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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Scientism: Why all hot and bothered about it?
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Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
I was teaching NT Intro a few years ago at a little community college, and one of my students told me he was a "fundamentalist." I think he meant it to imply he applied a common sense, literalist approach to the Bible. I'm not sure he understood from my expression that he could not have appalled me more if he'd said "You know, last weekend I spent some time drowning puppies!" For that, I blame my resting bitch face. No one ever knows when I'm genuinely chagrined.
Regardless, Justinian seems to think I'm ignorant because I'm not applying the definition it had at the beginning of the last century.
No. I think you're insular because you are the type of person who on meeting an actual self proclaimed fundamentalist says "he could not have appalled me more if he'd said "You know, last weekend I spent some time drowning puppies!""
And then despite the fact it is untrue you claim "I've never met anyone who understood the term who owned it". Given how horrified you self-admittedly are, is it surprising that any fundamentalists you know keep their beliefs from you?
quote:
Which is the etymological fallacy. And that I'm ignorant as to its origins. Which is insulting.
I regret nothing. In this thread, I mean. In life - lots of things ...
Even then we aren't dealing with the fallacy you claim. The claim I made is that Fundamentalist was invented to self-describe, making it distinct from the snarl-word Scientismist. This is a clear distinction between the two words - and one that as even you know from your own experience continues until this very day.
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My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.
Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.
Posts: 3926 | From: The Sea Coast of Bohemia | Registered: Dec 2003
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
This is the etymological fallacy, supported very poorly by personal anecdotes. The latter I can easily counter by saying I've never met anyone who understood the term who owned it.
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
I was teaching NT Intro a few years ago at a little community college, and one of my students told me he was a "fundamentalist." I think he meant it to imply he applied a common sense, literalist approach to the Bible.
![[Confused]](confused.gif) So you never met this student you had a conversation with? Or he didn't really understand a term he considered a core part of his identity until you, an outsider, patronizingly explained to him what he really meant?
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Dark Knight
Super Zero
# 9415
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
It's neither. Its a riposte to your statement. Read for comprehension.
It's an unsubstantiated assertion based on a lack of understanding of history.
Nice quote-mining. That's not disingenuous at all.
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No one is going to own up to being a scientismist. It's like claiming to be a fundamentalist. Only someone who doesn't understand what it is would own it.
From which I gather you have no idea about fundamentalism either. The term Fundamentalism was coined by its supporters. Many people who understand what Fundamentalism is do own it. I've met them. Scientism isn't is and has always been an insult.
This is the etymological fallacy, supported very poorly by personal anecdotes. The latter I can easily counter by saying I've never met anyone who understood the term who owned it. The fact that fundamentalism was coined by conservative evangelicals has almost no bearing on the largely pejorative way the term is used and understood today.
You're spinning like Peter Mandelson in a washing machine right now. I demonstrated that your assertion was strictly false. Scientismist was invented as a snarl-word as I claimed, and is always used as a perjorative. Fundamentalist is an term that in some circles is used as a perjorative and in other circles, including those that claim to be derived from those that invented the term is a term owned by those the word applies to. A simple google search would tell you that there are plenty of people who claim the word Fundamentalist for themselves - as well as plenty of others who dislike fundamentalism.
That is a misrepresentation of what you did. You asserted that the original meaning of the word is the one that counts, and if I'm using it another way it's because I'm ignorant. Classic etymological fallacy, used to support ad hominem.
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And no you can not counter my assertion that "People who claim the word fundamentalist exist and I've met them" by saying that you are sheltered enough that you never have. If you've never seen a black sheep and I have, the fact you've never seen a black sheep doesn't demonstrate they don't exist.
The problem with using anecdotes as you have is that they work the other way. Like this - just because you're so "sheltered" you haven't met fundies who are simply ignorant of what the term means, does not invalidate the fact that the majority use of the term is pejorative.
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So don't ever call me lucky
You don't know what I done, what it was, who I lost, or what it cost me - A B Original: I C U
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Love is as strong as death (Song of Solomon 8:6).
Posts: 2958 | From: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road | Registered: Apr 2005
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
Because "God exists" is a premise of most theology. Theology is the study of the concept of God. You can write however many papers you like on the subject of what kind of cheese the moon is made from - and I don't have to read any of them to reject them all in favour of the idea that the moon is made from rock.
This is invalid rhetoric.
The reason why you can get away with ignoring claims about the moon being made of cheese is that it is a well-established scientific fact that it rather is made of rock. In such a situation, the usual procedure of science, philosophy, law, and indeed common sense - to fairly investigate all possible hypotheses - is suspended for pragmatic reasons. Basically, if we waste our time on every nonsense that crazy cranks suggest, we will never make progress. Hence if someone comes with an extraordinary claim, he will have to supply extraordinary proof. Otherwise we will ignore him. Not because that is the "proper" thing to do, it isn't, but because it is the pragmatic thing to do. And indeed, a proper scientist will always feel a kind of pain about having done so, and occasionally will investigate some "crazy idea" more closely for the fear of pragmatism standing in the way of progress.
Anyway, the existence or non-existence of God very much is an unresolved question. There is no clear consensus there at all, in society at large or among intellectuals, and certainly the non-existence of God is in no way or form a well-established scientific fact. Thus there just is no place there for "simplifying pragmatism" at all. By any good intellectual standard - science, philosophy, law, common sense - a discussion about God requires proper engagement with the arguments of all sides. Otherwise one simply pretends to have won a debate that is very much alive.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Dark Knight
Super Zero
# 9415
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
This is the etymological fallacy, supported very poorly by personal anecdotes. The latter I can easily counter by saying I've never met anyone who understood the term who owned it.
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
I was teaching NT Intro a few years ago at a little community college, and one of my students told me he was a "fundamentalist." I think he meant it to imply he applied a common sense, literalist approach to the Bible.
So you never met this student you had a conversation with? Or he didn't really understand a term he considered a core part of his identity until you, an outsider, patronizingly explained to him what he really meant?
Damn right he didn't understand it. That became quite clear from my subsequent dialogue with him. For one thing, he was a Pentecostal, which in terms of the original meaning of the term Justinian is so sure I don't know about, was anathema to the original conservative, anti-charismatics who coined the term. What he really meant, as I indicated, was that he took a simple, "common sense" literal approach to the Bible.
Were you there? You seem to know a lot about the student suddenly, such as the fact that being a fundamentalist was a core part of his identity. And you interpreted my response (which I didn't mention) as patronizing? Are you doing some weird Sherlock Holmes thing right now, or were you in the room?
[ 06. October 2014, 16:10: Message edited by: Dark Knight ]
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So don't ever call me lucky
You don't know what I done, what it was, who I lost, or what it cost me - A B Original: I C U
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Love is as strong as death (Song of Solomon 8:6).
Posts: 2958 | From: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road | Registered: Apr 2005
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Dark Knight
Super Zero
# 9415
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
I was teaching NT Intro a few years ago at a little community college, and one of my students told me he was a "fundamentalist." I think he meant it to imply he applied a common sense, literalist approach to the Bible. I'm not sure he understood from my expression that he could not have appalled me more if he'd said "You know, last weekend I spent some time drowning puppies!" For that, I blame my resting bitch face. No one ever knows when I'm genuinely chagrined.
Regardless, Justinian seems to think I'm ignorant because I'm not applying the definition it had at the beginning of the last century.
No. I think you're insular because you are the type of person who on meeting an actual self proclaimed fundamentalist says "he could not have appalled me more if he'd said "You know, last weekend I spent some time drowning puppies!""
I'm a little weary of your sweeping claims about my history, given we've never met. You know precisely nothing about my history, so how about you stop playing the man instead of the ball? It doesn't speak highly of your arguments.
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And then despite the fact it is untrue you claim "I've never met anyone who understood the term who owned it". Given how horrified you self-admittedly are, is it surprising that any fundamentalists you know keep their beliefs from you?
Despite the fact it is untrue? What in the actual fuck are you on about?
Again, you know nothing about me, so I suggest you stop playing really inept psychologist.
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Which is the etymological fallacy. And that I'm ignorant as to its origins. Which is insulting.
I regret nothing. In this thread, I mean. In life - lots of things ...
Even then we aren't dealing with the fallacy you claim. The claim I made is that Fundamentalist was invented to self-describe, making it distinct from the snarl-word Scientismist. This is a clear distinction between the two words - and one that as even you know from your own experience continues until this very day.
My statement was that people don't tend to self-identify as scientismists, which remains undisputed.
I also stated, in a sweeping and too general fashion, that nobody would identify as a fundamentalist if they truly understood the term. By which I meant the majority use of the term, which is understood generally negatively as someone who is committed, often violently, to an extremely rigid and literal appropriation of sacred texts. You asserted that I was ignorant, that I did not know the original meaning of the word - both without evidence - and that by implication the original meaning of the term is the definitive one. Which does not take into account that the majority meaning is very different. Which I maintain is the etymological fallacy.
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So don't ever call me lucky
You don't know what I done, what it was, who I lost, or what it cost me - A B Original: I C U
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Love is as strong as death (Song of Solomon 8:6).
Posts: 2958 | From: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road | Registered: Apr 2005
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Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
You are confusing the part where I paraphrase what scientism is about with the part where I show that it is self-contradictory.
That's because literally all you have done is shown that your paraphrase of so-called scientism is self-contradictory. Your logic is entirely based on your paraphrase of something you disagree with.
Which means that your logic stands or falls on the accuracy of your paraphrase. I've offered on this thread alone two other possible paraphrases that are not self-contradictory.
And as someone coming out swinging against Scientism you no more have the right to define what so-called scientismists believe than I do to define what Catholics believe.
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It's a two step process, and the second step of showing self-contradicition is basically independent of the precise nature of the definition of scientism in step one as long as it remains absolutist about valid knowledge only being derived from (modern) science. You can give me any definition that you like which has this feature, and I can immediately turn it against itself.
In short you are still claiming the right to define scientism as a self-admitted opponent of scientism. And then using your definition of scientsim you are beating up scientism. Take your straw-men out of here.
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That scientism is the label for such absolutist claims about science is not my invention. That's just what that word is commonly understood to mean, see the link to Wikipedia I posted. For example, Wikipedia links to this definition from The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy:
"Scientism: Pejorative term for 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."
Indeed. The term is a perjoritive invented by the opponents of the term. Until significant numbers of people stand up and says "Yes, I am a scientismist" it remains a perjoritive snarl-word that is almost certainly a misrepresentation of those it is applied to. I have already given two statements in this thread of what those termed scientismists by others are likely to say they believe - and I don't believe either is self-contradictory.
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As I've said, I can do this with any definition that you might try, as long as it maintains an absolutist claim for scientific knowledge. I have no idea whether Dawkins is a scientismist.
Find me three scientismists. I have no idea if any scientismists by your definition even exist. The STEM Supremacists that Wood was talking about definitely do. I'm pretty sure my two summaries earlier in this thread
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It is entirely possible that upon close examination nobody in this world is actually a scientismist. I have said nothing about all that.
Indeed. So why you decide to prove that a group of mythical people who even you accept may not actually exist have a definition that's self-contradictory is something I do not understand.
But most people, when they talk about scientismists, aren't talking about strict logical definitions. They are normally talking about the group Wood described as STEM Supremacists.
The only purpose to your refuting a straw man that I can see is to demonstrate that it is extremely unlikely that True Scientismists (as opposed to STEM Supremacists being insulted) actually exist.
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
This is invalid rhetoric.
The reason why you can get away with ignoring claims about the moon being made of cheese is that it is a well-established scientific fact that it rather is made of rock. In such a situation, the usual procedure of science, philosophy, law, and indeed common sense - to fairly investigate all possible hypotheses - is suspended for pragmatic reasons. Basically, if we waste our time on every nonsense that crazy cranks suggest, we will never make progress.
And moving back to Dawkins, there has been a lot of investigation as to the nature and presence of God. So much claimed for God. And these claims have been debunked time and time and time again. The idea that we have not investigated the existence of God is risible. And the idea that we need to investigate all possible hypotheses including the invisible teapot hypothesis is plainly false.
To Dawkins and the rest of the New Atheists, further investigation is merely following the cranks down even more rabbit holes. At this point God is an extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary proof.
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Anyway, the existence or non-existence of God very much is an unresolved question. There is no clear consensus there at all, in society at large or among intellectuals, and certainly the non-existence of God is in no way or form a well-established scientific fact.
There has, on the other hand, been a lot of investigation - and with each subsequent practical investigation the bounds of what is claimed for God have shrunk. When variations on a positive hypothesis have a 100% failure rate and even the claims of many of its adherents are indistinguishable from it not existing then it's moving well into the realms of crankery.
In short, if any other hypothesis were to have been as spectacularly unsuccessful as that of God, it would probably have been thrown out. Why, I'm sure Dawkins would argue, should the existence of God be treated any differently?
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Thus there just is no place there for "simplifying pragmatism" at all. By any good intellectual standard - science, philosophy, law, common sense - a discussion about God requires proper engagement with the arguments of all sides. Otherwise one simply pretends to have won a debate that is very much alive.
And now we get onto the question about whether the debate matters more than the evidence. The evidence for global warming is overwhelming. Crushing. The debate in the mass media? Very much alive irrespective of the evidence.
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My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.
Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.
Posts: 3926 | From: The Sea Coast of Bohemia | Registered: Dec 2003
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Dark Knight
Super Zero
# 9415
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Posted
Category error. This is one of the things IngoB is trying to get you to understand. The question of global warming is a question for science. The question of the existence of God is not. Exactly the mistake Dawkins makes.
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So don't ever call me lucky
You don't know what I done, what it was, who I lost, or what it cost me - A B Original: I C U
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Love is as strong as death (Song of Solomon 8:6).
Posts: 2958 | From: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road | Registered: Apr 2005
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Wood
The Milkman of Human Kindness
# 7
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
And where it bleeds into philosophy it's a genuine branch of something useful to many New Atheists. That's different from it being an independent field in its own right.
Problem here is that you can't (rightly) call Dark Knight on saying fundamentalism is something it isn't and then in the same post say that theology doesn't count as an independent field of study when it clearly, obviously and self-evidently does, with faculties and entire colleges (and that's not counting religious seminaries) dedicated to its sole study. Just because you say it doesn't count doesn't make it not count any more than Dark Knight saying that no one wants to be called a fundamentalist when people obviously do.
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Narcissism.
Posts: 7842 | From: Wood Towers | Registered: Apr 2001
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itsarumdo
Shipmate
# 18174
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
...
And now we get onto the question about whether the debate matters more than the evidence. The evidence for global warming is overwhelming. Crushing. The debate in the mass media? Very much alive irrespective of the evidence.
This is definitely about belief system - from the pov of someone who believes there is a God, the comparison would be a debate about whether the atmosphere exists at all or there is such a thing as climate.
Comparing to climate change debate - again form my pov, there is experience - experiential, subjective, very personal evidence - in fact so personal that I rarely share the details. It's definitely not in the field of science, though my personal opinion is that anyone prepared to follow a specific set of instructions (that include a willingness to believe in a benevolent creator) would have a more or less generically similar experience. And that some degree of intercomparison is possible in a framework not dissimilar to a scientific approach.
The climate change debate is similarly about a set of observations and their interpretation. But those are enumerable and objectifiable observations. Yes - the climate appears to be changing, yes the evidence points to anthropogenic emissions as the main cause. Yes there is a lot of unwillingness to believe that. Frankly, looking at the way humanity is confronting its potential destruction with a lot of self interest and ostrich-like avoidance, I pray that nature is brought back into proper and cleansed order by God and that Homo Sapiens sp. is not treated too badly in the process and given another chance.
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"Iti sapis potanda tinone" Lycophron
Posts: 994 | From: Planet Zog | Registered: Jul 2014
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Wood
The Milkman of Human Kindness
# 7
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
quote:
It is entirely possible that upon close examination nobody in this world is actually a scientismist. I have said nothing about all that.
Indeed. So why you decide to prove that a group of mythical people who even you accept may not actually exist have a definition that's self-contradictory is something I do not understand.
But most people, when they talk about scientismists, aren't talking about strict logical definitions. They are normally talking about the group Wood described as STEM Supremacists.
And in my experience, like I said, I haven't heard the term "scientism" except to defame scientists.
In my experience. But if the OED says it's derogatory...
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Narcissism.
Posts: 7842 | From: Wood Towers | Registered: Apr 2001
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SusanDoris
Incurable Optimist
# 12618
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Posted
It is a privilege to be a member here and to follow such interesting debates as this. I'm firmly on the atheist side of course, and have only seen the word scientism or scientist used by believers against non-believers and think the phrase, 'sneer word' is appropriate.
Evensong
Thank you for asking about the meaning of STEM - I was going to do so myself, if I hadn't found out by the time I had read through!:)EM
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I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.
Posts: 3083 | From: UK | Registered: May 2007
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
Category error. This is one of the things IngoB is trying to get you to understand. The question of global warming is a question for science. The question of the existence of God is not.
Hold on a second! How do you make that distinction? You've already argued that empirical examination of reality cannot be justified or validated. So how do you determine that "[t]he question of global warming is a question for science"?
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
quote:
SusanDoris: I'm firmly on the atheist side of course, and have only seen the word scientism or scientist used by believers against non-believers and think the phrase, 'sneer word' is appropriate.
Out of interest, how do you stand towards the definition of Scientism that was given in the opening post of this thread:
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Scientism is belief in the universal applicability of the scientific method and approach, and the view that physical science constitutes the most authoritative worldview or most valuable part of human learning to the exclusion of other viewpoints
From your other posts on the Ship, you seem to have a rather far-reaching view on the authority of Science. How far does it go?
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
Category error. This is one of the things IngoB is trying to get you to understand. The question of global warming is a question for science. The question of the existence of God is not. Exactly the mistake Dawkins makes.
This is one of the things IngoB is trying to assert - it just happes to be untrue. I'm aware of the Non Overlapping Magesteria position. One that says that Theology does not get to touch anything that makes the planets move in the heavens, anything that can feed the hungry or cure the sick. It is one in which nothing God does can have a direct impact on either the physical world or the human brain. It is one in which if there are ghosts they can have neither motivation nor interaction with this world. If they did they would be subject to scientific investigation. It means that, contrary to Catholic doctrine, there has never been a single miracle because those can be investigated scientifically.
Which means that if the existence of God is outside the scope of science it has massive implications for the nature of God. The NOMA position is one where we live in a universe that is indistinguishable from one in which God does not exist.
What NOMA and the idea that the existence of God is not subject to scientific investigation therefore represents is the position that theology can not tell us anything about this world - and if it can't tell anything about this world at all, I agree with Dawkins that it is irrelevant. It is simply a way of allowing adherents of a defeated viewpoint to keep their pride.
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My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.
Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.
Posts: 3926 | From: The Sea Coast of Bohemia | Registered: Dec 2003
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Wood
The Milkman of Human Kindness
# 7
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
It is a privilege to be a member here and to follow such interesting debates as this. I'm firmly on the atheist side of course, and have only seen the word scientism or scientist used by believers against non-believers and think the phrase, 'sneer word' is appropriate.
Yeah. It totally is. In my head I have always categorised it among automatic argument losers like "breeder", "feminazi", "skybeard", "sheeple", "victimhood", "social justice warrior" and the like.
But then I've mainly come across it in arguments from Answers in Genesis and such, as parroted by my 6DYEC brother.
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Narcissism.
Posts: 7842 | From: Wood Towers | Registered: Apr 2001
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Dark Knight
Super Zero
# 9415
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
Category error. This is one of the things IngoB is trying to get you to understand. The question of global warming is a question for science. The question of the existence of God is not.
Hold on a second! How do you make that distinction? You've already argued that empirical examination of reality cannot be justified or validated. So how do you determine that "[t]he question of global warming is a question for science"?
Actually, what I've consistently argued on this thread is that science is legitimate and useful within certain boundaries. It is when practitioners transgress those, and attempt to address questions that cannot be answered by science, that we run into the problem of scientism. Among other things.
I hope that helps.
[ 06. October 2014, 17:18: Message edited by: Dark Knight ]
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So don't ever call me lucky
You don't know what I done, what it was, who I lost, or what it cost me - A B Original: I C U
----
Love is as strong as death (Song of Solomon 8:6).
Posts: 2958 | From: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road | Registered: Apr 2005
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itsarumdo
Shipmate
# 18174
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Posted
This is typically descending into the shape of a Gordian Knot.
If the outcome is determined by whether one is an empiricist or not, then I would fall on the side of whoever accepted empiricists (though I might then go on to debate exactly what is discernable through the senses).
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"Iti sapis potanda tinone" Lycophron
Posts: 994 | From: Planet Zog | Registered: Jul 2014
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Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Wood:
Problem here is that you can't (rightly) call Dark Knight on saying fundamentalism is something it isn't and then in the same post say that theology doesn't count as an independent field of study when it clearly, obviously and self-evidently does, with faculties and entire colleges (and that's not counting religious seminaries) dedicated to its sole study. Just because you say it doesn't count doesn't make it not count any more than Dark Knight saying that no one wants to be called a fundamentalist when people obviously do.
In which case I misspoke if I said it doesn't count as an independent field of study, sorry. What it doesn't count as is an independent field of study that can lead back to anything that is useful in the real world. Between comics fans there is a regular discussion about who would win in a fight between two superheroes. It's a field of study with its own adherents, rules, and lore. And people put a lot of time and study into this sort of ridiculousness, complete with dredging up obscure issues.
The argument isn't that there isn't a field of study to Theology. It's that the study of a being with no discernible impacts on the real world (because those would be studyable through science) is approximately as relevant to this world whether it's Theology or the study of comic book rumbles. And should therefore be treated accordingly.
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My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.
Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.
Posts: 3926 | From: The Sea Coast of Bohemia | Registered: Dec 2003
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itsarumdo
Shipmate
# 18174
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
What NOMA and the idea that the existence of God is not subject to scientific investigation therefore represents is the position that theology can not tell us anything about this world - and if it can't tell anything about this world at all, I agree with Dawkins that it is irrelevant. It is simply a way of allowing adherents of a defeated viewpoint to keep their pride.
I think a little set theory would be useful.
{Things amenable to scientific investigation} ⊂ {The physical Universe}
{The physical Universe} ⊂ {God}
{The physical Universe} ∩ {The experiencable universe}
{The explicable Universe} ∩ {The experiencable universe}
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"Iti sapis potanda tinone" Lycophron
Posts: 994 | From: Planet Zog | Registered: Jul 2014
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SusanDoris
Incurable Optimist
# 12618
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
Category error. This is one of the things IngoB is trying to get you to understand. The question of global warming is a question for science. The question of the existence of God is not. Exactly the mistake Dawkins makes.
Why should it not be a question for Science? If something exists, it necessarily interacts with the rest of the universe in however small a way.
Since God(well, the Christian one anyway) is believed to have such far-reaching effects, perhaps believers should do everything they can to try to set up the hypotheses and tests which will produce a Theory.
(I wonder if that will be considered as scientism??! ![[Smile]](smile.gif) )
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I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.
Posts: 3083 | From: UK | Registered: May 2007
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
Category error. This is one of the things IngoB is trying to get you to understand. The question of global warming is a question for science. The question of the existence of God is not.
Hold on a second! How do you make that distinction? You've already argued that empirical examination of reality cannot be justified or validated. So how do you determine that "[t]he question of global warming is a question for science"?
Actually, what I've consistently argued on this thread is that science is legitimate and useful within certain boundaries. It is when practitioners transgress those, and attempt to address questions that cannot be answered by science, that we run into the problem of scientism. Among other things.
I hope that helps.
Not really, since you also posited that empiricism (and anything derive empirically, like science) is unjustifiable. I even provided a link-back to the post (see above). So if the idea that "the senses are reliable indicators of reality" is an unjustifiable prejudice, how can anyone legitimately engage in climate science? Or any other kind of science, for that matter?
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
quote:
itsarumdo: {The physical Universe} ∩ {The experiencable universe}
{The explicable Universe} ∩ {The experiencable universe}
Er ... these are not complete propositions.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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Wood
The Milkman of Human Kindness
# 7
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
quote:
Originally posted by Wood:
Problem here is that you can't (rightly) call Dark Knight on saying fundamentalism is something it isn't and then in the same post say that theology doesn't count as an independent field of study when it clearly, obviously and self-evidently does, with faculties and entire colleges (and that's not counting religious seminaries) dedicated to its sole study. Just because you say it doesn't count doesn't make it not count any more than Dark Knight saying that no one wants to be called a fundamentalist when people obviously do.
In which case I misspoke if I said it doesn't count as an independent field of study, sorry. What it doesn't count as is an independent field of study that can lead back to anything that is useful in the real world. Between comics fans there is a regular discussion about who would win in a fight between two superheroes. It's a field of study with its own adherents, rules, and lore. And people put a lot of time and study into this sort of ridiculousness, complete with dredging up obscure issues.
The argument isn't that there isn't a field of study to Theology. It's that the study of a being with no discernible impacts on the real world (because those would be studyable through science) is approximately as relevant to this world whether it's Theology or the study of comic book rumbles. And should therefore be treated accordingly.
See, you're doing it again. You cannot compare theology as an academic discipline with neckbeards arguing about which of a privileged fascist with enduring PTSD and an all-powerful but morally upright guy in blue tights would win in a fight. That is insanely reductionist. You can see why someone who, oh, I don't know, once failed a PhD* in early church writings, might consider that on the verge of insulting?
Also, what do you call the real world? The philosophy of religion deals with how we relate to each other just as much as it deals with whether or not there is a God and what she's like and has far-reaching consequences for human society, still, regardless of whether you might think it's stupid.
*My heart wasn't in it. It's OK, I got an MPhil.
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Narcissism.
Posts: 7842 | From: Wood Towers | Registered: Apr 2001
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Dark Knight
Super Zero
# 9415
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
Category error. This is one of the things IngoB is trying to get you to understand. The question of global warming is a question for science. The question of the existence of God is not.
Hold on a second! How do you make that distinction? You've already argued that empirical examination of reality cannot be justified or validated. So how do you determine that "[t]he question of global warming is a question for science"?
Actually, what I've consistently argued on this thread is that science is legitimate and useful within certain boundaries. It is when practitioners transgress those, and attempt to address questions that cannot be answered by science, that we run into the problem of scientism. Among other things.
I hope that helps.
Not really, since you also posited that empiricism (and anything derive empirically, like science) is unjustifiable. I even provided a link-back to the post (see above). So if the idea that "the senses are reliable indicators of reality" is an unjustifiable prejudice, how can anyone legitimately engage in climate science? Or any other kind of science, for that matter?
Yes, I saw that you did, while ignoring all of the posts I have included here in which I state the position I have actually taken. Well played.
I have not claimed at any time that such a statement is "unjustified prejudice." Please stop misquoting me.
My claim, and that of others here, is that science is based on axioms which are unverifiable empirically. As long as we accept that, everyone can play nicely. The moment we lose sight of it, we end up trying to explain the significance of love using coloured brain scans, helpless in the mistaken belief that scientific methods can teach us about the significance of a phenomena which cannot be quantified or measured using any of the tools science is very good at using when it does so legitimately.
Now, it's true that since empiricism rests on unverifiable axioms, we cannot ultimately know if the universe is as we experience it. However, as several have said already, it is not unreasonable to make use of our senses and attempt to understand the universe as it stands before us. Many phenomena in this universe do allow for measuring and quantification, and the impact of climate change is one of them. Others do not.
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So don't ever call me lucky
You don't know what I done, what it was, who I lost, or what it cost me - A B Original: I C U
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Love is as strong as death (Song of Solomon 8:6).
Posts: 2958 | From: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road | Registered: Apr 2005
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
Yes, I saw that you did, while ignoring all of the posts I have included here in which I state the position I have actually taken. Well played.
I have not claimed at any time that such a statement is "unjustified prejudice." Please stop misquoting me.
So is there a justification for empiricism or not? You previously said there wasn't, but now seem to indicate a contrary position.
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
Now, it's true that since empiricism rests on unverifiable axioms, we cannot ultimately know if the universe is as we experience it. However, as several have said already, it is not unreasonable to make use of our senses and attempt to understand the universe as it stands before us.
"Several" may have said so, but you seem to take the contrary position: that it is unreasonable (i.e. not justifiable via reason) to make use of our senses in examining the Universe. You can't have it both ways. Either there are reasons to rely on our senses or there aren't.
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
Many phenomena in this universe do allow for measuring and quantification, and the impact of climate change is one of them. Others do not.
But how do you justify this? According to your argument, anyone can simply claim "who you gonna believe, me or your own eyes?" and have this considered an argument on an intellectual par with all of climate science. If there's no reason to believe that examining reality with our senses is legitimate beyond simply assuming so, why isn't rejecting that assumption equally valid?
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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SusanDoris
Incurable Optimist
# 12618
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Posted
Just noticed I said 'sneer', when I should have (quoted 'snarl'.)
LeRoc
I will come back to your question asap.
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I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.
Posts: 3083 | From: UK | Registered: May 2007
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
That's because literally all you have done is shown that your paraphrase of so-called scientism is self-contradictory. Your logic is entirely based on your paraphrase of something you disagree with.
Nope. What I have literally done is to show that my paraphrase, that of LeRoc and that of The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy lead to self-contradiction - as well as pointing out that all the various paraphrases on the relevant Wikipedia entry suffer from the same problem and explaining the principle behind this proof and how it can be applied to all manner of such paraphrases. That's literally a whole lot more than you give me credit for.
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
Which means that your logic stands or falls on the accuracy of your paraphrase. I've offered on this thread alone two other possible paraphrases that are not self-contradictory.
Thanks for helpfully providing a link. Oh, you didn't... Anyway, here they are, so let's kill them.
Justinian Paraphrase 1:
Scientism is the belief that if a piece of knowledge is not genuinely independently verifiable then it's impossible to tell whether it's genuine knowledge about something or whether you are merely giving yourself an auto-proctoscopy.
The Justinian Paraphrase 1 states knowledge about the world, but is not itself genuinely independently verifiable - certainly not by empirics, the scientific method or anything like that. Hence it is impossible to tell whether the Justinian Paraphrase 1 is genuine knowledge or auto-proctoscopy.
Justinian Paraphrase 2:
If you can not make independently verifiable predictions about the world then either your "knowledge" is just stamp collecting of disparate facts with no genuine context, or it's pure castles in the air and has no connection to anything that's actually real - meaning that it's on about the level of arguing which would win in a fight between two comic book characters.
The Justinian Paraphrase 2 states knowledge about the world, but not in the form of issuing an independently verifiable prediction - certainly not one testable by empirics, the scientific method or anything like that. Hence it represents either a stamp collected without genuine context, or is a pure castle in the air lacking all connection to reality, and is hence as meaningful as arguing about the prowess of comic book heroes.
Perhaps my point that there is a general technique at work here that will work for all such statements is becoming clearer now? If not, feel free to paraphrase some more. I will happily kill the various iterations until you get it... It is not rocket science. All that is happening there is making use of the simple fact that talking about science is not science but meta-science.
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
And as someone coming out swinging against Scientism you no more have the right to define what so-called scientismists believe than I do to define what Catholics believe.
But I have not attributed scientism to anybody. I have stated what scientism is commonly assumed to mean, and then I have shown that that is self-contradictory. Whether such an opinion is justly attributed to anybody I leave for others to discuss.
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
The only purpose to your refuting a straw man that I can see is to demonstrate that it is extremely unlikely that True Scientismists (as opposed to STEM Supremacists being insulted) actually exist.
Maybe. You seemed pretty confident that you were representing STEM Supremacists in your two paraphrases, but I could deal with those in just the same way as with any other scientism claim. Perhaps you can wiggle out of my attack. Perhaps you misrepresented STEM supremacists as well. Who knows...
However, there is a key problem for any STEM supremacist who wants to escape this attack of mine. The only way of doing so is to admit that there is other genuine knowledge than that produced by empirics, the scientific method and the like. And as soon as you do that, the floor is open for many opinions on what sort of other knowledge might exist. And STEM supremacists tend to not like that one bit. So they have to somehow avoid the bite of my (admittedly very simple) attack without admitting that one cannot operate intellectually on science alone. Good luck with that.
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
And these claims have been debunked time and time and time again. The idea that we have not investigated the existence of God is risible.
Nope, sorry, that just hasn't happened. Of course, there have been many discussions about God. But there simply has not been a decisive and acknowledged "win" of any kind. It is not even true that at least some authoritative group of experts has decided that the discussion is done and dusted. There remain to this day large numbers of religious scientists, philosophers, engineers, historians and what have you.
All you are doing here is to loudly proclaim that the game has been over and that you have won handsomely while it is still going back and forth all around you. This is really just an attempt at rhetorical trickery, and one mostly aimed at the "ignorant masses" who might buy into pompous displays of authority. There is very little to it. In fact, if at all I think we are currently seeing a bit of a renaissance of philosophical proofs of God, perhaps inspired by the insipidity of the New Atheists.
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
To Dawkins and the rest of the New Atheists, further investigation is merely following the cranks down even more rabbit holes. At this point God is an extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary proof.
I know. They have made their judgement call about the state of affairs, that is their prerogative. But likewise it is my prerogative to make a such a judgement, and based on that, to comment on theirs. And I think their judgement is wrong, and not just a little bit wrong.
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
There has, on the other hand, been a lot of investigation - and with each subsequent practical investigation the bounds of what is claimed for God have shrunk.
That's simply false. The central philosophical claims of Christianity about God, for example, have not changed since late antiquity, when they were first compiled and systematised.
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
When variations on a positive hypothesis have a 100% failure rate and even the claims of many of its adherents are indistinguishable from it not existing then it's moving well into the realms of cranberry.
There is no confirmed failure of the traditional Christian conception of God (boy would hear about that if it ever had been successfully argued) and even a maximally remote deist Creator makes all the difference, rather than none.
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
In short, if any other hypothesis were to have been as spectacularly unsuccessful as that of God, it would probably have been thrown out.
And the evidence for this most fantastic claim is what, precisely?
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
And now we get onto the question about whether the debate matters more than the evidence. The evidence for global warming is overwhelming. Crushing. The debate in the mass media? Very much alive irrespective of the evidence.
Nice attempt at bait and switch. But whatever may be the situation in global warming, it simply is not the case that any relevant body of scientific, philosophical, engineering, political, literary, historical or whatever authority has issued a statement declaring that the crushing evidence is in, and there definitely is no God. It just hasn't happened. And it won't happen either, I bet.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Dark Knight
Super Zero
# 9415
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
Category error. This is one of the things IngoB is trying to get you to understand. The question of global warming is a question for science. The question of the existence of God is not. Exactly the mistake Dawkins makes.
This is one of the things IngoB is trying to assert - it just happes to be untrue. I'm aware of the Non Overlapping Magesteria position. One that says that Theology does not get to touch anything that makes the planets move in the heavens, anything that can feed the hungry or cure the sick. It is one in which nothing God does can have a direct impact on either the physical world or the human brain. It is one in which if there are ghosts they can have neither motivation nor interaction with this world. If they did they would be subject to scientific investigation. It means that, contrary to Catholic doctrine, there has never been a single miracle because those can be investigated scientifically.
Which means that if the existence of God is outside the scope of science it has massive implications for the nature of God. The NOMA position is one where we live in a universe that is indistinguishable from one in which God does not exist.
What NOMA and the idea that the existence of God is not subject to scientific investigation therefore represents is the position that theology can not tell us anything about this world - and if it can't tell anything about this world at all, I agree with Dawkins that it is irrelevant. It is simply a way of allowing adherents of a defeated viewpoint to keep their pride.
I must admit I wasn't aware of this NOMA, but have googled it. Interesting. It's an assertion made by a scientist about the boundaries between theology and science, not a theologian. Props to them for taking the initiative to assert the boundaries. Now you want to trample them.
I feel like a sheepdog who's just got the beggars penned, but one pops out again.
The assertions you are making would be true if everything were empirically verifiable, or perhaps more importantly in this case, measurable. Of course, this is not the case. As I've asserted a number of times, phenomena such as love cannot be measured using scientific methods. It cannot be explained using scientific reasoning. Where science necessarily ends, and it must end, metaphysics, theology, poetry must begin, in order to express what cannot be directly described.
Look, your points about miracles is very interesting, and I don't have much of a response to that. Do strange things happen that appear to violate the physical laws of the universe? Sure. Can they be explained? Not ...yet. That's what science has on its side. No argument in that regard - perhaps those seeming violations will be explained. And I see the point that in regards to the direct intervention - measurable - in the apparent universe, we might like to be able to trace a sequence of effects back to God (I'm not interested in that, but I can see why some might be).
However, there are phenomena that cannot be measured or observed, and these are not open to scientific enquiry. This isn't a gaps proposition. Science is not set up to answer those questions. It is unreasonable to postulate therefore that only phenomena which are empirically verifiable or measurable either exist or have some affect on our experience of the universe.
Perhaps you don't necessarily need God either, if metaphysics is sufficient. That's a different debate.
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So don't ever call me lucky
You don't know what I done, what it was, who I lost, or what it cost me - A B Original: I C U
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Love is as strong as death (Song of Solomon 8:6).
Posts: 2958 | From: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road | Registered: Apr 2005
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Dark Knight
Super Zero
# 9415
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Posted
Croesus, I am quite tired of demonstrating why your idiosyncratic appropriations of my posts are actually straw men. So I'm not going to do it anymore. Believe what you like about what I'm saying, since you clearly plan to anyway.
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So don't ever call me lucky
You don't know what I done, what it was, who I lost, or what it cost me - A B Original: I C U
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Love is as strong as death (Song of Solomon 8:6).
Posts: 2958 | From: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road | Registered: Apr 2005
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
The assertions you are making would be true if everything were empirically verifiable, or perhaps more importantly in this case, measurable. Of course, this is not the case. As I've asserted a number of times, phenomena such as love cannot be measured using scientific methods.
Why "measurable"? Isn't your objection to any kind of sensory evaluation? For example, if a man beats his wife, we usually take that as evidence that he doesn't really love her, at least for any value of "love" that has any meaning. Given that this is based on empirical observations using the senses, shouldn't your objection cover any conclusions drawn from those observations; that they're not a reliable measure of reality?
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
Category error. This is one of the things IngoB is trying to get you to understand. The question of global warming is a question for science. The question of the existence of God is not. Exactly the mistake Dawkins makes.
This is one of the things IngoB is trying to assert - it just happes to be untrue. I'm aware of the Non Overlapping Magesteria position.
I have never knowingly identified with that position. Philosophically, I'm a (vaguely) Thomist realist who has unresolved issues concerning the connection of essences to modern scientific thought. I certainly affirm the Catholic dogma as true though that the existence of God can be proven from nature - which is incompatible with NOMA, or at least certainly with your caricature of NOMA. However, I do have respect for Gould even though I think he was mistaken in proposing NOMA. For him it was precisely not just a means for religious people to keep their pride in the face of defeat, as you claim, but rather a means to make intellectual room for all that is good and important about religion.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Wood
The Milkman of Human Kindness
# 7
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
For him it was precisely not just a means for religious people to keep their pride in the face of defeat, as you claim, but rather a means to make intellectual room for all that is good and important about religion.
Yes. Exactly this. The "pride in defeat" thing is wholly as patronising as the Batman vs. Superman analogy. FWIW I quite like it but I am no expert and defer to Ingo's knowledge in stuff like this cos he simply knows more.
[ 06. October 2014, 18:54: Message edited by: Wood ]
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Narcissism.
Posts: 7842 | From: Wood Towers | Registered: Apr 2001
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:
Dafyd: No theory has ever been rejected by working scientists, or anybody else, because it was Popperian falsified, or because it wasn't genuinely independently verifiable.
don't understand, many theories and hypotheses are falsified. Ether is an example. Or am I reading you wrong?
The idea is that for any genuine theory there must be some determinate set of observations that would falsify the theory.
This does not work. There is no algorithmic or objective method for deciding whether any given determinate set of observations would be sufficient to falsify that theory.
Suppose a planet wobbles in its orbit in a way inconsistent with Newtonian physics? Does that falsify Newtonian physics? Or does it falsify the belief that there are no unobserved planets? In the case of Uranus, positing an additional planet (Neptune) was the right thing to do. In the case of Mercury, the right thing to do was not to posit Vulcan, but to reject Newtonian physics. Any given experimental result can be made consistent with observation if you make sufficient additional assumptions. You're not supposed to do that on Popperian grounds, but people actually practicing in the natural sciences do it all the time.
A theory is only rejected when the intellectual inconvenience of saving it outweighs the intellectual inconvenience of rejecting it. In practice, this means that scientific theories are only likely to be considered falsified when another theory is waiting in the wings, or if they're intellectually awkward anyway. But there is no fully objective algorithm for determining when that point is reached - there will always be disagreement about when to reject a theory.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
quote:
Dafyd: The idea is that for any genuine theory there must be some determinate set of observations that would falsify the theory.
This does not work. There is no algorithmic or objective method for deciding whether any given determinate set of observations would be sufficient to falsify that theory.
More or less. Which observations could falsify the theory can very well depend on the situation, there doesn't need to be one determinate set.
Are you saying that what happened in the case of Uranus and the case of Mercury gave rise to different theories, and therefore there wasn't one determinate set of observations, and therefore there's something wrong with falisifyability? I don't think it works like that. Uranus and Mercury are different cases. It isn't the same kind of 'wobbles'.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Wood:
See, you're doing it again. You cannot compare theology as an academic discipline with neckbeards arguing about which of a privileged fascist with enduring PTSD and an all-powerful but morally upright guy in blue tights would win in a fight. That is insanely reductionist. You can see why someone who, oh, I don't know, once failed a PhD* in early church writings, might consider that on the verge of insulting?
You cannot politely compare the two. If we're sticking to politeness we're going to have to nuke this entire thread - as it is about a derogatory slur that was invented to sling mud at one group of people. We're also going to have to carpet-bomb significant parts of theology; any that involve hell and who belongs there. It is very hard to come up with anything more insulting than the insults and accusations that were slung by the early church at each other.
That said, you really can't compare the beards of comic fans and theologians.
And my personal apologies - especially as you've been the single most polite and balanced person in this discussion and I'm coming in from a position about three steps outside my personal one.
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
I must admit I wasn't aware of this NOMA, but have googled it. Interesting. It's an assertion made by a scientist about the boundaries between theology and science, not a theologian. Props to them for taking the initiative to assert the boundaries. Now you want to trample them.
I feel like a sheepdog who's just got the beggars penned, but one pops out again.
The assertions you are making would be true if everything were empirically verifiable, or perhaps more importantly in this case, measurable. Of course, this is not the case. As I've asserted a number of times, phenomena such as love cannot be measured using scientific methods.
Love is a very good example. The full complexities of love can not be measured by any form of science we have available. However love has definite neurochemical effects. Those definitely can be investigated no matter how you draw the boundaries of science neurochemical effects are definitely within the boundaries it covers. Even if you can not directly investigate love through science you can investigate the consequences. You can show that love is a thing though science - and indeed if love was not a thing there would be no such measurable consequences. Even if the explanation for love is not approachable with scientific tools, the effects of the state of being in love on humans is.
God, in this way, is like love. Even if you can't get at God directly through the scientific method, if God has any directed effect on the world (as opposed to a deist God) then the effects of God's interventions in the world would be measurable. And measurement of such is the domain of science.
quote:
However, there are phenomena that cannot be measured or observed, and these are not open to scientific enquiry.
This much is true. There could easily be an alien civilisation on another planet in a far away galaxy that we can not observe. But the corollary to this is that any phenomenon that can not be measured or even observed can have no impact on any living human being in any way. Because if it did you could measure the change in that human.
It's possible to argue that we just haven't found the ways yet or we've misattributed something we have found. But the only way to argue it's impossible to measure is to argue that it doesn't have any impact.
[ 06. October 2014, 22:24: Message edited by: Justinian ]
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My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.
Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.
Posts: 3926 | From: The Sea Coast of Bohemia | Registered: Dec 2003
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
The motive is presumably to preserve the reputation of science by dismissing anything that has actually been falsified as never having been science to begin with.
Nope. If we want to play the "Speculate about motivations" game I can do it right back at you. Especially when you've opened the conversation by using a snarl word ("Scientism") and attempting to define the other side.
Is 'snarl word' a snarl word? A snarl phrase maybe? For that matter, auto-proctoscopy seems awfully close to attributing motives. No doubt you're right that I shouldn't attribute motives, although Croesos was doing something similar upthread. Hell, LilBuddha's opening post is all about motives.
Sometimes, if what you object to is an attitude that is narrowly dismissive of anything outside its ambit, snarling at it is the only way forward. What is the alternative? Describing Galton's error in eugenics as 'pushing the boundaries of knowledge'? That could have unfortunate implications. Oh no we mustn't push the boundaries of knowledge?
As I noted earlier in the thread, there are people around these days who think that if you put a cloak of scientific jargon over sexism you've somehow ceased to be sexist. That seems pretty close to Galton's error. The error is not exactly STEM supremacism, but it seems close enough to be bound up with it under the same label.
quote:
quote:
It would be helpful if we had a word to describe Freud's attitude to science and non-scientific knowledge. Freud believed that knowledge achieved by a scientific methodology was automatically superior to knowledge garnered by any other route.
I don't know my Freud well enough. What did he consider science to include? And was this a premise or was it a conclusion based on observation of the effectiveness of lots of other types of knowledge.
I don't know the exact boundaries that Freud thought science contained: he's pre-Popper and pre-logical positivism, so the policing of the boundaries of science hadn't started up yet. Indeed, he along with Marx was one of the reasons it was felt necessary to start policing the boundaries. (Is it speculating about motives to note that both Freud and Marx are peculiarly disturbing to bourgeois sensibilities?)
Freud certainly thought the boundaries of science contained his theories. He modestly compared his theories to Copernicus and Darwin.
Freud was part of the large current within nineteenth century culture that believed that science would bring about utopia. Let's call the attitude scientific messianism. But the kinds of attitude under discussion in this thread, whether we call them scientism or STEM supremacism or what have you, aren't actually distinct. Perhaps few people any longer believe we'll bring about actual utopia once we've overthrown the shackles of everything that isn't science. But it's a cultural phenomenon, it needs to be talked about, and it doesn't have a self-ascribed name, in part due to the need to repudiate anybody whose rockets have come down in places where they've caused damage.
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[QUOTE][qb]No theory has ever been rejected by working scientists, or anybody else, because it was Popperian falsified, or because it wasn't genuinely independently verifiable.
This would be an interesting proposition if it was, in fact, true rather than a claim that is both Popperian-falsifiable and can be shown to be false.
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Popperian falsification hasn't happened a lot- most of the times I can think of happened in the realm of subatomic physics in the 20th century. Prior to Young's Double Slit experiment the prevailing scientific consensus was that light came in particles - and Poisson's attempt to disprove this by making a prediction that if the wave theory was correct you'd see a band of bright light, that was in fact seen, is one counter example. Rutherford's Alpha Scattering Experiment single-handedly overturned the prevailing plum pudding model of the atom
Strict Popperian falsification is an absolute process. Both examples you cite were proposed as ways of deciding between two competing theories.
In both cases also, there were prior reasons for rejecting the rejected theory. This is clearer with the particle nature of light: there were already observations that the theory couldn't explain prior to Young. And even the double slit experiment on its own was not sufficient. It was only when the Arago spot was observed that the wave theory was decisively adopted. It seems a better description of the facts to say that the Arago spot was the straw that broke the camel's back than to say that it was a single falsifying experiment.
Likewise it appears that Nagaoka had already proposed the nuclear model of the atom prior to the gold foil experiments, on theoretical grounds.
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And as an example for a supposedly scientific theory rejected by a lot of scientists for having no predictions (and being not even wrong) I'm going to cite String Theory.
I think this is a controversy within the scientific community. The Higgs boson wasn't testable until CERN was built. Also, it appears from your article that one of the reasons for rejecting string theory is that people are unhappy with some of the consequences such as the multiverse. (Hasn't the multiverse come up in discussions on the Ship before now?)
[ 06. October 2014, 22:52: Message edited by: Dafyd ]
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
The assertions you are making would be true if everything were empirically verifiable, or perhaps more importantly in this case, measurable. Of course, this is not the case. As I've asserted a number of times, phenomena such as love cannot be measured using scientific methods.
Why "measurable"? Isn't your objection to any kind of sensory evaluation? For example, if a man beats his wife, we usually take that as evidence that he doesn't really love her, at least for any value of "love" that has any meaning. Given that this is based on empirical observations using the senses, shouldn't your objection cover any conclusions drawn from those observations; that they're not a reliable measure of reality?
Croesos, you seem to be consistently taking statements that were to the effect that "empiricism isn't everything" and treating them as if they were statements that "empiricism is nothing".
There is a vast gulf in the middle.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
We need philosophy as well as science. Science gives us knowledge which gives us power. We need the wisdom to know how to use that power.
IngoB's argument for scientism being self-contradictory depends upon treating a philosophical statement - which you might call wisdom if you believe it - as being "knowledge", as being the same sort of thing as the things that the statement is about.
Recognising that philosophy is not the same thing as science, that philosophical propositions and scientific propositions are not quite the same sort of thing, it becomes clear why his argument doesn't work.
I'm also not entirely convinced that scientism is the trespass of science into non-overlapping territory. At least in the sense of love and feelings and the practice of religion being off-limits. Might be true in the sense that you can't derive an "ought" from an "is" and science can only tell us about "is".
Seems to me that scientism is more like idolatry of science. Confusing methods of gaining true knowledge with Truth itself.
Best wishes,
Russ
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
I've not been able to follow this thread as closely as I'd have liked in the past couple of days. The nasty fact of a scientific workshop, which of course continues well into the evening after closing of formal proceedings, has got in the way. So, sorry this is going to be hit and run until I can get back online, and without picking up exact quotes.
Justinian, you seem to have been saying in recent posts that the existence of God would have empirical effects that could be observed by scientific methods. You follow that with an assertion that these effects have not been observed, and therefore based on empirical evidence the existence of God is disproved - or, at least, not positively affirmed. Have I followed your argument accurately so far?
OK, now I'm going to respond on the possibly false assumption that I've followed the general gist of your argument.
First, you don't seem to have specified what effects the existence of God would have in the world. You mentioned miracles, but they're difficult in empiricism because by their very nature they would not necessarily be amenable to scientific investigation - non repeatability being the biggest issue. But, what other effects would God have in the world? Would God (if reasonably close to as described in the Bible and believed in by Christians, Jews and Muslims - just to narrow our definition of God a bit to make life easier) affect physical systems? Probably not, He would 'uphold all things' but there would be no reason that would be discernable as anything other than normal laws of physics. Would God affect human relationships and behaviour? I would say that He would ... but human relationships and behaviour are notoriously difficult to study empirically, and so any effect (or absence of effect) there would be difficult to observe.
Second, would you be able to do any better at verifying or falsifying the alternative hypothesis. If you can test empirically a "God exists" hypothesis, a "God does not exist" hypothesis would be equally amenable to empirical investigation. What would the effects on the world be if there is no God? How would you test these, and where is your scientific data to support the hypothesis? You'll face the same issues as my previous paragraph on evidence to support or falsify the "God exists" hypothesis.
Third, and final for now as I need to finish my breakfast and head out to my conference, do you consider non-empirical evidence and fields of study to be relevant to the discussion of the "God exists" hypothesis? And, if not are you not displaying a tendancy towards the "STEM supremicism" this thread addresses?
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:Of course it's an axiom. You can't verify empiricism itself, it has to be accepted a priori. It's the definition of axiomatic.
I disagree. Your premise is highly suggestive of the conclusion I drew. If "the belief . . . that the senses are reliable indicators of reality" is nothing more than an unjustifiable assumption then legally barring the blind from operating motor vehicles is a form of baseless prejudice.
It isn't if you believe that the moral axiom that people who are similar in all relevant respects ought to be treated similarly is an unjustifiable assumption.
You appear to be conflating 'axiom' with 'unjustifiable assumption'. And then you're conflating 'unjustifiable' in the sense of 'required to get justification started' with 'unjustifiable' in the sense of 'the converse can be justified'.
The claim that if two things are each equal to a third, then they are equal to each other in geometry is an unjustifiable assumption and therefore is a baseless prejudice is certainly interesting.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
Recognising that philosophy is not the same thing as science, that philosophical propositions and scientific propositions are not quite the same sort of thing, it becomes clear why his argument doesn't work.
What sort of proposition is the proposition that philosophical propositions and scientific propositions are not quite the same sort of thing?
Scientific? Or philosophical?
And what about statements in history or anthropology? What sort are they? Is the proposition that representations of the female body in our society encourage demeaning expectations of women's roles a scientific proposition or a philosophical proposition?
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Croesos, you seem to be consistently taking statements that were to the effect that "empiricism isn't everything" and treating them as if they were statements that "empiricism is nothing".
There is a vast gulf in the middle.
Except DK is arguing "empiricism is nothing" or, more accurately, that there's no justification for making a distinction between a scientist making rigorous empirical observations and someone just making up data (e.g. Andrew Wakefield, allegedly). That's a fairly obvious consequence of DK's assertion that there's no reason beyond preference and prejudice to prefer observed reality over anything else.
So yes, there is indeed "a vast gulf" between "empiricism isn't everything" and "empiricism is nothing", but DK advanced the latter argument, not the former.
[ 06. October 2014, 23:57: Message edited by: Crœsos ]
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
You appear to be conflating 'axiom' with 'unjustifiable assumption'. And then you're conflating 'unjustifiable' in the sense of 'required to get justification started' with 'unjustifiable' in the sense of 'the converse can be justified'.
Not at all. I'm using "unjustifiable" in the sense "cannot be justified", which was pretty much the basis of DK's entire post; that there's no reason to "belie[ve] . . . that the senses are reliable indicators of reality" other than simply assuming that they are. His whole argument is that it's impossible to "explain or defend the validity of its bedrock principle" (i.e. that the senses are reliable indicators of reality).
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Justinian, you seem to have been saying in recent posts that the existence of God would have empirical effects that could be observed by scientific methods. You follow that with an assertion that these effects have not been observed, and therefore based on empirical evidence the existence of God is disproved - or, at least, not positively affirmed. Have I followed your argument accurately so far?
A slight misreading of what I'm saying. I'm saying that anyone who is saying categorically that the existence of God can not be investigated is proposing a God who never takes a hand in affairs anywhere near the planet earth.
quote:
OK, now I'm going to respond on the possibly false assumption that I've followed the general gist of your argument.
First, you don't seem to have specified what effects the existence of God would have in the world.
No I haven't. This is because I do not believe that a God with the same attributes is being proposed by all Anglicans. (Or, to be honest, by any other denomination - but Anglicanism is especially fractious). So such a test is not one I can propose - especially not in this company which is overwhelmingly religious.
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But, what other effects would God have in the world?
I don't know. If you consider God to be important rather than irrelevant you tell me.
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Second, would you be able to do any better at verifying or falsifying the alternative hypothesis. If you can test empirically a "God exists" hypothesis, a "God does not exist" hypothesis would be equally amenable to empirical investigation.
This assumes that the God Westboro Baptist Church preaches about is in any measure the same entity as the one Karen Armstrong writes about. And, in contradiction to the old adage, absence of evidence is evidence of absence. I can not think of a single test, however, that would separate an atheistic universe from a deistic one in which God simply left things alone. At least not unless we can reach outside the universe or before the Big Bang.
quote:
Third, and final for now as I need to finish my breakfast and head out to my conference, do you consider non-empirical evidence and fields of study to be relevant to the discussion of the "God exists" hypothesis? And, if not are you not displaying a tendancy towards the "STEM supremicism" this thread addresses?
What definition of non-empirical fields are you using?
And to be relevant? That is largely the domain of the person who thinks that their specific conception of God is demonstrated by such a field.
As for STEM Supremacism, I believe that many of the advances humanity has made are due to the STEM fields. But not all of them - and if all we had were STEM fields we'd be in almost as big a mess as if we didn't have them at all (which would leave us living in caves). Further I believe that any discipline that denies the effectiveness of empirical evidence (I'm thinking in specific of Austrian Economics) and has no other inherent error checking (a la mathematics) will become corrupted simply because humans are ... human and fallible. STEM disciplines have obvious safeguards against such problems and the lapses are therefore rarer and other than in the field of scientific ethics less long lasting than most other fields of study. Further they have clear and positive effects for humans. Therefore I consider STEM subjects to be among the important ones on all counts. Which is a far cry from the claim of the STEM supremacist that STEM subjects are the only important ones. Or those attributed to the mythical scientismist that there is no other form of knowledge.
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My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.
Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.
Posts: 3926 | From: The Sea Coast of Bohemia | Registered: Dec 2003
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Dark Knight
Super Zero
# 9415
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Croesos, you seem to be consistently taking statements that were to the effect that "empiricism isn't everything" and treating them as if they were statements that "empiricism is nothing".
There is a vast gulf in the middle.
Except DK is arguing "empiricism is nothing" or, more accurately, that there's no justification for making a distinction between a scientist making rigorous empirical observations and someone just making up data (e.g. Andrew Wakefield, allegedly). That's a fairly obvious consequence of DK's assertion that there's no reason beyond preference and prejudice to prefer observed reality over anything else.
So yes, there is indeed "a vast gulf" between "empiricism isn't everything" and "empiricism is nothing", but DK advanced the latter argument, not the former.
OMFG. No. I'm. Not.
I have explained that to you several times. Either you don't have the capacity to grasp that, or you are deliberately misrepresenting me.
That post you keep linking to DOES NOT SAY THAT. ![[brick wall]](graemlins/brick_wall.gif)
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So don't ever call me lucky
You don't know what I done, what it was, who I lost, or what it cost me - A B Original: I C U
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Love is as strong as death (Song of Solomon 8:6).
Posts: 2958 | From: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road | Registered: Apr 2005
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Dave W.
Shipmate
# 8765
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Wood:
quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.:
quote:
Originally posted by Wood:
I was in a discussion over the weekend where I discovered to my horror that there are people who did STEM degrees on my Facebook friends list who gebuinely have no idea - no idea - what humanities people actually do, and that is jaw-dropping, that our academic culture has created qualified people who are as ignorant as that, but also it explains both why so-call "scientism" exists at all and why it's nearly impossible to puncture.
I'm surprised that you're surprised. Do you think that "humanities people" generally have any idea of what "STEM people" actually do?
Generally, yes, they have a lot better idea, because for one thing STEM degrees have the advantage of demonstrable outcomes (like, oh, I don't know, iPhones and Mars missions), and discoveries that get reported on in the news; new discoveries in literary criticism or historical research, for instance, do not get reported on the way that the Higgs Boson did.
Or to put it another way, when I was the artist in residence at that university, I was working alongside a compsci department whose research was into how to make smartphones more accessible. I might never have a clue about the maths or code involved in that, but "here is a smartphone, and here is one that is easier to use" is simple to grasp in a way that the work of Roland Barthes just isn't.
The thread has moved on, but I wanted to say that I don't think the juxtaposition of "user interface of a smartphone" with "oeuvre of a French literary theorist" is a particularly compelling illustration of how STEM is better understood by humanities people than the humanities are by STEM people. The former is an aspect of technology that is specifically (even uniquely) intended to be accessible to non-specialists, and the latter is ... not. (I presume.)
One might as well compare a popular TV drama (if you'll accept performing arts as part of the humanities, accessible even to engineers and such) with this sophomore level class in quantum mechanics.
Posts: 2059 | From: the hub of the solar system | Registered: Nov 2004
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
quote:
Dark Knight: That post you keep linking to DOES NOT SAY THAT.
I have to say that I'm with you here. I have the feeling that Crœsos didn't understand that post, and built up a whole line of reasoning based on his misunderstanding of it.
You didn't say "empiricism is worthless". You said "empiricism can't be proven and if Scientism claims to be able to explain / prove everything, then that's a problem".
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
But how would he know its based on a false premise if he's never studied it?
Because "God exists" is a premise of most theology. Theology is the study of the concept of God. You can write however many papers you like on the subject of what kind of cheese the moon is made from - and I don't have to read any of them to reject them all in favour of the idea that the moon is made from rock.
Ignoring your silly analogy, that's not an answer to why "God exists" is a false premise. To assert it as a false premise implies you have evidence to believe it's a false premise. To assert God doesn't exist because of a lack of evidence is a failure of logic. It's an argument from ignorance or personal incredulity.
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a theological scrapbook
Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009
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Dark Knight
Super Zero
# 9415
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Posted
Justinian - to point out the neuro chemical affects of love is to continue down the same erroneous path and to tangle up the mess we've been trying to untangle this whole time. This is also, as I understand it, the basis of one of AC's critiques of your position (and maybe Wood's). Namely, it is reductionist to the point of absurd, and also proceeds from inaccurate ontological assumptions.
Love is a bit easier to demonstrate this with than God. You cannot look at chemical reactions or brain scans and say "this is the effect of love" before answering the much more important ontological question of what love actually is. Otherwise, how could you know what you are measuring? I would argue that it is actually impossible to do this, because love is such an important phenomenon, impacting us in so many ways, often contingent and unpredictable, that to point to a colour on a brain scan and say "this is love" is absurd.
I guess you could do this by asking people about the effects of faith in God, and try and measure those results, or perhaps compare the brain scans of two people, one who believes in God and one who does not. But this wouldn't confirm or disconfirm the existence of God, just make some (quite dubious) observations about the effects of belief. Even that would be hopelessly reductionistic.
In short, you continue down the line of answering questions that cannot be answered empirically, using strictly empirical methods. Which must lead to reductionism, and bypasses the difficult questions about ontology, that if not addressed will lead inevitably to the wrong assumptions, followed by fallacious conclusions.
ETF Spelling because writing on an iPhone is hard. And maybe because I can't spell. ![[Hot and Hormonal]](icon_redface.gif)
[ 07. October 2014, 01:45: Message edited by: Dark Knight ]
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So don't ever call me lucky
You don't know what I done, what it was, who I lost, or what it cost me - A B Original: I C U
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Love is as strong as death (Song of Solomon 8:6).
Posts: 2958 | From: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road | Registered: Apr 2005
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