else. The coffee is phenomenological, fainetai moi keenos isos theoisin
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)Sappho? Nice! 
tama
(9,137 posts)appears equal to gods. Very glad that you recognized.
And the other days are also "my days".
skepticscott
(13,029 posts)try again.
tama
(9,137 posts)that was referred by four noble truths. Your question would deserve a longer treatise and the Buddhist forum would be a better place. I'm bit rusty in the finesses of the Buddhist philosophy of self.
darkstar3
(8,763 posts)Last edited Sat Jan 21, 2012, 08:30 PM - Edit history (1)
Let me put it this way:
When a scientist sees a phenomenon, that scientist tries to find the reason for it. Once a possible reason is found, that reason becomes a hypothesis, and the scientist begins testing. Often, that testing yields several things, but what is most important to this discussion is that it yields other hypotheses for testing, and thus science progresses forward in its attempt to explain the root cause of phenomenon.
To be clear, a hypothesis is an explanation of limited scope, tested rigorously, and used as a stepping stone to root cause analysis of phenomenon.
Religion, when confronted with a new phenomenon, posits a root cause and finds a way to make that root cause fit the phenomenon seen.
It's a complete reversal of the scientific process. So how does that in any way allow you to understand anything real?
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)Religion is not an empirical process. I don't know if it might have value in other domains or not. I'm inclined towards "not" but I'm willing to leave the question open.
tama
(9,137 posts)are very problematic words, especially if you want to see any good in them. But for example visions and symbols (Caduceus etc. etc.) of DNA much predate Francis Crick looking into microscope. And even Crick saw it first with the aid of LSD, says the rumor.
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)For fans of Crowther & Woods' old computer game "Adventure": "You are in a maze of twisty passages, all alike."
A more accurate, though less useful, subject line for my post above would have been "There is no way to arrive at truths."
Crick owes at least part of his Nobel to Albert Hofmann and Rosalind Franklin.
When I think of the number of significant contributors to human progress in both the arts and sciences who have used psychedelics as part of their "insight process" I am greatly encouraged.
skepticscott
(13,029 posts)through the use of psychedelics has been utterly useless as far as promoting scientific insight? You are familiar with the phenomenon of remembering a few hits and forgetting innumerable misses, right?
And if there is no way to arrive at "truths", then why do your computer and the Internet work? Or are you just seeing my post as part of a really good acid trip?
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)You know what? It's really not that important.
Would you like to win the argument?
Now you can post your victory message saying I gave up the fight and quit the field.
skepticscott
(13,029 posts)for you to post multiple times trying to promote your point of view. But if you think this is about me personally winning or losing something, that's pretty sad.
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)You're not trying to communicate - you're trying to beat others' opinions down. Communication is a two-way business, and there's precious little evidence that you're letting anything in. I've been around the internet long enough to know that slug-fests like that are full of fail.
skepticscott
(13,029 posts)isn't always as pretty and as warm and fuzzy as you'd like. This is a discussion board, where ideas are advanced, challenged, defended, attacked, tested, supported and discarded. If you want to "communicate" in ways that have nothing to do with getting closer to the truth (which you claim is impossible anyway), knock yourself out, but don't expect kudos when you take that smarmy and superior attitude towards people who approach things otherwise. If you want other people to let your ideas in, you have to do a better job than you have of convincing them that they're worth letting in.
BTW, I thought this wasn't that important to you. And yet here you still are.
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)This is a discussion board where personalities reign supreme under the thin camouflage of ideas. It's not a philosophical debating society, it's more like room 12A.
And you won the original argument about the value of psychedelics to science. This is the meta-discussion about the nature of communication on a web board.
skepticscott
(13,029 posts)Isn't that what "real" communication is supposed to be about? A continuum of thoughts and ideas, each building on what went before? But here you are trying to divide things into separate and totally unrelated little snippets, each one with a "winner" and a "loser".
How limited of you.
darkstar3
(8,763 posts)of effective communication. Tell me you didn't post this without a sense of irony...
tama
(9,137 posts)Just asking.
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)Most of what I say about religion is just based on my personal interpretations of what I've heard or read about it. I've had almost no direct contact with religion throughout my life (I was raised in a strong atheist home with scientists for parents), so I may have absorbed a lot of misinterpretations along the way.
My opinions about religion aren't nearly as strong as they were a while ago...
Sal316
(3,373 posts)I'll have to go with MLK, Jr. for $1000 here:
The two are not rivals. They are complementary.
Science keeps religion from sinking into the valley of crippling irrationalism and paralyzing obscurantism. Religion prevents science from falling into the marsh of obsolete materialism and moral nihilism.”
cleanhippie
(19,705 posts)While yes, it does interpret, it has no record of consistency or accuracy in any interpretation of anything. Just how is that complimentary with science in any way?
And Values? Assuming you are talking about subjective, arbitrary, religious values, then sure religion does deal with values. But those values are not universal, or necessarily GOOD values. They are all subject to the interpretation that someone gives them, negating any universality, consistency, or accuracy. Again, not complimentary to much of anything, especially science.
This could not be further from reality. Religion only attempts to prevent science from challenging that which religion claims to be true, and is always on the losing side. And science keeps people from sinking into the valley of crippling irrationalism and paralyzing obscurantism, but not always, as evidenced by some posters right here on DU.
Sal316
(3,373 posts)...this science vs. religion battle is about the dumbest thing ever.
It's being waged by people who want to use one to apply to the other... on both sides.
"Science" is simply the toolbox we use to understand how the world around us works. Trying to apply it to more ethereal concepts is well, ignorant.
"Religion" is man's way of trying to understand something bigger than himself, searching for meaning beyond what we can physically experience. Trying to apply it to explain things like tidal patterns and nuclear decay chains is, well, ignorant as well.
humblebum
(5,881 posts)I see know reason to change now.
darkstar3
(8,763 posts)GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)I think having a multitude of perspectives increases the richness of life - sort of like a biodiversity of viewpoints.
darkstar3
(8,763 posts)GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)It seems to me as though in this case compartmentalization would be a good thing as it separates the two domains and lets each be considered independently. They bleed over in practice, of course, but I think it's useful to see them as inherently separate. Your phrasing implied that you think it's a bad thing, and I was expressing why I thought it might be valuable - it allows us to consider the value of each without having to "pick a winner".
Did I misunderstand you?
darkstar3
(8,763 posts)because you setup the necessary divide in your mind. It's like willful suspension of disbelief. You're just selling it to yourself.
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)Yes, I think that's a good thing. I don't see that as "selling it to my self", rather I see it as making it possible to understand them independently and draw value from each on its own terms.
"Willful suspension of disbelief" is a very good term for what I'm trying to do, about both religion and science among many other things. Of course it's the same as "willful suspension of belief" which I'm also applying to both.
darkstar3
(8,763 posts)Picture yourself as another person. Without the willful suspension of disbelief, can either of these things provide value to you?
Outside of the movies, I don't engage in willful suspension of disbelief, and science provides value to me every day, not just because of the computers I use for work and play, but also because I have to use the scientific method for troubleshooting at my job.
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)Last edited Mon Jan 23, 2012, 04:18 PM - Edit history (5)
I use science in my daily life too. However, I have found throughout my life that despite its great value science doesn't give me any particular sense of meaning. Wonder yes, meaning no. I then realized a few years ago that the lack of that sense of meaning was harming me by exacerbating my despair as I tried to come to terms with the damage done to the natural world by human activity facilitated by science and engineering-based technology. Since I have no way of moving toward a theistic religion and no desire to do so, I explored other avenues that could loosely be called spiritual in order to see if they held clues to meaning. I discovered that for me, they did.
Recognizing the difference between value and meaning, and acknowledging my own psychological need for meaning is what has made me sympathetic to spiritual issues. While I can't summon up an active belief in things like the Bardo Thodol or reincarnation - let alone gods - the conscious suspension of active disbelief has made it possible for me to make a psychological shift that I'm quite sure saved my own life.
That's why the position of non-belief is so attractive to me - it opens that search for meaning even wider than the simple suspension of disbelief. In the process, it shone a strong light on the belief-system that underpins the modern cultural response to science. My willful suspension of belief in those cultural elements (that I call scientism for lack of a better word) has radically changed my view of science - in some ways for the better, in some ways for worse.
There's no need to imagine someone else in this situation - my position is deeply personal, and consciously chosen for my own reasons. It may or may not be useful to others. I suspect that it will not generally be seen as useful. I present it here mostly as a candidate for a "third way" other than a simple belief in either religion or science.
As a final note, I want to say thanks for your continued challenges. They have given me great incentive to clarify my thinking.
skepticscott
(13,029 posts)with the ones fighting that ignorance. Funny, that. If religion did not continue to promote its tenets of faith as scientific fact, if it did not make truth claims about the physical world, there would be no battle, now would there? Does science relentlessly inject itself into areas outside of its purview but within the purview of religion?
And no one with any sense swallows your limited characterization of religion. Religious believers have used it for far more than that, which is the problem. Are you really unaware of that?
rrneck
(17,671 posts)except "bigger than himself". Religion is designed for us to help understand ourselves. There is nothing bigger in that sense.
moobu2
(4,822 posts)they could be believed by some to be compatible.
Religion was the only science at one time, like astrology was astronomy and Alchemy was chemistry and so on. Eventually we will completely outgrow the need for it, but until then, people will continue to change their religious beliefs to conform to their understanding of modern science and new discoveries.
Igel
(35,296 posts)I have trouble disagreeing with something that's incoherent. I usually wind up agreeing with bits and pieces and disagreeing with bits and pieces. My response to incoherence is, well, incoherent.
"Science" isn't unitary. Lots of stuff are "science" that aren't. Lysenko. Science? A massive screw up not judged to be science now. Then again, the very idea of epigenetics was judged not to be science by those condemning Lysenko during the era of Khrushchevian Lysenkoism. Science keeps morphing, as is appropriate; however, we project back our current attitudes to see only what confirms our bias.
"Religion" includes shamanism and the most obscurantist forms of Islamic fundamentalism. A couple of weeks ago at a fairly fundie church service I was talking to a guy with a PhD from Stanford doing research involving galinstan. He saw no contradiction. There's nothing in his research or indeed his field that he knows about that disputes anything in his religion. On the other hand, I'm fairly sure that there are large parts of what he does that would offend other people calling themselves Xian. "Religion" is often not what the OP's thesis involves; specific forms and varieties of a set of religious tenets, fixed in time and place, are. It's a bad mistake to confuse the general and the specific when the "general" is so absurdly vague and non-specific.
The only problem with the aforementioned church-goer's beliefs is that some of the methods of inquiry that he uses if applied to other fields would provide a contradiction. It's a potential contradiction that he ignores because he has no reason to fret over it. There's no contradiction between *his* science and *his* religion. Yes, I strongly suspect some things would provide a contradiction; then again, perhaps they wouldn't. I have no trouble holding mutually incompatible views, pretty much simultaneously, concerning things of no relevance to me and of no possible practical effect.
Then again, the moral reasoning that his religion would foster, if applied outside of their usual areas, leads to potential weirdness. For example, a number of years ago a set of drawings used in anatomy texts were found to have been done by Nazis using forced subjects. Good science education. They were withdrawn. Was it scientific to withdraw them? Was the knowledge itself tainted? Are we really afraid that if we allowed the drawings to persist that some others would suddenly round up Jews and gays and perform vivisection on them in NYC or LA?
The problem is a kind of absolutist black/white thinking. Can I accept the scientific method, using abduction from empirical evidence to form a testable hypothesis, and restricting my hypotheses to those that are at least theoretically testable? Sure. Can I also be religious and hold beliefs that ignore these hypotheses as resulting from a kind of very useful heuristic, one that certainly provides useful results but not one that needs to be the only possible way of doing things. Sure. I don't need to straitjacket my thinking and believe there's only one way of doing things. Indeed, many scientists have held hypotheses that were for a long time untestable--and spent decades working towards making them testable, finding the evidence to support that which they only suspected or guessed at. Yet their actions belied a faith in the rightness of their suspicions. Sometimes the results are nonexistent. Sometimes they aren't. I'm not going to judge them, nor assume that they all have to think like me or be somehow deficient.
