Thread: Scientism: Why all hot and bothered about it? Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.


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Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :
 
quote:
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
Many religious, philosophical and spiritual folk get really worked up by this POV. Why? and why is it inherently less valid than Christianity or Buddhism or whatever?
Why must there be this nebulous more?
Why is this considered, by many, to be so whacky, wet and wrong?
Now, I appreciate that theists and non-theists do believe in something more. That should be obvious.
But scientism is used pejoratively to the point of being a substitute for stupid.
Why is it stupid?
 
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 
I think the scientific method is wonderful. But it doesn't explain everything.

It isn't less valid than my personal faith; they are complementary to eachother.
 
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :
 
In my experience "scientism" is just shorthand for "science that says something I don't like" (e.g. the Earth revolves around the Sun, biological species change over time, the 'tears' from that statue are coming from a cracked waste water line, etc.) This allows someone to say science is wonderful, while still allowing the ability to dismiss inconvenient scientific findings.
 
Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :
 
I think it is the perspective that science is the only or main realm of truth that is the problem.

Whereas religious people want their perspective to be that.

In truth, they are both valid, complimentary and parts of the truth - neither is as significant as they think they are. Neither is dominant in terms of truth, both provide some insights. SO I have a problem with scientism as I do with any other fundamentalist religious perspective.
 
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :
 
In reality, very few people are absolutely scientistic. For example, most people I know who value science highly, still accept that some subjects are outside its domain, for example, aesthetics, maths, morality.

And I don't think anybody actually lives from moment to moment via science, do they? It would be odd to do that, if not impossible.
 
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 
What I do object to, is people saying things like "Scientism is the only truth, your religion is just a backward superstition" or stuff like that. Scientism is a belief too, and as long as its adherents admit that, I don't have much of a problem with it.
 
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 
Scientism is the view that any bollocks that a scientist, for a suitably broad definition of scientist, says is scientifically proven is automatically correct, especially if it has nothing to do with their area of research, or involves leaps of logic a mile wide.

For example, "science shows that women's brains are very slightly different from men's brains on average, therefore any feminist ideals beyond minimal legal equality are pointless" would be an example of scientism.

[ 02. October 2014, 19:29: Message edited by: Dafyd ]
 
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Scientism is the view that any bollocks that a scientist, for a suitably broad definition of scientist, says is scientifically proven is automatically correct, especially if it has nothing to do with their area of research, or involves leaps of logic a mile wide.

You've been reading those climate denialist websites again. Taking the pronouncements of a civil engineer or dentist as definitive pronouncements on climatology isn't scientism, it's crankery.

[ 02. October 2014, 19:44: Message edited by: Crœsos ]
 
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :
 
That, Dafyd, is the pejorative use, not the definition. And a misapplication of science as well.

quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
What I do object to, is people saying things like "Scientism is the only truth, your religion is just a backward superstition" or stuff like that. Scientism is a belief too, and as long as its adherents admit that, I don't have much of a problem with it.

Problem with this is they are not equal.
Belief in the teachings of Christianity, or indeed Buddhism, require a greater level of faith.
Belief in the possibility of being able to explain the things with a naturalistic explanation has a slightly better track record.
 
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 
quote:
lilBuddha: Problem with this is they are not equal.
Belief in the teachings of Christianity, or indeed Buddhism, require a greater level of faith.
Belief in the possibility of being able to explain the things with a naturalistic explanation has a slightly better track record.

No, I'm sorry. That science has explained some things very well is no guarantee that it will be able to explain other things. (Besides, this 'levels of faith' thing is pretty much meaningless to me.)
 
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :
 
Science is the investigation into how things work. It has a pretty good track record, and whilst past performance is no guarantee of future success, it is not so great a leap.
Religion is purely faith. We cannot prove, even to a reasonable level, that either Jesus or Buddha existed, much less were correct in their teachings.
They are approaching this from a more defensible position than are we. This is not to say I inherently agree with them, but the footing is not equal.
 
Posted by Byron (# 15532) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
In my experience "scientism" is just shorthand for "science that says something I don't like" (e.g. the Earth revolves around the Sun, biological species change over time, the 'tears' from that statue are coming from a cracked waste water line, etc.) This allows someone to say science is wonderful, while still allowing the ability to dismiss inconvenient scientific findings.

Yup, so often the case. [Mad]

Science is categorically incapable of answering some kinds of questions: for example, no experiment can tell you whether a given action is right or wrong. Science can inform ethics, but never decide it, 'cause that kind of answer isn't quantifiable.

But cries of "scientism" so often go beyond that into claims that science must give houseroom to supernatural claims, or "show respect" to religious creation myths. Exactly the kind of material claims that science is eminently qualified to address.
 
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 
quote:
lilBuddha: Science is the investigation into how things work. It has a pretty good track record, and whilst past performance is no guarantee of future success, it is not so great a leap.
Religion is purely faith. We cannot prove, even to a reasonable level, that either Jesus or Buddha existed, much less were correct in their teachings.

In the OP, you asked what bothers people about Scientism. It is mostly people saying things like this [Smile]

I do think the leap is very large, regarding to some Big Questions™ that Science hasn't been able to answer. And I don't think it is fair to judge faith by what it can or cannot prove. It is not the purpuse of faith to prove things.
 
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:
lilBuddha: Science is the investigation into how things work. It has a pretty good track record, and whilst past performance is no guarantee of future success, it is not so great a leap.
Religion is purely faith. We cannot prove, even to a reasonable level, that either Jesus or Buddha existed, much less were correct in their teachings.

In the OP, you asked what bothers people about Scientism. It is mostly people saying things like this [Smile]
But what is wrong about my statement? What inspires the ire?

quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:

I do think the leap is very large, regarding to some Big Questions™ that Science hasn't been able to answer.

It was not that long ago, in our existence as modern humans, that we thought the sun rotated around the earth. How far we have come, it is not unreasonable to think we will continue to grow in understanding.
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
And I don't think it is fair to judge faith by what it can or cannot prove. It is not the purpuse of faith to prove things.

No, it is not the purpose of faith to prove things, this is one reason it is called faith.
To me, faith and science are different paths for different quests. But I do not find offencive those who feel science is all that is necessary.
 
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 
quote:
lilBuddha: But what is wrong about my statement? What inspires the ire?
Ire is a big word, let's call it a mild irritation.

quote:
lilBuddha: It was not that long ago, in our existence as modern humans, that we thought the sun rotated around the earth. How far we have come, it is not unreasonable to think we will continue to grow in understanding.
And we will (although the progress of scientific discovery seems to have slowed down significantly in the last couple of decades). But that's not the point. I believe that there are some questions that lay without the realm of the scientific method. It hasn't even begun to find ways to answer them.

quote:
lilBuddha: No, it is not the purpose of faith to prove things, this is one reason it is called faith.
To me, faith and science are different paths for different quests. But I do not find offencive those who feel science is all that is necessary.

I agree, and neither do I.
 
Posted by Kwesi (# 10274) on :
 
Isn't "scientism" meant to refer to statements that claim to be scientific in nature but cannot be verified as such? Very often they involve a confusion of fact and value. Social Darwinism would be an example.
 
Posted by Russ (# 120) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:

Why is it stupid?

It's not stupid. What it is is threatening to authoritarian religion.

Scientism is the philosophy of science applied to life. And that philosophy has no place for religious authority.

It says that science will get there in the end because every wrong hypothesis, every mis-step on the way to truth, will be questioned and doubted until someone finds experimental evidence to correct it.

What could be more subversive of religious authority ?

Best wishes,

Russ
 
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Scientism is the view that any bollocks that a scientist, for a suitably broad definition of scientist, says is scientifically proven is automatically correct, especially if it has nothing to do with their area of research, or involves leaps of logic a mile wide.

You've been reading those climate denialist websites again. Taking the pronouncements of a civil engineer or dentist as definitive pronouncements on climatology isn't scientism, it's crankery.
Could you explain why exactly you decided to ignore the example I actually gave, and substitute an example of your own, which you yourself concede is completely irrelevant?
 
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
That, Dafyd, is the pejorative use, not the definition. And a misapplication of science as well.

That's rather like saying that 'prejudice against LGTB etc' is the perjorative use of homophobia, not the definition. By definition, the term is perjorative. Which doesn't mean it's not applicable.

Likewise, I don't see why saying that it's a misapplication of science is an objection. One would think that the point of using the term 'scientism' is to intimate that science can be misapplied.
For example, economics for the past hundred years and change has been trying to ape the methods of science, or the scientists. The principle is that the more something looks like science the more authority it has, and the less authority lay people and outsiders have to disagree with you.

Likewise, a pop psychologist can put forward Just So stories about the evolution of your favoured behaviour in early hominids in the Rift Valley that gives you extra credibility, because evolution and early hominids are Science, and therefore anyone who thinks you're putting forward Just So Stories is on a par with flat earthers and creationists.

If you're Matt Ridley you can do both at the same time.
 
Posted by fletcher christian (# 13919) on :
 
.....because it's infused with the human pride that says, 'We can know everything; and in knowing everything we can make it all better',and when it is held up to religious fundamentalism, all the same ugliness it purports to be rid of is reflected in its self absorbant gaze.
 
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
Scientism is the philosophy of science applied to life. And that philosophy has no place for religious authority.

It says that science will get there in the end because every wrong hypothesis, every mis-step on the way to truth, will be questioned and doubted until someone finds experimental evidence to correct it.

The philosophy of science applied to life seems to be pretty much how neoclassical economics likes to think of itself.
That neoclassical economics does question and doubt every wrong hypothesis and every mis-step on the way to truth is I think open to doubt.

One might think that Keynesian economics has a better record of success in both describing life, and indeed in questioning itself when it gets things wrong. But one of the things that Keynesians tend to reject is the idea that economics is or should be one of the sciences. That is, Keynesians tend to believe that economic beliefs are inevitably formed with political and value judgements taken into account, and therefore cannot aspire to the value neutrality of the physical or life sciences.
 
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
I've got nothing against science - my original training was engineering an then I was in various research jobs on and off for the next 20 years.

But the problem is that Science is a series of Hypotheses that are used as Models that are constantly being revised, tweaked, confirmed, debated, pulled apart and rewritten. Scientism otoh is a belief held by set of people who call themselves scientific but think the models are real an that it's all guaranteed, foolproof, in tablets of stone and definitive of the limits of possible realities.

Science as applied in the West - very successfully - is also reductionist. It does not handle holistic systems very well - it does much better at breaking things down and looking at the parts. So the natural conclusion IF one believes that everything is reducible without losing something important, is that life is an automaton an there is no free will - it is all deterministic if we could only do enough calculations. When this belief is turned round and applied in social policies, ethics, etc, it's a disaster. There is no basis for morality other than a set of rules that could be any other set of rules. And again, the people who put these together seem to have insufficient self awareness (partly because they believe in Science and Objectivity) that the reason those rules have been chosen is not objective rationality in its modern sense, but is subjective feelings that are turned unconsciously into a rationalist storyline.

Another aspect of Scientism is a belief in Occams Razor. Strange? Absolutely. NOTHING exists unless it is proven by science. Which means that some things that "exist" don't actually exist, but science happens to be wrong; and other things do exist but don't because science has not demonstrate them yet to the point that a common consensus has been reached. Some Christian sects have taken this one step further by declaring anything that is not proven by science to be the work of the Devil.

William of Ockham must surely be turning in his grave.
 
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:

Likewise, I don't see why saying that it's a misapplication of science is an objection. One would think that the point of using the term 'scientism' is to intimate that science can be misapplied.

Science can certainly be misapplied. As can religion.
Your example, to which I was referring, is science misapplied, not scientism in total.
Homophobia refers to prejudice against LGBT+. Whether someone thinks it justified is irrelevant to the meaning of the word. You can argue for the use of a different term to discuss those who you do not think fit, but the term was coined to broadly encompass.
Scientism is a POV that can coexist with valid, thorough scientific processes. It was coined to describe a POV that does not need any philosophy, not one that does science poorly. That is a misuse which, at best, has become a secondary meaning.
quote:
Originally posted by fletcher christian:
.....because it's infused with the human pride that says, 'We can know everything; and in knowing everything we can make it all better',and when it is held up to religious fundamentalism, all the same ugliness it purports to be rid of is reflected in its self absorbant gaze.

Ah, then, if it is the arrogance then fine. But I would posit that scientism is no more inherently arrogant than any particular religious belief. I do not think one need restrict to fundamentalism to find said arrogance.
 
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Scientism is the view that any bollocks that a scientist, for a suitably broad definition of scientist, says is scientifically proven is automatically correct, especially if it has nothing to do with their area of research, or involves leaps of logic a mile wide.

You've been reading those climate denialist websites again. Taking the pronouncements of a civil engineer or dentist as definitive pronouncements on climatology isn't scientism, it's crankery.
Could you explain why exactly you decided to ignore the example I actually gave, and substitute an example of your own, which you yourself concede is completely irrelevant?
Your opposition to women's rights on the basis you've cited is also crankery, not scientism. It's an almost exact parallel to climate denialism: pet theories posited by someone without real expertise in the field.
 
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
What I do object to, is people saying things like "Scientism is the only truth, your religion is just a backward superstition" or stuff like that. Scientism is a belief too, and as long as its adherents admit that, I don't have much of a problem with it.

Problem with this is they are not equal.
Belief in the teachings of Christianity, or indeed Buddhism, require a greater level of faith.
Belief in the possibility of being able to explain the things with a naturalistic explanation has a slightly better track record.

I would go with LeRoc that scientism requires faith, and also that faith is non-quantifiable, and hence difficult to compare across belief systems.

Scientism requires faith that the scientific method is applicable across the whole of our lives. It has a solid foundation in the very successful track record of describing the physical universe. But, scientism then extrapolates from the success in describing the physical universe to a belief that science will also be successful in describing art, morality, ethics, human relationships, etc, and explaining these (whereas, science doesn't even offer an explanation for the physical universe that is does so well to describe). Extrapolation from what is known to what is uncertain is faith.

That description of working from a secure foundation to belief if things that are based on but not conclusively demonstrated by that foundation is actually very close to how I came to faith in Christ. Which is why I have no problem describing scientism as a religious belief.

There is one additional point about scientism that tends to get under my skin, and hence raise (in me) a level of antagonism that I don't feel towards other religious beliefs. That is that believers tend to present scientism as being synonymous with science. Which it isn't - I'm a practising scientist, that doesn't make me a scientism-ist. There is also a tendency among scientism-ists to talk of science having proved something, whereas any scientist should know is that science can prove nothing. It becomes especially galling when scientism-ists make statements like "science proves there is no god", whereas what they really mean (or, what I think they should be saying) is "modern science does not require a supernatural entity to describe the behaviour of physical systems". There is a big difference between those two statements. Not least that the deity scientism-ists dismiss is a god-of-the-gaps, but even the very high probability of the non-existence of such a deity has not been demonstrated by science.
 
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 
Alan Cresswell expressed much better what I wanted to say.

I'd still like to make a remark about this:
quote:
Alan Cresswell: That is that believers tend to present scientism as being synonymous with science.
This irritates me too. (It happens on the Ship rather frequently.) The reason why this irritates me isn't that this would be a threat to religion. It is because I see it as an insult to Science.
 
Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 
It's "universal applicability" that's the problem.

There are vast realms of life, mostly about the way human beings deal with each other and interact with each other, where science is very limited or prioritises things in a way that is unhelpful. To some branches of science, I am a walking bag of chemicals and electrical impulses. Which is in fact very helpful to know when certain things go wrong with my chemical balance, for example, but is hopelessly inadequate as a means of discussing what happens when I fall in love or when I'm angered by injustice.

And one of the reasons for getting hot and bothered about elevating science as the answer to everything is that it frequently involves a secondary belief, that "the ancients" were a bunch of nincompoops that have nothing of any value to say to us because they lacked the requisite level of science.

Which is why, in these kinds of discussions, I always ask whether the way humans relate to each other has actually changed that much over the last few thousand years. Friends, enemies, parents, children, lovers are not science. They are human relationships. We've been having those for a very long time. People have had brains and eyes for a very long time. The fact that in some cases their explanations of an observed event wouldn't match our scientific ones doesn't mean that they were a bunch of unreliable idiots.
 
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Extrapolation from what is known to what is uncertain is faith.

But religion, and I am including Buddhism, extrapolates from far less.
Yes, science is describing how things work. This is why you can have good Hindu, Christian, Buddhist, atheist, etc., scientists working together happily.
ISTM, the describe v. explain is largely semantic.
I do not generally find peoples' particular brand of faith, or lack thereof, annoying or irritating. What I do find irritating is the "I'm right, your wrong and stupid to be so". But I find this in every POV I encounter. (Well, above a relative threshold number of individuals)
But be annoyed because adherents to a particular POV believe in an extrapolation as cold, hard evidence? Could not be on this website if I did. We cannot all be right, after all.
 
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 
quote:
lilBuddha: But religion, and I am including Buddhism, extrapolates from far less.
That might be true, I'm not sure.

You seem to put a lot of importance on which belief extrapolates from much and which belief extrapolates from less, building some kind of comparison system between beliefs based on this. I don't really see the value or the sense of such a comparison system.

Would a belief that extrapolates from much be worth more than a belief that extrapolates from less? Why?
 
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:

The fact that in some cases their explanations of an observed event wouldn't match our scientific ones doesn't mean that they were a bunch of unreliable idiots.

Was Newton an idiot because he did not understand what Einstein later described? Was his research useless? No to both, but he was still not quite completely right.
As to the mind, It is observable that changes in the physical structure of your brain alter the perceivable "You".
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:

And one of the reasons for getting hot and bothered about elevating science as the answer to everything is that it frequently involves a secondary belief, that "the ancients" were a bunch of nincompoops that have nothing of any value to say to us because they lacked the requisite level of science.

You are arguing against the expression by some individuals, not the POV itself.

quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
I don't really see the value or the sense of such a comparison system.

The only reason I make a comparison is against the sense that they are any more ridiculous than we are.
 
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 
quote:
lilBuddha: The only reason I make a comparison is against the sense that they are any more ridiculous than we are.
I don't find them (scientismists) ridiculous. At least not in principle. Some of the things they say can be ridiculous. But so can some of the things religious people say.

TBH I'm a bit cautious about comparing beliefs like you did. That's not to say you can't compare them at all. You can compare them by their fruits for example. But this kind of system based on numerical notions of 'more' and 'less' doesn't really seem to lead anywhere.
 
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :
 
I would rather not compare in that fashion either. Discuss and debate, yes. But not to the point of x is better than y.
 
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 
quote:
lilBuddha: I would rather not compare in that fashion either. Discuss and debate, yes. But not to the point of x is better than y.
Exactly. I don't think that would be particularly helpful in this case.
 
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
ISTM, the describe v. explain is largely semantic.

How so?

I can describe the physical properties of an object, such as the desk my computer sits on, it's colour, density, capacity to bear the weight of my computer and a cup of coffee etc. But, does it explain why my desk has those properties?

We could go down two routes. One is to start talking about the molecules that make up the components of my desk, how they reflect light to give colour, how they bond to give strength and density etc. But have I explained why my desk has the properties it has? No, all I've done is add a further layer to the description of the properties of my desk. We could go on, molecules are made of atoms, properties of atoms are described by their electronic structure, which in turn is described by quantum mechanics. All I'm going is adding layers of description, not explanation for why my desk has the properties it has. Ultimately I suppose we get to the question "why does quantum mechanics work to describe the fundamental properties of matter?" which could be an explanation - but one that science can't currently answer. And, if science does answer that in the form of some Theory of Everything all it's done is add yet another layer of description rather than explanation and the question "why this theory of everything?" remains.

The alternative route to explaining the properties of my desk is to talk about a furniture designer. He designed my desk with certain requirements (strong enough to support my computer, large enough that I could sit at a chair with my feet under it, low enough density that it could be transported and assembled without specialist lifting gear etc), and also aesthetic considerations - why that particular shade of green for the surrounds? This is a fundamentally different approach than the reductionist scientific one. And, one that is much more of an explanation than a description.
 
Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
You are arguing against the expression by some individuals, not the POV itself.

In that part of my post I am, yes. And? Are we supposed to confine ourselves to discussion of abstract principles, rather than the way people apply those principles in practice?

[ 03. October 2014, 03:58: Message edited by: orfeo ]
 
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :
 
If your characterisation were a function of scientism, or if it were a characteristic of most of its adherents, it would be fair. But, IME, it is not. Not anymore than Fred Phelps was a good example of Christianity.
 
Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
If your characterisation were a function of scientism, or if it were a characteristic of most of its adherents, it would be fair. But, IME, it is not. Not anymore than Fred Phelps was a good example of Christianity.

Okay, so just focus on the first part where, in terms not dissimilar to Mr Cresswell, I criticise the notion of 'universal application'.
 
Posted by Timothy the Obscure (# 292) on :
 
The first definition of scientism I ever encountered was "the belief that the methods of natural science should be applied in all domains of human understanding." Richard Dawkins put it nicely when he said "all truths are scientific truths" (which is self-refuting, but whatever...)

It's not so much offensive as just lame.
 
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :
 
orfeo,
Sorry, it still hasn't twigged. Perhaps I am being thick, wouldn't be an isolated incident, but I do not get why thinking of the universe in a naturalistic form is such a horrible thing. Why must there be more?
What is an atheist supposed to think about how the universe works? You are asking them to have a belief in some mystical force. Some do, ISTM, but what about those who do not? What else would they believe other than that everything could potentially be explained?

[ 03. October 2014, 05:38: Message edited by: lilBuddha ]
 
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :
 
Clearly, atheists believe that there is nothing outside the universe, no super-natural entities or deities. That's pretty much what "atheist" means.

But atheism is not the same as scientism. Atheism need not expect that human intellect will be able to comprehend everything. And, an atheist need not accept that the only valid way of explaining anything is through science.

Reflecting a bit more, IMO the biggest issue with scientism is that it takes the scientific method and misapplies it into areas of life and study where it will not work.

The scientific method is a tool to help us understand the world. It is a versatile and very effective tool. It is like an intellectual adjustable spanner, able to adapt to fit lots of different scenarios. But, sometimes what you need is a hammer.
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
ISTM, the describe v. explain is largely semantic.

How so?

I can describe the physical properties of an object, such as the desk my computer sits on, it's colour, density, capacity to bear the weight of my computer and a cup of coffee etc. But, does it explain why my desk has those properties?

We could go down two routes. One is to start talking about the molecules that make up the components of my desk, how they reflect light to give colour, how they bond to give strength and density etc. But have I explained why my desk has the properties it has? No, all I've done is add a further layer to the description of the properties of my desk. We could go on, molecules are made of atoms, properties of atoms are described by their electronic structure, which in turn is described by quantum mechanics. All I'm going is adding layers of description, not explanation for why my desk has the properties it has. Ultimately I suppose we get to the question "why does quantum mechanics work to describe the fundamental properties of matter?" which could be an explanation - but one that science can't currently answer. And, if science does answer that in the form of some Theory of Everything all it's done is add yet another layer of description rather than explanation and the question "why this theory of everything?" remains.

The alternative route to explaining the properties of my desk is to talk about a furniture designer. He designed my desk with certain requirements (strong enough to support my computer, large enough that I could sit at a chair with my feet under it, low enough density that it could be transported and assembled without specialist lifting gear etc), and also aesthetic considerations - why that particular shade of green for the surrounds? This is a fundamentally different approach than the reductionist scientific one. And, one that is much more of an explanation than a description.

This is really well said, and pretty much what I was thinking.
The idea that the distinction between describing and explaining is semantic is nonsense. You can't say you've explained the significance of something simply by saying what it is made of. This, to me, is one of the main problems with scientism.
That, and the fact that it also rests on a priori, axiomatic assumptions. Like the proposition that the senses are reliable indicators of what is real - a faith statement if ever I heard one.
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Timothy the Obscure:
The first definition of scientism I ever encountered was "the belief that the methods of natural science should be applied in all domains of human understanding." Richard Dawkins put it nicely when he said "all truths are scientific truths" (which is self-refuting, but whatever...)

It's not so much offensive as just lame.

Agreed. Some of us have been trying to rescue the social "sciences" (ridiculous misnomer if there ever was one) and the humanities from the misappropriation of the scientific method for some time. And expect to be for some time to come.
 
Posted by BroJames (# 9636) on :
 
I think the problem with scientism lies in the final phrase of the definition in the OP: "to the exclusion of all other viewpoints". Taken to its logical conclusion it says that the only meaningful statements are scientific statements. This has two flaws: first it rules huge areas of life as we experience it out of court - ethics, aesthetics, history (to some extent) and many others; secondly it is self undermining in that the scientific method offers no way of establishing whether the scientific method is universally applicable, or whether it is the most valuable part of human learning, let alone that other viewpoints should be excluded.
 
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
Some of us have been trying to rescue the social "sciences" (ridiculous misnomer if there ever was one)

Only a misnomer because the physical sciences have appropriated the word "science" to exclusively cover their particular disciplines.
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
Not really. In the early, positivistic days of disciplines like sociology, it was believed that the application of scientific methods to social "facts" (to use Durkheim's terminology) would yield the capacity to predict social behaviour. We are less sanguine now about predictions, yet many of the methods remain.
 
Posted by fletcher christian (# 13919) on :
 
Posted by LilBuddha:
quote:

But I would posit that scientism is no more inherently arrogant than any particular religious belief. I do not think one need restrict to fundamentalism to find said arrogance.

Very likely true, but that doesn't actually change the point.
 
Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
orfeo,
Sorry, it still hasn't twigged. Perhaps I am being thick, wouldn't be an isolated incident, but I do not get why thinking of the universe in a naturalistic form is such a horrible thing. Why must there be more?
What is an atheist supposed to think about how the universe works? You are asking them to have a belief in some mystical force. Some do, ISTM, but what about those who do not? What else would they believe other than that everything could potentially be explained?

Alan has already answered this in terms I find thoroughly acceptable, but let me put some thoughts in my own words anyway.

No, I'm not asking them to have a belief in some mystical force. I'm not asking them to have a belief in anything at all. More than anything I'm asking them to leave some stuff alone.

You refer to "the universe". I'm not actually that interested in "the universe". I'm interested in human interactions, in emotions, in art, in the sheer wonder of experience. I'm interested in saying that such things don't automatically need dissecting into the component parts of a mechanical process.

You mentioned before that someone could point to changes in my brain to correlate to changes in the perceivable "Me". Sure. But is that actually a useful thing to do? It is if something goes wrong with "Me" and I want it to be fixed, but otherwise I'd suggest a scientific explanation of what makes "Me" is probably missing the point of "Me" altogether.

Frankly, in most contexts it matters very little precisely what in my brain makes me like doing the things that I like (such as my job, most of the time), makes me prefer certain foods, enjoy certain styles of comedy or find myself attracted to certain kinds of people. Analysing these things isn't going to make any of them better.

Suppose that science could explain why I'm homosexual. Heck, maybe one day science could work out how to make me heterosexual. Science isn't going to tell you whether it's a good idea to put that knowledge into practice.

I've got nothing against science. I'm a thoroughly analytical person, and I liked science enough to get a degree in it. But the notion that science is the right approach to everything, at all times, is one I cannot subscribe to.

I don't always need to know how the universe works. Sometimes I just need to live in it.
 
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:

Scientism is a POV that can coexist with valid, thorough scientific processes. It was coined to describe a POV that does not need any philosophy

Scientism is a philosophy.
 
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Your opposition to women's rights on the basis you've cited is also crankery, not scientism. It's an almost exact parallel to climate denialism: pet theories posited by someone without real expertise in the field.

I do hope you omitted some words such as 'example of' between 'Your' and 'opposition' by accident.

This appears to be a case of tactical redefinition.
When the President of Harvard University (an economist - as I noted earlier economists seem particularly given to scientism) says that inequalities between men and women in science may be down to differences in ability, it's pushing things to say the Professor of Harvard is merely indulging in an eccentric notion. (Oxford University maybe - Oxford likes to regard itself as a hotbed of eccentricity; but Harvard?)

I believe the scientific work that is cited in this regard is generally associated with Simon Baron-Cohen. (Difficult to call him a crank.)
Cordelia Fine, a neuroscientist, reviewed the work of Simon Baron-Cohen in her Delusions of Gender. Here. In response to studies reporting cognitive differences between men and women, she cites studies showing that you can alter the distribution of those differences simply by adding or removing a question asking the test subject's gender.

If we look at the wikipedia page we see that in addition to the positive reviews, there are some negative reactions. Simon Baron-Cohen himself is defensive, for obvious reasons. (Nobody likes to be told that their work is invalid because they're importing unconscious sexist assumptions.)
But Lewis Wolpert? Why's he so anti?
Well, an obvious explanation is as follows. He believes only science provides knowledge. Therefore, an explanation using concepts from within the remit of the natural sciences, however weakly evidenced, must be automatically superior to an explanation derived from concepts outside the natural sciences, however strongly evidenced.
An explanation in terms of biology and neuroscience for sex differences, as long as there is any evidence at all in favour of it, absolutely trumps any explanation in terms of unconscious social pressures.
Again, I find it hard to describe Lewis Wolpert as a crank.
The idea behind the label of crankery appears to be to declare anything said using scientific support that later turns out to be wrong as never having been real science to begin with. But the whole defence of science as an enterprise in the modern world turns on the idea that science can and does overcome its own errors. From which it follows that erroneous doctrines cannot be excluded from science merely because erroneous. Nor can it be assumed that the process of rejection is always immediate and uncontroversial within science.
Labelling anything that claims the authority of science, but which is in error, as crankery and therefore irrelevant to the perceived authority of science, looks like an attempt to substitute an idealised version of the scientific process for the real messy version.
 
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:

Likewise, I don't see why saying that it's a misapplication of science is an objection. One would think that the point of using the term 'scientism' is to intimate that science can be misapplied.

Science can certainly be misapplied. As can religion.

Your example, to which I was referring, is science misapplied, not scientism in total.

The OED says that the term scientism applies to three different doctrines:
1) Only knowledge derived from scientific research is valid;
2) Extreme and excessive faith in science and scientists;
3) Beliefs that the methodology of the physical sciences should be applied to other disciplines, such as sociology or philosophy.
The three beliefs as stated are logically independent, although obviously there are reasons why someone who holds one might well hold the other two. (Also, nobody is going to consciously admit to holding 2. ) I think it's fair to say that the conjunction of one and three implies that it is hard if not impossible to misapply science. Therefore, if you're claiming that science has been misapplied you're rejecting scientism as false.

quote:
Homophobia refers to prejudice against LGBT+. Whether someone thinks it justified is irrelevant to the meaning of the word.
I don't believe the word 'homophobia' is widely used by people who regard it as a positive or a neutral thing.

quote:
Scientism is a POV that can coexist with valid, thorough scientific processes. It was coined to describe a POV that does not need any philosophy, not one that does science poorly. That is a misuse which, at best, has become a secondary meaning.
I am a bit struggling to construct a coherent argument out of this paragraph. What I think you're saying is that merely because someone holds to scientism doesn't automatically invalidate any proper scientific work that they're doing. Well, no, it doesn't. I don't think anyone says it does. (I can't speak for Evensong.) But that's irrelevant to anything I was saying.

To summarise why people might say scientism is objectionable:
Scientism sense 1) is objectionable because it declares a priori that everything that isn't science - history, philosophy, cultural anthropology, cultural studies - is invalid. Rather like some Christians claiming that anything that originates from outside the Christian tradition is automatically valueless. I hope we can agree that's objectionable when Christians do it.
Scientism sense 3) is less objectionable on its own, but nevertheless a fertile source of intellectual error if there are good reasons why the methodology of the natural sciences is inappropriate to a certain area. But it does tend to go along with 1).
 
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:

Why must there be this nebulous more?

Because it is the most reasonable explanation.
 
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Many religious, philosophical and spiritual folk get really worked up by this POV. Why?

Because it is used to attack religion, philosophy and spirituality.

quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
and why is it inherently less valid than Christianity or Buddhism or whatever?

Because it is hypocritical to the point of being self-contradictory. Simply put, the key assertion of scientism "only knowledge established by empirics and the scientific method is valid / trustworthy" is not itself a statement that can be established by empirics and the scientific method. Thus the key assertion of scientism declares itself to be invalid / untrustworthy. At which point one can do little more than to point and laugh.

quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Why must there be this nebulous more?

Because the modern scientific method is a design compromise: greater certainty for the price of less scope. Quite consciously, modern science has withdrawn from many domains of human knowledge, not to speak of higher thought in general, in order to nail down things with greater precision. That there is more than science is not news in any conceivable way, that is so by construction.

Scientism is basically the statement that everything must be nail since you have a hammer. Saying that this is stupid and that there are other things than nails is not some kind of attack on the value of a hammer or its usefulness in driving in nails.

Let's be clear, if there is no god then scientism is still wrong. Well, it is self-contradictory so it is wrong no matter what, but I mean it is just dumb even if we ignore that. Buddhism for example is incompatible with scientism. As is thinking about where you want to spend your next vacation. Or anything else really other than working as empirical scientist on some research (as I do for a living).

quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
But scientism is used pejoratively to the point of being a substitute for stupid. Why is it stupid?

Because of life, the universe and everything.
 
Posted by Wood (# 7) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
To summarise why people might say scientism is objectionable:
Scientism sense 1) is objectionable because it declares a priori that everything that isn't science - history, philosophy, cultural anthropology, cultural studies - is invalid. Rather like some Christians claiming that anything that originates from outside the Christian tradition is automatically valueless. I hope we can agree that's objectionable when Christians do it.
Scientism sense 3) is less objectionable on its own, but nevertheless a fertile source of intellectual error if there are good reasons why the methodology of the natural sciences is inappropriate to a certain area. But it does tend to go along with 1).

I think that "scientism" with all its pejorative baggage (eg its use as an insult by six-dayers etc) isn't a particularly helpful term. I've heard a lot of talk on the other hand on the academic and political battle lines I tend to stand on of STEM supremacists, which extends the attitude beyond issued of faith.

For example, a university run by STEM supremacists which has spent a decade gutting its humanities departments and which, when given a pot of money for an artist in residence (notwithstanding it having closed it's art and theatre departments years ago) spent the six months of the residency flatly refusing to acknowledge the existence of said artist, and asked him at the end of his time why he hadn't turned a profit.*

This colossal point-missing is typified by the sort of thing Terry Eagleton pointed out in his review of The God Delusion - the person who critiques religion as a thing without really knowing all that much about religion is more or less the same thing as putting an engineering professor in charge of an arts project.

*yes, ok, it's a personal experience, I was that artist etc.

[ 03. October 2014, 18:37: Message edited by: Wood ]
 
Posted by Wood (# 7) on :
 
So many typos in that post. So sorry. It's what comes of writing it on a phone.
 
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :
 
Rather than address particular points, I will make this general. And please believe I am not being dismissive or derisive.

Every criticism I am hearing could apply to any theist or philosophy otherwise represented here.
I am seeing no reason why the concept of scientism should generate any more rancor than any other difference.

Yes, there is sectarian squabble here. But, other than the occasional "Kill the Papists"! and "Burn in Hell, Protestant Heretic" it is generally not at the same level.
 
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Wood:
I think that "scientism" with all its pejorative baggage (eg its use as an insult by six-dayers etc) isn't a particularly helpful term. I've heard a lot of talk on the other hand on the academic and political battle lines I tend to stand on of STEM supremacists, which extends the attitude beyond issued of faith.

I'm not sure that STEM supremacism couldn't also be taken over by six-day creationists. But on the whole I think I'd agree that 'STEM supremacism' probably has less connotative baggage.
 
Posted by Wood (# 7) on :
 
Also, the problem I have with the term "scientism" is that someone who necessarily believes in it is a "scientist", and I always thought that the term was used by people who primarily wanted to use it to defame scientists (as in, suggesting they're believers rather than practitioners) rather than argue a point.
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Rather than address particular points, I will make this general. And please believe I am not being dismissive or derisive.

Every criticism I am hearing could apply to any theist or philosophy otherwise represented here.
I am seeing no reason why the concept of scientism should generate any more rancor than any other difference.

Then you are not listening well.
Wood's post is the one that makes it clearest to me. We are not talking about discourses that exist on a level plain. We are discussing discourses that struggle against each other because some - one in particular, the uncritical and naive view that science is the best answer to everything - are more powerful in our societies than others. Hence the rancour by those who feel that certain ideas and points of view are being systematically excluded.
Wood's post is also worrying because it shows how easily scientism - not science, to be clear - can be co-opted by economic rationalism (that's an Australian term - you lot are probably more familiar with the term "Neo-liberalism"). And that is really of concern.
 
Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
I am seeing no reason why the concept of scientism should generate any more rancor than any other difference.

Who said it did? Personally I have a dislike of fundamentalism of any kind, not just the particular brand of fundamentalism that says science is the answer to everything.
 
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
I am seeing no reason why the concept of scientism should generate any more rancor than any other difference.

Who said it did?
It appears to be so on this site. Could be just my inference, true, but it genuinely appears this way to me.
I do not care for fundamentalism either.
Nor knee-jerk reactions and, in the main, that is what many cries of scientism on SOF have been.
I am not a scientism-ist.
But it is the same category error to say science will never be able to describe everything as it is to say everything can or will be described by science.
 
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
But it is the same category error to say science will never be able to describe everything as it is to say everything can or will be described by science.

Why? Does science actually claim to be able to describe everything? Is not the very success of modern science in part because scientists have limited the scope of what they attempt to explain? If "being able to explain everything" is something that the vast majority of scientists wouldn't even contemplate claiming, how is it in the same ball park as a claim that science can explain everything?
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
What AC said.
And the ability to describe everything does not mean that everything can be explained. Description and explanation are clean different things.
The classic example is love. I get quite tired of people telling me that love is a chemical reaction in my brain. No, that isn't love. Describing what happens in one's brain when one is in love doesn't even scratch the surface of the significance of love.
I am always bemused by the scans that tell me "this is your brain on ...." - what do they think they have demonstrated?

[ 04. October 2014, 07:32: Message edited by: Dark Knight ]
 
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
But it is the same category error to say science will never be able to describe everything as it is to say everything can or will be described by science.

It's worth pointing out that the two people on this thread who admit to actually practicing in the natural sciences, Alan Cresswell and IngoB, both consider it an error. Both of them have explained why it is an error based on considerations about the methodologies of the natural sciences.
 
Posted by Wood (# 7) on :
 
Dark Knight's point actually illustrates an important point.

It's not really about a STEM supremacist claiming to explain or describe everything, it's about this sort of person not seeing anything as being outside their expertise.

As someone with a humanities background who works in both technical and artistic fields, it is immensely frustrating to me sometimes how completely ignorant your STEM types can be of other fields of work.

So in Dark Knight's post it's not a materialist viewpoint that's coming into play, it's a basic inability to see that philosophy is a valid field of study.

Or like the conversation I had recently with a guy who's a prof of human sciences where he, a man with a PhD and a string of publications as long as your proverbial arm, simply could not get his head round the idea that a text might be encoded with political and social assumptions independent of whether you know what its author thought, which is like the basis of modern literary criticism, but that's not a proper subject, see, so he doesn't see the point of knowing about it.

The problem isn't science vs. Religion, it's about science vs. philosophy, history, literature, and theology.

[ 04. October 2014, 08:16: Message edited by: Wood ]
 
Posted by Wood (# 7) on :
 
And as Dafyd said, one of the natural results of STEM supremacists thinking jiving contempt for theology is "creation scientists" and people who think that creationism is representative of people of faith.

Edit: I've lost count of the number of fundies I've met who disdain theology as a field of study.

[ 04. October 2014, 08:21: Message edited by: Wood ]
 
Posted by Wood (# 7) on :
 
I have no idea why my phone added the word "jiving" to that post. I should give up this smartphone business as a bad job.
 
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Every criticism I am hearing could apply to any theist or philosophy otherwise represented here.

Rubbish. Scientism is explicitly self-contradictory, see above. It is dead on arrival. None of the major theisms or living philosophies have that problem, or at least not at facepalm level.
 
Posted by Wood (# 7) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Every criticism I am hearing could apply to any theist or philosophy otherwise represented here.

Rubbish. Scientism is explicitly self-contradictory, see above. It is dead on arrival. None of the major theisms or living philosophies have that problem, or at least not at facepalm level.
Problem is that this very idea - that major theisms are in fact a priori bang-your-face-on-your-desk stupid - is the base assumption of most of the perpetrators of the fallacy.

[ 04. October 2014, 08:49: Message edited by: Wood ]
 
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Every criticism I am hearing could apply to any theist or philosophy otherwise represented here.
I am seeing no reason why the concept of scientism should generate any more rancor than any other difference.

Your problem I think, or at least one of your problems, is that you're confusing 'scientism' with 'materialism' or 'physicalism' or some other such philosophy. In your defence you may be reacting to people who are also confusing the two from the other side.

Materialism and physicalism are perfectly good philosophies and do not commit people who hold them to being assholes about people who disagree.
Scientism, or Stem supremacism as Wood has helpfully relabelled it, does require the person who holds it to be an asshole about people who hold expertise in different fields.

Yes, you can find people who hold equivalent asshole-style beliefs in most if not all major religions and philosophies. But you can find people who don't hold equivalent style beliefs. But if a STEM supremacist gives up their belief that theology and cultural studies are just playing games with words then they've ceased to be a STEM supremacist.
 
Posted by BroJames (# 9636) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
<snip>But it is the same category error to say science will never be able to describe everything as it is to say everything can or will be described by science.

I want to juxtapose this with the quotation in the OP because I think (hope) it illustrates the fundamental problem with scientism;
quote:
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
If that quotation is an accurate definition of scientism, then scientism must reject BOTH of the statements in lilBuddah's post quoted above.

NEITHER the statement that "science will never be able to describe everything" nor the statement that "everything can or will be described by science" are statements that are valid or meaningful within a scientistic world view since neither of those statements is capable of being tested by the 'scientific method and approach' nor are they a product of physical science.

Within scientism, therefore, the belief that "the scientific method and approach" is universally applicable, and that "physical science constitutes the most authoritative worldview or most valuable part of human learning to the exclusion of other viewpoints" is in fact a belief untestable by scientific method and approach and not part of physical science, and within that worldview it is a belief which ought, therefore, to be dismissed.

In other words it is a kind of axiomatic statement which declares that axiomatic statements are invalid (since all must be testable by the scientific method and approach, or be a product of the physical sciences).

I can't say with confidence that my irritation with scientism is unrelated to my own religious affiliation. In general, though, I find I do get irritated with logical fallacies being advanced as if they are knock-down arguments for or against a position.
 
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by BroJames:
In other words it is a kind of axiomatic statement which declares that axiomatic statements are invalid (since all must be testable by the scientific method and approach, or be a product of the physical sciences).

Or, as IngoB put it, it "is explicitly self-contradictory, see above. It is dead on arrival."
 
Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
I am seeing no reason why the concept of scientism should generate any more rancor than any other difference.

Who said it did?
It appears to be so on this site. Could be just my inference, true, but it genuinely appears this way to me.
I do not care for fundamentalism either.
Nor knee-jerk reactions and, in the main, that is what many cries of scientism on SOF have been.
I am not a scientism-ist.
But it is the same category error to say science will never be able to describe everything as it is to say everything can or will be described by science.

We must be reading different threads, because I honestly can't see a lot of outbreaks of cries of scientism in the threads I read.

We've got one thread in Hell which appears to be full of caricatures in all directions, but that's the only place I can think of it coming up recently.
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
quote:
Originally posted by BroJames:
In other words it is a kind of axiomatic statement which declares that axiomatic statements are invalid (since all must be testable by the scientific method and approach, or be a product of the physical sciences).

Or, as IngoB put it, it "is explicitly self-contradictory, see above. It is dead on arrival."
Yes, I'm thinking of making Ingo's comment my signature. Very well stated. [Overused]
 
Posted by Wood (# 7) on :
 
STEM supremacists are nearly impossible to combat because of the precise point Ingo made, inasmuch as their idiocy is based upon the base unproven assumption that everyone else is useless, lazy, lightweight or stupid. You can't argue with that. It's almost impregnable.
 
Posted by SusanDoris (# 12618) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
But it is the same category error to say science will never be able to describe everything as it is to say everything can or will be described by science.

Why? Does science actually claim to be able to describe everything? Is not the very success of modern science in part because scientists have limited the scope of what they attempt to explain? If "being able to explain everything" is something that the vast majority of scientists wouldn't even contemplate claiming, how is it in the same ball park as a claim that science can explain everything?
Hear, hear!
 
Posted by SusanDoris (# 12618) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Wood:
I have no idea why my phone added the word "jiving" to that post. I should give up this smartphone business as a bad job.

But Synthetic Dave, my screen reader, read it as an integral part of the post, which added a certin ooomph to it!! [Smile]
 
Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Wood:
Dark Knight's point actually illustrates an important point.

It's not really about a STEM supremacist claiming to explain or describe everything, it's about this sort of person not seeing anything as being outside their expertise.

As someone with a humanities background who works in both technical and artistic fields, it is immensely frustrating to me sometimes how completely ignorant your STEM types can be of other fields of work.

So in Dark Knight's post it's not a materialist viewpoint that's coming into play, it's a basic inability to see that philosophy is a valid field of study.

Or like the conversation I had recently with a guy who's a prof of human sciences where he, a man with a PhD and a string of publications as long as your proverbial arm, simply could not get his head round the idea that a text might be encoded with political and social assumptions independent of whether you know what its author thought, which is like the basis of modern literary criticism, but that's not a proper subject, see, so he doesn't see the point of knowing about it.

The problem isn't science vs. Religion, it's about science vs. philosophy, history, literature, and theology.

Don't make me dig up my C.P. Snow. Or my Alan Sokal. People take pride in not understanding mathematics or the physical sciences...

Seriously, the problem isn't Scientism in particular. It's the idea that "The way I approach the world is the right and only one and there is nothing to be found outside it." Scientism is one manifestation of this form of arrogance - Biblical Fundamentalism is frequently a second (especially in Young Earth Creationist systems). Post-Modernism started off as a reaction to Scientism at its worst - but like most things defined by their opposition has frequently created the mirror case where all viewpoints including that the moon is made of green cheese are equally valid.

And I disagree with Ingob that Scientism is DOA - you can have premises that are not investigatable by a system. On the other hand between Godel's Proof (there are statements that are true but not provable), the Uncertainty Principle (that we can never know exactly where something is and where it is going) and Chaos Theory (that in most complex systems small uncertainties magnify massively) the premise that only scientific and logical knowledge matters is refuted by maths and science.

And to get back to the main point, when the only tool you have is a hammer then everything looks like a nail. Science as your only discipline isn't as dead as theology as your only discipline, or philosophy (now that science has split off from them). Or Lit Crit.

And I don't think there's any discipline that hasn't had the people who practice it consider it the most important thing ever. It's the dark side of this.
 
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 
FWIW, I don't think IngoB's little trick is valid. He made the mistake to formulate the basic assertion of Scientism for them. I think it's possible to formulate it in such a way that doesn't lead to a contradiction.
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
FWIW, I don't think IngoB's little trick is valid. He made the mistake to formulate the basic assertion of Scientism for them. I think it's possible to formulate it in such a way that doesn't lead to a contradiction.

Which, presumably, you will now demonstrate.
 
Posted by saysay (# 6645) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
I am seeing no reason why the concept of scientism should generate any more rancor than any other difference.

As Ingo said, scientism is explicitly self-contradictory. Dead in the water.

And yet it is used by many people to deny other people's lived experiences, to tell them that they are wrong about their description of what happened, because all that really happened was a series of chemical reactions in their brain possibly being caused by some sort of malfunction.

People get a mite put out by that sort of behavior and sometimes react strongly to anyone who seems like they might engage in it as well.
 
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
I trust you have a peer reviewed journal reference to back up that statement?

[ 04. October 2014, 23:29: Message edited by: itsarumdo ]
 
Posted by saysay (# 6645) on :
 
Of course.
 
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
FWIW, I don't think IngoB's little trick is valid. He made the mistake to formulate the basic assertion of Scientism for them. I think it's possible to formulate it in such a way that doesn't lead to a contradiction.

Which, presumably, you will now demonstrate.
The traditional way is to to retract the view that 'science is the only way to discover truth', which is self-refuting, and substitute something like 'no method other than science has been shown to discover truth', which is not apparently self-refuting.

However, this is still very dodgy, because of the use of the word 'truth', which is highly ambiguous, or just vague.

Hence, better to have something like model-dependent realism, which concedes that there is not One True Way. So Hawking, for example, states that models are not real, (in 'The Grand Design'), which seems a long way from scientism.

But 'scientism' is a term of abuse in any case.

[ 05. October 2014, 00:22: Message edited by: quetzalcoatl ]
 
Posted by Pre-cambrian (# 2055) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
But 'scientism' is a term of abuse in any case.

Exactly. Scientism is a term which is (almost) never used by its supposed practitioners. Mikael Stenmark of the University of Uppsala is one of the major definers (and critics) of scientism. He describes in detail various forms of "scientism" but he never acknowledges that the accusation of scientism is externally applied or assesses who applies the term to whom and why.
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
FWIW, I don't think IngoB's little trick is valid. He made the mistake to formulate the basic assertion of Scientism for them. I think it's possible to formulate it in such a way that doesn't lead to a contradiction.

Which, presumably, you will now demonstrate.
The traditional way is to to retract the view that 'science is the only way to discover truth', which is self-refuting, and substitute something like 'no method other than science has been shown to discover truth', which is not apparently self-refuting.

However, this is still very dodgy, because of the use of the word 'truth', which is highly ambiguous, or just vague.

Hence, better to have something like model-dependent realism, which concedes that there is not One True Way. So Hawking, for example, states that models are not real, (in 'The Grand Design'), which seems a long way from scientism.

But 'scientism' is a term of abuse in any case.

Which is quite a wordy way of saying "No, I can't."
With "You lot are big meanies for using the word."
If science stays within its boundaries, no one will complain about its reach. When it starts to transgress them, then its limitations became painfully clear.
Justinian mentions bringing up CP Snow. Go ahead - this isn't the 1950s. Science is the dominant paradigm now. People not only lack a grasp of science itself, but are painfully ignorant of the philosophy of science, yet blindly accept that science must be the best approach to all questions. Dawkins' major problem, for example, is not that he is a poor scientist (he probably isn't), and not that he doesn't understand religion (although he really doesn't) - it's that he has no real grasp of the philosophy of science, and its limits. And that path leads to scientism.
 
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 
quote:
Dark Knight: Which, presumably, you will now demonstrate.
If you ask nicely.
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
I'm not asking at all. Don't if you can't. No skin off my nose.
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
Dawkins' major problem, for example, is not that he is a poor scientist (he probably isn't), and not that he doesn't understand religion (although he really doesn't) - it's that he has no real grasp of the philosophy of science, and its limits. And that path leads to scientism.

This. "All questions of interest can be answered by science" is not a scientific statement; it is a philosophical statement. Dawkins (and many others) confuse science with the philosophical idea that all that matters is what can be answered scientifically (to put it one way). Great scientists, miserable philosophers (as was Carl Sagan by the way). And the question of what can and cannot be determined by science is a question of philosophy, not of science.
 
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
FWIW, I don't think IngoB's little trick is valid. He made the mistake to formulate the basic assertion of Scientism for them. I think it's possible to formulate it in such a way that doesn't lead to a contradiction.

Which, presumably, you will now demonstrate.
The traditional way is to to retract the view that 'science is the only way to discover truth', which is self-refuting, and substitute something like 'no method other than science has been shown to discover truth', which is not apparently self-refuting.

However, this is still very dodgy, because of the use of the word 'truth', which is highly ambiguous, or just vague.

Hence, better to have something like model-dependent realism, which concedes that there is not One True Way. So Hawking, for example, states that models are not real, (in 'The Grand Design'), which seems a long way from scientism.

But 'scientism' is a term of abuse in any case.

Which is quite a wordy way of saying "No, I can't."
With "You lot are big meanies for using the word."
If science stays within its boundaries, no one will complain about its reach. When it starts to transgress them, then its limitations became painfully clear.
Justinian mentions bringing up CP Snow. Go ahead - this isn't the 1950s. Science is the dominant paradigm now. People not only lack a grasp of science itself, but are painfully ignorant of the philosophy of science, yet blindly accept that science must be the best approach to all questions. Dawkins' major problem, for example, is not that he is a poor scientist (he probably isn't), and not that he doesn't understand religion (although he really doesn't) - it's that he has no real grasp of the philosophy of science, and its limits. And that path leads to scientism.

But isn't Hawking actually doing what you want? I mean, he is not saying that science is the best approach to everything; and in fact, he is saying that a scientific model describes and explains observations that have been made, and predicts future ones, including those which might disprove the model.

That seems much more modest to me than 'science explains everything'.

In fact, it tends to upset some people since it says that models are not real. But this sounds like instrumentalism to me - science is useful, but not an insight into reality.
 
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
Science is based on observation - observation is an insight into reality. Interpretation may be real or may not be real. The advances in theoretical physics and chemistry have created a rather skewed vision of science suggesting that it is about prediction. The ability to predict a previously unknown phenomenon is a test of possible (approximate) veracity (within certain limited parameters).

However, it is remarkably difficult to observe without expectation or preconceived ideas of what you might see. So the phrase "You'll see it when you believe it" is as relevant to scientific studies as it is to normal life. Pretty well every major scientific discovery has been made by someone who has been able to transcend their normal way of looking at something, and the capacity to step outside the box of familiarity is remarkably rare. And a lot of scientific experiments in peer reviewed journals - the gold standard of research - are clearly designed with a preconceived view of reality which then determines the design of the experiment. When I first started my research job, my mentor spent half a day with me showing how it is possible to achieve any result you care to achieve by changing often implicit (and therefore largely invisible) assumptions in the experimental design. The world could literally be very different from how we perceive it, purely because our perception is based on layer upon layer of assumptions through generations of science and everyday prejudice and bias. I see scientism as a form of reactionary fundamentalism, because it attempts to paint the world as known an therefore predictable, controllable and safe. Science does not wear these rose tinted glasses, and it's hard work - with the occasional dash of prescience and serendipity as the box suddenly gets a little bigger.
 
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 
I'm not a philosopher, nor an adherent of Scientism, so it might have to be tweaked a bit, but it seems to me that its basic assertion can be formulated something like this.

"The disciplines that rely on the scientific method are sufficient to explain everything that happens in the Universe. All other disciplines can ultimately be reduced to those. We may not be able to make this reduction right now, but one day we will be."

I don't agree with this statement. Like I said, I'm not a Scientism-ist. This is ultimately a statement of faith, a faith I don't adhere to.

But I don't think it's self-contradictory.
 
Posted by Grokesx (# 17221) on :
 
@LeRoc & Dark Knight & Mousethief

I'd agree with LeRoc's definition. The interesting thing is, to me at any rate, that someone can be extremely sceptical of the final part, "...one day we will be" and thus not be guilty of the heinous sin of scientism, yet still not satisfy DK. ISTM that when someone says: "If science stays within its boundaries, no one will complain about its reach" they are not really concerned with the demarcation problem, they are wishing to set the boundaries themselves because, as Croesus said above, they don't like something about the science.

All the academic turf wars stuff seems like a distraction to me. Are you, Dark Knight and Mousethief, saying that the philosophy of science departments should be the science police, decreeing what can be studied as science and what can't? If not, what's so problematical about science sticking its nose into something that may not be amenable to a scientific approach? If the putative scientismist proves to be mistaken, why are you bothered? Seems to me the unspoken fear is that they may be right.
 
Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
Which is quite a wordy way of saying "No, I can't."
With "You lot are big meanies for using the word."
If science stays within its boundaries, no one will complain about its reach. When it starts to transgress them, then its limitations became painfully clear.
Justinian mentions bringing up CP Snow. Go ahead - this isn't the 1950s. Science is the dominant paradigm now. People not only lack a grasp of science itself, but are painfully ignorant of the philosophy of science, yet blindly accept that science must be the best approach to all questions. Dawkins' major problem, for example, is not that he is a poor scientist (he probably isn't), and not that he doesn't understand religion (although he really doesn't) - it's that he has no real grasp of the philosophy of science, and its limits. And that path leads to scientism.

What on earth makes you think that science is more culturally dominant now than shortly after the atom bomb was dropped? Than when architectural monstrosities like Brasilia (as well as a lot of awkward architecture) were being built? Than when we had 1950s utopian sci-fi?

As for a definition of scientism that might be accepted by those accused of it rather than being a pure snarl-word, try:
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.

And there certainly has been a lot of "knowledge" (such as phologiston, the theory of humours, freudian psychology, and much much more) that has been either false information, information that's person-specific (Freud's psychoanalysis was largely true ... for Freud), masturbatory (post-Galton eugenics, and Galton stands as an excellent case in point), or just plane false.

For another definition of scientism that would be accepted by many scientismists try:
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.

To either of these you just add a surprisingly small pinch of bias ("“By definition”, I begin
“Alternative Medicine”, I continue has either not been proved to work, Or been proved not to work. You know what they call “alternative medicine” That's been proved to work? Medicine.”" - Tim Minchin, Storm) and a pinch of people who have one true way approaches, and a lack of curiosity outside their field, and you get Scientismists.

[ 05. October 2014, 20:02: Message edited by: Justinian ]
 
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
As for a definition of scientism that might be accepted by those accused of it rather than being a pure snarl-word, try:
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.

And there certainly has been a lot of "knowledge" (such as phologiston, the theory of humours, freudian psychology, and much much more) that has been either false information, information that's person-specific (Freud's psychoanalysis was largely true ... for Freud), masturbatory (post-Galton eugenics, and Galton stands as an excellent case in point), or just plane false.

An interesting list.

If someone holds to a falsificationist view of science, then you ought to believe that phlogiston theory was a respectable scientific theory for about a hundred years - as respectable as quarks, for example. It was falsifiable, and in the course of things it was eventually falsified. But no. Phlogiston gets used as a codeword for metaphysical non-explanations, and lumped together with Freudianism and eugenics as examples of things that are obviously not science. 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.

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. Perhaps we could call that attitude 'scientism'.
Because the only difference between Freud's attitude to science and Dawkins' attitude to science was that Freud was a lot more original and creative. If Freud were around now he would be claiming his theory was falsifiable. Because the only difference between STEM and cultural studies except degree.

Claiming that Freud's theory was true of Freud only is a fairly standard dismissal of a theory that half the brightest minds of the Western world felt as a new revelation, and the other half felt as a demon that must be exorcised.

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. You point this out to Popperians and they say that they're not describing science as it is actually practiced; they're describing scientific rationality as it ought to be practiced. Which is to say that even Popperians don't abandon theories just because there's evidence against them.
 
Posted by Gildas (# 525) on :
 
Originally posted by Dafyd:

quote:
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.
Pons and Fleischmann?
 
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :
 
It's arguable whether Fleishman and Pons presented a hypothesis at all, was it mainly (entirely?) just an observation that was contrary to expectations from the accepted theory of nuclear fusion. If their experiment had been reproducible it would have given nuclear theory a big dent, and would require a revision to nuclear theory or a new theory of nuclear behaviour. Their paper proposed neither of these, just a bit of speculation about what such a new/revised theory would look like.
 
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:

Claiming that Freud's theory was true of Freud only is a fairly standard dismissal of a theory that half the brightest minds of the Western world felt as a new revelation, and the other half felt as a demon that must be exorcised.

I am far from a fan of Freud, but I would not say everything he did was useless. Nor, IMO did Justinian.
But it would be a fair analysis to say Freud's own demon's had a disproportionate influence on his theories.
 
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 
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?
 
Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
An interesting list.

If someone holds to a falsificationist view of science, then you ought to believe that phlogiston theory was a respectable scientific theory for about a hundred years - as respectable as quarks, for example. It was falsifiable, and in the course of things it was eventually falsified. But no. Phlogiston gets used as a codeword for metaphysical non-explanations, and lumped together with Freudianism and eugenics as examples of things that are obviously not science.

I only wish people knew more history of science. Eugenics is a good example of what happens when the person who was almost certainly the best statistician in history (Francis Galton) keeps pushing the bounds of knowledge and how to apply the tools he came up with - and didn't even know once the rockets were up where they could come down.

quote:
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.

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.

quote:
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.

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 [url= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young%27s_interference_experiment#Acceptance_of_the_wave_theory_of_light]Young's Double Slit experiment[/url] 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 with a result he described as "It was quite the most incredible event that ever happened to me in my life. It was almost as incredible as if you had fired a 15-inch shell at a piece of tissue paper and it came back and hit you."

The times when experiments have overturned the prevailing theories are rare. Because there's normally a lot of experimentation that goes into theories. But I just need to find one example to demonstrate that your claim is false. There are two. And there are a few more round both Relativity and Quantum Theory.

That said, it is true that falsification is not something that happens often, and it is true to say that science generally progresses through verification rather than falsification whatever Popper may have said about it.

quote:
Which is to say that even Popperians don't abandon theories just because there's evidence against them.
That's because in order to be a genuine Popperian you need to have rejected the overwhelming weight of the evidence. Popperian Falsification happens, so far as I can tell under only a few conditions:
1: Someone has massively screwed up and they've lead to groupthink.
2: There has been a massive change in the tools available to the researchers - enough, effectively, to open an entire new discipline of science.

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. (XKCD on the subject).

ANd lilBuddha sums up my views on Freud nicely.
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
I'm not a philosopher, nor an adherent of Scientism, so it might have to be tweaked a bit, but it seems to me that its basic assertion can be formulated something like this.

"The disciplines that rely on the scientific method are sufficient to explain everything that happens in the Universe. All other disciplines can ultimately be reduced to those. We may not be able to make this reduction right now, but one day we will be."

I don't agree with this statement. Like I said, I'm not a Scientism-ist. This is ultimately a statement of faith, a faith I don't adhere to.

But I don't think it's self-contradictory.

Thank you. I agree it is not on the face of it self-contradictory. IngoB's definition is a critique, more than a way that a scientismist would define her or his own approach to the world.
But this definition still rests on the axiom of empiricism - the belief (and it is just that) that the senses are reliable indicators of reality. It still has no ability to interrogate that belief, because it proceeds from that point onward. Yet, the definition claims that one day it will be able to explain everything - and cannot explain or defend the validity of its bedrock principle. So it is still self-contradictory, and DOA, just not explicitly so.
 
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
"The disciplines that rely on the scientific method are sufficient to explain everything that happens in the Universe. All other disciplines can ultimately be reduced to those. We may not be able to make this reduction right now, but one day we will be." ... But I don't think it's self-contradictory.

The self-contradiction simply occurs when one aims your statement, or others like it, at itself. Of course scientismists do not usually do that and nevertheless carry on in their scientism. I'm not saying that they are outright insane or perhaps Zen-like "beyond logic". Rather, I am pointing out to them that their core statement invalidates itself.

The catch is the claim that modern natural science can explain everything in the universe, as you would have it, or some similar claim. Actually you may have intended to escape the trap by including the word "happens" in your statement. But that does not help. To the extent to which that breaks the self-application it also ceases to be representative of actual scientism.

The point here is that scientific absolutism cannot carry its own weight. As soon as you pull back from that, it's a different ballgame. But then you do have to argue why your metaphysics and epistemology is better than that of another, and that is precisely what scientism is trying to avoid. Scientism is trying to kill this discussion in one fell swoop, claiming that science is all that is needed. It doesn't work.
 
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
But this definition still rests on the axiom of empiricism - the belief (and it is just that) that the senses are reliable indicators of reality.

That's not so much an axiom as something learned from interacting with the Universe via our senses. It doesn't seem unreasonable. For example, the blind are typically barred from legally obtaining driver's licenses. If, as you suggest, it's unreasonable to believe that the senses (like sight) are reliable indicators of reality wouldn't this be an unreasonable restriction? After all, if the senses are not reliable indicators of reality then a blind person is not any more impeded in navigating a two ton car through reality than a sighted person.
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
What on earth makes you think that science is more culturally dominant now than shortly after the atom bomb was dropped? Than when architectural monstrosities like Brasilia (as well as a lot of awkward architecture) were being built? Than when we had 1950s utopian sci-fi?

Der. The existence of scientism? The subject of this thread?
quote:

As for a definition of scientism that might be accepted by those accused of it rather than being a pure snarl-word, try:
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.

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.
I have no problem with the axiom that phenomena under scientific investigation should be independently verifiable. That only lends itself to a certain set of methods of investigating some phenomena. To extend that to everything is, I agree, scientism. And ludicrous, because it displays an ignorance of the boundaries of science.
quote:

For another definition of scientism that would be accepted by many scientismists try:
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.

To either of these you just add a surprisingly small pinch of bias ("“By definition”, I begin
“Alternative Medicine”, I continue has either not been proved to work, Or been proved not to work. You know what they call “alternative medicine” That's been proved to work? Medicine.”" - Tim Minchin, Storm) and a pinch of people who have one true way approaches, and a lack of curiosity outside their field, and you get Scientismists.

Well, the definition itself is all you need. I agree this is probably what people who worship at the temple of Scientism believe. The breathtaking arrogance of it, plus the myopia, are why people get all hot and bothered about scientism, to address the OP. Together with the fact that silly people take this sort of thing seriously.
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
But this definition still rests on the axiom of empiricism - the belief (and it is just that) that the senses are reliable indicators of reality.

That's not so much an axiom as something learned from interacting with the Universe via our senses. It doesn't seem unreasonable. For example, the blind are typically barred from legally obtaining driver's licenses. If, as you suggest, it's unreasonable to believe that the senses (like sight) are reliable indicators of reality wouldn't this be an unreasonable restriction? After all, if the senses are not reliable indicators of reality then a blind person is not any more impeded in navigating a two ton car through reality than a sighted person.
I never suggested anything of the sort. Please read my posts, not what you think I post.
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. As IngoB has explained already.
 
Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
But this definition still rests on the axiom of empiricism - the belief (and it is just that) that the senses are reliable indicators of reality.

That's not so much an axiom as something learned from interacting with the Universe via our senses. It doesn't seem unreasonable. For example, the blind are typically barred from legally obtaining driver's licenses. If, as you suggest, it's unreasonable to believe that the senses (like sight) are reliable indicators of reality wouldn't this be an unreasonable restriction? After all, if the senses are not reliable indicators of reality then a blind person is not any more impeded in navigating a two ton car through reality than a sighted person.
Depends on what you mean by 'reliable', though. You'll find that blind people don't fall for optical illusions.
 
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
Yet, the definition claims that one day it will be able to explain everything - and cannot explain or defend the validity of its bedrock principle. So it is still self-contradictory, and DOA, just not explicitly so.

You mean like religion?
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
Except for one key thing - critical practitioners of religion are aware that belief relies on axioms. Scientismists seem not to be. They're like fundamentalist religionists who don't realise their religious.

[edited to add: two key things, actually - people of faith generally do not believe that their faith can explain everything]

[ 06. October 2014, 05:32: Message edited by: Dark Knight ]
 
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :
 
How not?
 
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
Yet, the definition claims that one day it will be able to explain everything - and cannot explain or defend the validity of its bedrock principle. So it is still self-contradictory, and DOA, just not explicitly so.

You mean like religion?
No.

Christianity can explain and defend the validity of Christ.
 
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :
 
Only by accepting an unverifiable premise.
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
How not?

How not what?
 
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Only by accepting an unverifiable premise.

No. That's scientism. You can't verify the the premise of scientism.
 
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :
 
Nor of religion.
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
Are you trying to miss the point?
Scientism rests on the premise of empiricism, the very idea that all knowledge has to be validated empirically. This premise is itself unverifiable.
Religion does not make the same claim.
 
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
Wot he said
 
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
Are you trying to miss the point?
Scientism rests on the premise of empiricism, the very idea that all knowledge has to be validated empirically. This premise is itself unverifiable.
Religion does not make the same claim.

Science does not claim to have the answer to everything.
Religionists do.
 
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
I find the Scientism proposal tha the senses are fundamentally unreliable to be its biggest danger. As soon as someone swallows that particular whopper, they are at the mercy of whatever anyone tells them, because they no longer believe the evidence of their senses when their senses present them with something new. It is the basis of disbelief - in anything.

Personally speaking, as a practicing complementary therapist, I find the scientism ability to lump together everything from crystal healing to osteopathy to herbalism to homeopathy to spiritual healing to rolfing to alexander technique to non-mainstream nutrition into one category an then cherry pick details from a few of them to argue against all of them - more or less defines the thought processes of scientism. I also find the fact that they have to rely on a professional magician to "debunk" everything is somewhat ironic.
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
Are you trying to miss the point?
Scientism rests on the premise of empiricism, the very idea that all knowledge has to be validated empirically. This premise is itself unverifiable.
Religion does not make the same claim.

Science does not claim to have the answer to everything.
Religionists do.

For starters, that's a category error. Science is a name for a phenomenon, it is not an entity that can make claims. We have not been talking about "science," but "scientism" (since you started the thread on that topic, this looks more than a little disingenuous, frankly), and more specifically, "scientismists." And my contention, and that of others here, is that scientismists do believe that the scientific method is the best approach to every question, and that one day we will be able to explain everything using science.
Religionists may well claim that their religion has all the answers. That is not my contention.
 
Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Science does not claim to have the answer to everything.
Religionists do.

Perhaps you ought to start a thread on religionists, then.

I've actually found this whole thread a little bit passive-aggressive. It feels like the whole purpose of it was to draw people out into criticising "scientism" so that you could then reflect those criticisms and turn them into criticisms of "religionism" instead.

Indeed, your entire response to "science doesn't actually hold all the answers" seems to be to say "neither does religion". But this thread wasn't about, on its surface, whether religion had all the answers. You didn't ask anyone their views on whether religion held all the answers. You just seem to have assumed that anyone who speaks up to criticise science must have a thoroughly un-nuanced religious viewpoint that involves saying "the answer is Jesus" anytime the universe throws up something difficult.

In short, it feels like a thread with a hidden agenda.
 
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
Yet, the definition claims that one day it will be able to explain everything - and cannot explain or defend the validity of its bedrock principle. So it is still self-contradictory, and DOA, just not explicitly so.

You mean like religion?
Religion does not (usually) claim that all understanding of the world will come through religion. Perhaps it claims that all knowledge of God is religious, or that all understanding leading to enlightenment is religious, or some such. And it may say things like that God created the entire universe. But none of the major religions of the world deny the validity of different knowledge about the world obtained by different means, other than the religious knowledge they can offer. Claiming that only religion offers valid knowledge is a clear mark of a cult (in the sense of a problematic religious sect), I would say.

The problem is not that scientism cannot be "proven". Then you could say that this is no different to religions in this regard. (Whether religion in fact cannot be "proven" is a different question, but it certainly is a defensible position to claim so.) The problem is that scientism is self-contradictory, which (most) religions simply are not.

You cannot have physics without metaphysics. You can ignore metaphysics while doing physics, for the most part that works fine. But as soon as you start making claims about physics, rather than with physics, it becomes metaphysics. Physics cannot explain itself, it cannot be made to look at itself. That is not something it can do, in particular so for modern physics which intentionally eliminated all metaphysics from its remit.
 
Posted by Wood (# 7) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
Yet, the definition claims that one day it will be able to explain everything - and cannot explain or defend the validity of its bedrock principle. So it is still self-contradictory, and DOA, just not explicitly so.

You mean like religion?
Religion does not (usually) claim that all understanding of the world will come through religion. Perhaps it claims that all knowledge of God is religious, or that all understanding leading to enlightenment is religious, or some such. And it may say things like that God created the entire universe. But none of the major religions of the world deny the validity of different knowledge about the world obtained by different means, other than the religious knowledge they can offer. Claiming that only religion offers valid knowledge is a clear mark of a cult (in the sense of a problematic religious sect), I would say.

The problem is not that scientism cannot be "proven". Then you could say that this is no different to religions in this regard. (Whether religion in fact cannot be "proven" is a different question, but it certainly is a defensible position to claim so.) The problem is that scientism is self-contradictory, which (most) religions simply are not.

You cannot have physics without metaphysics. You can ignore metaphysics while doing physics, for the most part that works fine. But as soon as you start making claims about physics, rather than with physics, it becomes metaphysics. Physics cannot explain itself, it cannot be made to look at itself. That is not something it can do, in particular so for modern physics which intentionally eliminated all metaphysics from its remit.

But this discussion exactly illustrates what I was saying, and why this argument is so frustrating and insoluble: your STEM supremacist (and yes, I would much rather use that term than something horrible and clumsy like "scientismist") quite genuinely and honestly sees Religion as a concept as dead in the water.

Like Dawkins, when Terry Eagleton and others pointed out that he didn't know anything about religion, make the rejoinder that if it was a load of shit from the get-go, why should he need to? In fact he said, in typically insulting and reductive fashion, in a letter to the Independent (I think) that if he didn't believe in leprechauns, why should he study leprechology? Which is of course stupid, but try to convince someone of his ilk of that, because in order to point out the validity of theology, philosophy and the humanities, you actually have to a) know or b) want to know anything about these subjects.

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.
 
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
What is this STEM ya'll keep referring to?
 
Posted by Wood (# 7) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
What is this STEM ya'll keep referring to?

Sorry. The group of related fields of academic study that includes:
Science;
Technology;
Engineering;
and Maths.

STEM.

[ 06. October 2014, 10:47: Message edited by: Wood ]
 
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
Thank you.

And you think people in those professions think religion dead in the water?

What about the religious the people in those professions?

Many of the world's great "scientists" are people of faith. Historically most of them were. The formulator of the big bang theory was a Catholic priest.
 
Posted by Wood (# 7) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Thank you.

And you think people in those professions think religion dead in the water?

What about the religious the people in those professions?

Many of the world's great "scientists" are people of faith. Historically most of them were. The formulator of the big bang theory was a Catholic priest.

No, I think that category of STEM Supremacists who are being called proponents of "scientism" (which is a super-problematic term, for all sorts of very good reasons) do, and demonstrate that repeatedly (see above point about Dawkins and "leprechology", for example).

However, I know Christian STEM Supremacists too. For example, I have for a long time known many people who have done STEM degrees, and I have found a constant frustration at the contempt these men and women have had for theology and history as fields of study and for critical thought as a discipline, and who would come up with really basic theological ideas as if they were amazing original insights. My brother's six-day creationism is a prime example.

But it's the same problem. You get this sort of attitude in your Christianity, you get shallow thinking.

[ 06. October 2014, 11:03: Message edited by: Wood ]
 
Posted by Wood (# 7) on :
 
And I should say that I know an equal number of people who are both experts in science and who have a deep appreciation for the humanities and for philosophy, and often have deep and inquiring faiths. We're not talking about those people.
 
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :
 
I think personality is a factor too. I've known people who thought that things like imagination and art and poetry were utterly pointless, and saw the world very much via sensation. In fact, some personality profiles have the 'sensation type', the 'intuitive type', and so on. This is very crude, but there is some truth in it.

So some people genuinely cannot see the point of religion; but they are not necessarily science devotees.

This makes me think of my dad: for him to be religious would be like putting a Man Utd scarf on a City fan, utterly unthinkable.
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Wood:

However, I know Christian STEM Supremacists too. For example, I have for a long time known many people who have done STEM degrees, and I have found a constant frustration at the contempt these men and women have had for theology and history as fields of study and for critical thought as a discipline, and who would come up with really basic theological ideas as if they were amazing original insights. My brother's six-day creationism is a prime example.

But it's the same problem. You get this sort of attitude in your Christianity, you get shallow thinking.

That is so true. I have been noticing more and more of my peers and people younger than me who are university educated, often have science or engineering degrees, yet have wedged a startling dualism between their piety - which is normally a kind of naive fideism - and what they do for work, or when they aren't being specifically Christian-ly. It's upsetting.
Critical theology or study of religions could help, I think, but you'd think you were offering someone a poisoned goblet of faeces when you start talking about it at times.
 
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
Aye. The declining importance and prevalence of the humanities really has made society more stupid.
 
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:

In short, it feels like a thread with a hidden agenda.

I think the hidden agenda lies in this early post.
 
Posted by Wood (# 7) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
That is so true. I have been noticing more and more of my peers and people younger than me who are university educated, often have science or engineering degrees, yet have wedged a startling dualism between their piety - which is normally a kind of naive fideism - and what they do for work, or when they aren't being specifically Christian-ly. It's upsetting.

So you get people like the Christian engineer I met one time who couldn't see why I'd have a problem with his designing fighter jets for BAE Systems.

[ 06. October 2014, 11:57: Message edited by: Wood ]
 
Posted by Wood (# 7) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Aye. The declining importance and prevalence of the humanities really has made society more stupid.

I am not sure I would go that far. It's not a zero sum game, see.
 
Posted by Dave W. (# 8765) on :
 
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?
 
Posted by Wood (# 7) on :
 
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.
 
Posted by Wood (# 7) on :
 
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.
 
Posted by Wood (# 7) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I think personality is a factor too. I've known people who thought that things like imagination and art and poetry were utterly pointless, and saw the world very much via sensation. In fact, some personality profiles have the 'sensation type', the 'intuitive type', and so on. This is very crude, but there is some truth in it.

So some people genuinely cannot see the point of religion; but they are not necessarily science devotees.

This makes me think of my dad: for him to be religious would be like putting a Man Utd scarf on a City fan, utterly unthinkable.

This is a good point that I missed earlier. I think that the proponents of the fallacy we're talking about basically come from the intersections of three things: an academic background in a STEM discipline, an academic culture where STEM disciplines are valued more than humanities, history, theology, and so on, and a natural personal inclination to this sort of empirical simplicity.

[ 06. October 2014, 13:19: Message edited by: Wood ]
 
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
But this definition still rests on the axiom of empiricism - the belief (and it is just that) that the senses are reliable indicators of reality.

That's not so much an axiom as something learned from interacting with the Universe via our senses. It doesn't seem unreasonable. For example, the blind are typically barred from legally obtaining driver's licenses. If, as you suggest, it's unreasonable to believe that the senses (like sight) are reliable indicators of reality wouldn't this be an unreasonable restriction? After all, if the senses are not reliable indicators of reality then a blind person is not any more impeded in navigating a two ton car through reality than a sighted person.
I never suggested anything of the sort. Please read my posts, not what you think I post.
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. As IngoB has explained already.

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. The usual reason given for such restrictions is that driving requires a person to rely on their sense of sight to indicate nearby reality, but you've claimed that there's no reason to believe that that sort of thing is possible.

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Depends on what you mean by 'reliable', though. You'll find that blind people don't fall for optical illusions.

That's one way of looking at it. Another is to point out that they're unable to recognize optical illusions.

quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
What on earth makes you think that science is more culturally dominant now than shortly after the atom bomb was dropped? Than when architectural monstrosities like Brasilia (as well as a lot of awkward architecture) were being built? Than when we had 1950s utopian sci-fi?

Der. The existence of scientism? The subject of this thread?
Except, as I've noted previously, there's not really much evidence "scientism" exists other than as a rhetorical boogieman. The "scientismist" is like hipsters in the early 2000s or child-murdering Jews in the Middle Ages. It's a type of person that exists only in the imagination and only to be denounced.

Most notably, empiricism and its fruits tend to only be rejected very selectively. I mean, if the whole thing is invalid you'd expect those rejecting it to argue that electricity or vaccines or magnets aren't real, or at least are beyond comprehension. And yet we very rarely see those arguments put forward. The "empiricism [doesn't work / is unjustifiable nonsense]" argument is typically only advanced in two circumstances.


 
Posted by Wood (# 7) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Except, as I've noted previously, there's not really much evidence "scientism" exists other than as a rhetorical boogieman. The "scientismist" is like hipsters in the early 2000s or child-murdering Jews in the Middle Ages. It's a type of person that exists only in the imagination and only to be denounced.

Leaving for a moment the somewhat large lapse of taste in comparing accusations of hipsterism with the Blood Libel*, this is actually a fair point. It's part of the reason I've been trying to talk about people who do exist and it's the basis of my discomfort with the term "scientism" as a word that is mainly used to defame scientists.

*Seriously, not funny.

[ 06. October 2014, 13:31: Message edited by: Wood ]
 
Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
What on earth makes you think that science is more culturally dominant now than shortly after the atom bomb was dropped? Than when architectural monstrosities like Brasilia (as well as a lot of awkward architecture) were being built? Than when we had 1950s utopian sci-fi?

Der. The existence of scientism? The subject of this thread?
I'm not sure whether that's a distraction from the point I was making or demonstrating ignorance. If you want to see people without a clue praising science look back to the early 20th Century and the Vienna Circle (where Popper was seeking to impose limits on Science with his insight that Science couldn't prove everything) - or to the mid 20th Century.

quote:
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. Scientismist is and has always been an insult.

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
The problem is that scientism is self-contradictory, which (most) religions simply are not.

No. The problem is that when the self-proclaimed opponents of Scientism define Scientism then they define it in a manner that makes it self-contradictory.

Inventing a definition to a snarl-world (as you have done) then proclaiming it to be self-contradictory does nothing except say that you can invent a self-contradictory definition to a snarl word, then attack the straw man you have just made.

I'd be interested in a statement of beliefs from Richard Dawkins and what he believes about science and the limits of science. And one about the value of the humanities.

quote:
Originally posted by itsarumdo:
I find the Scientism proposal tha the senses are fundamentally unreliable to be its biggest danger. As soon as someone swallows that particular whopper, they are at the mercy of whatever anyone tells them, because they no longer believe the evidence of their senses when their senses present them with something new.

Of course the senses are fundamentally unreliable. Without the senses being unreliable we could not have a working TV screen by the means we use. With perfect senses we wouldn't have Derren Brown (or Penn and Teller for Americans).

This doesn't mean that the senses aren't a good place to start. They are. But they are the start of the story, not the end.

quote:
Personally speaking, as a practicing complementary therapist, I find the scientism ability to lump together everything from crystal healing to osteopathy to herbalism to homeopathy to spiritual healing to rolfing to alexander technique to non-mainstream nutrition into one category an then cherry pick details from a few of them to argue against all of them - more or less defines the thought processes of scientism. I also find the fact that they have to rely on a professional magician to "debunk" everything is somewhat ironic.
And here I'm going to point out that it isn't just the so-called scientismists lumping everything together. It's you. You personally in the paragraph I just quoted. You're claiming to be a complimentary therapist - the category that includes everything from crystal healing to rolfing. If you were to claim to be a Rolfer or a Crystal Healer then it would be valid to claim that arguments against herbalism are irrelevant.

On a tangent arguments against herbalism are very seldom made; anyone with any credibility at all knows about "a natural remedy derived from the bark of a willow tree. A painkiller that's virtually side-effect free" (aspirin). The two arguments made against herbalism are that the quality control on herbs is lower than on their processed forms (and that most of the effective ones are a part of modern medicine) and that the herbalists don't take account of the side effects in as much detail. And pharmacists and the pharmaceutical industry are still learning interesting things from herbalists. All of which rather refutes your point about all forms of complementary therapy being put together into one category by the debunkers rather than being put together in one category by the complementary therapists themselves.

And I don't see what's even slightly ironic about using people who understand and specialise in illusions and the limits of perception to investigate and debunk things.

quote:
Originally posted by Wood:
But this discussion exactly illustrates what I was saying, and why this argument is so frustrating and insoluble: your STEM supremacist (and yes, I would much rather use that term than something horrible and clumsy like "scientismist") quite genuinely and honestly sees Religion as a concept as dead in the water.

Here I agree. STEM Supremacist is a different and much better way of expressing what is a genuine issue held by some people.

quote:
Like Dawkins, when Terry Eagleton and others pointed out that he didn't know anything about religion, make the rejoinder that if it was a load of shit from the get-go, why should he need to?
Given that there is little evidence in Terry Eagleton's review of The God Delusion that he even opened the cover before writing it, he is not worth quoting. Dawkins spent certainly one and I think two entire chapters early in the book discussing the very issues Eagleton bases his review on claiming Dawkins didn't discuss at all.

quote:
In fact he said, in typically insulting and reductive fashion, in a letter to the Independent (I think) that if he didn't believe in leprechauns, why should he study leprechology? Which is of course stupid, but try to convince someone of his ilk of that, because in order to point out the validity of theology, philosophy and the humanities,
And here you're creating a strawman of the leprechaun argument. The validity of theology is something completely distinct from the validity of the humanities and needs to be handled separately. In short we start with history. Dawkins compares theology to leprechaunology because he believes neither God nor Leprechauns exist. History is about people - and Dawkins might be solipsistic - but he isn't so solipsistic as to believe that other people don't exist so far as I know.

Therefore the criticism of theology as akin to leprechaunology separates it from most of the humanities. Claiming because Dawkins disdains Theology as akin to Leprechaunology he must by this token disdain all the humanities is either a misunderstanding of his point or a misrepresentation. Almost all the humanities are the study of something real, whether history, language, societies, or just about anything else. Philosophy is meta-study. Theology is the study of something that to an atheist starts from a false premise and as such stands alone.

Now for something we can agree on:
quote:
Originally posted by Wood:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
That is so true. I have been noticing more and more of my peers and people younger than me who are university educated, often have science or engineering degrees, yet have wedged a startling dualism between their piety - which is normally a kind of naive fideism - and what they do for work, or when they aren't being specifically Christian-ly. It's upsetting.

So you get people like the Christian engineer I met one time who couldn't see why I'd have a problem with his designing fighter jets for BAE Systems.
Yup. This is a problem.

[ 06. October 2014, 13:36: Message edited by: Justinian ]
 
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
quote:
Which is to say that even Popperians don't abandon theories just because there's evidence against them.
That's because in order to be a genuine Popperian you need to have rejected the overwhelming weight of the evidence.
The problem is that most people who cite "Popperian Falsification" haven't actually read Popper. Because, having proposed falsificationism Popper proceeded to observe that a statement "such and such a theory is false" is, itself, a theory which according to his own description of scientific theories being falsifiable must be falsifiable - ie: "such and such a theory is true" has to be possible. Which doesn't actually get anywhere.

Which probably suggests that the next best step is to put down the works of Karl Popper and see what Thomas Kuhn has to say.
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
What on earth makes you think that science is more culturally dominant now than shortly after the atom bomb was dropped? Than when architectural monstrosities like Brasilia (as well as a lot of awkward architecture) were being built? Than when we had 1950s utopian sci-fi?

Der. The existence of scientism? The subject of this thread?
I'm not sure whether that's a distraction from the point I was making or demonstrating ignorance. If you want to see people without a clue praising science look back to the early 20th Century and the Vienna Circle (where Popper was seeking to impose limits on Science with his insight that Science couldn't prove everything) - or to the mid 20th Century.

It's neither. Its a riposte to your statement. Read for comprehension.
If you want to trade interesting, de-contextualised tidbits from history to show that some people have always been ignorant, be my guest. What you think you're demonstraing will remain a mystery.
I work in the social sciences and humanities, and see on a day to day basis the erosion of the standing and appreciation of these ways of approaching the world, in favour of the uncritical application of science way outside its boundaries. And it's very troubling.
quote:
quote:
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. Scientismist 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.

[ 06. October 2014, 14:26: Message edited by: Dark Knight ]
 
Posted by Wood (# 7) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:

quote:
Like Dawkins, when Terry Eagleton and others pointed out that he didn't know anything about religion, make the rejoinder that if it was a load of shit from the get-go, why should he need to?
Given that there is little evidence in Terry Eagleton's review of The God Delusion that he even opened the cover before writing it, he is not worth quoting.
Whoa. I've read both. I found Eagleton's review to be pretty representative of what I got from Dawkins to be honest, but mileage may vary.

quote:

quote:
In fact he said, in typically insulting and reductive fashion, in a letter to the Independent (I think) that if he didn't believe in leprechauns, why should he study leprechology? Which is of course stupid, but try to convince someone of his ilk of that, because in order to point out the validity of theology, philosophy and the humanities,
And here you're creating a strawman of the leprechaun argument. The validity of theology is something completely distinct from the validity of the humanities and needs to be handled separately.
OK, fair point.

quote:
In short we start with history. Dawkins compares theology to leprechaunology because he believes neither God nor Leprechauns exist. History is about people - and Dawkins might be solipsistic - but he isn't so solipsistic as to believe that other people don't exist so far as I know.
But by reducing religion and centuries of academic philosophical study to a thing that is on the level of comedy fairies with silly hats and pots of gold, he was himself engaging in a colossal straw man.

quote:
Therefore the criticism of theology as akin to leprechaunology separates it from most of the humanities. Claiming because Dawkins disdains Theology as akin to Leprechaunology he must by this token disdain all the humanities is either a misunderstanding of his point or a misrepresentation. Almost all the humanities are the study of something real, whether history, language, societies, or just about anything else. Philosophy is meta-study. Theology is the study of something that to an atheist starts from a false premise and as such stands alone.
Yes, but no. It is the study of a thing that isn't worth studying if you're a New Atheist, but it is also the study of belief, and of ontology, and of the history of ideas, and in that respect it is a branch of philosophy. Many theologians do and have dealt with many of the questions that New Atheists do, but aren't permitted to advance their arguments because lalalalalalala I can't hear you because you believe in fairies.

[ 06. October 2014, 14:25: Message edited by: Wood ]
 
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:

quote:
In fact he said, in typically insulting and reductive fashion, in a letter to the Independent (I think) that if he didn't believe in leprechauns, why should he study leprechology? Which is of course stupid, but try to convince someone of his ilk of that, because in order to point out the validity of theology, philosophy and the humanities,
And here you're creating a strawman of the leprechaun argument. The validity of theology is something completely distinct from the validity of the humanities and needs to be handled separately. In short we start with history. Dawkins compares theology to leprechaunology because he believes neither God nor Leprechauns exist. History is about people - and Dawkins might be solipsistic - but he isn't so solipsistic as to believe that other people don't exist so far as I know.

Therefore the criticism of theology as akin to leprechaunology separates it from most of the humanities. Claiming because Dawkins disdains Theology as akin to Leprechaunology he must by this token disdain all the humanities is either a misunderstanding of his point or a misrepresentation. Almost all the humanities are the study of something real, whether history, language, societies, or just about anything else. Philosophy is meta-study. Theology is the study of something that to an atheist starts from a false premise and as such stands alone.

But how would he know its based on a false premise if he's never studied it?

Sounds like he's simply falsifying what he doesn't like.

But that's pretty normal. Militant atheism is mainly an emotional, rather an than an intellectual and rational conclusion.
 
Posted by Wood (# 7) on :
 
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. 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.

But there are Christians, entire movements and congregations of them, that do actually include "fundamentalist" in the labels they apply to themselves (Google told me so and Google must be right).

Just because it is widely used as a pejorative does not mean that it isn't proudly owned by many.
 
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Wood:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Except, as I've noted previously, there's not really much evidence "scientism" exists other than as a rhetorical boogieman. The "scientismist" is like hipsters in the early 2000s or child-murdering Jews in the Middle Ages. It's a type of person that exists only in the imagination and only to be denounced.

Leaving for a moment the somewhat large lapse of taste in comparing accusations of hipsterism with the Blood Libel*, this is actually a fair point. It's part of the reason I've been trying to talk about people who do exist and it's the basis of my discomfort with the term "scientism" as a word that is mainly used to defame scientists.

*Seriously, not funny.

I've never heard it used as a term to defame scientists.

But I'm at the butt end of it all the time when people continually tell me God does not exist because God is not empirically verifiable.

They don't seem to get empiricism is not able to prove God, God is outside it's remit. This is a form of fundamentalism.

[ 06. October 2014, 14:33: Message edited by: Evensong ]
 
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
No. The problem is that when the self-proclaimed opponents of Scientism define Scientism then they define it in a manner that makes it self-contradictory.

Inventing a definition to a snarl-world (as you have done) then proclaiming it to be self-contradictory does nothing except say that you can invent a self-contradictory definition to a snarl word, then attack the straw man you have just made.

I'd be interested in a statement of beliefs from Richard Dawkins and what he believes about science and the limits of science. And one about the value of the humanities.

You are confusing the part where I paraphrase what scientism is about with the part where I show that it is self-contradictory. 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.

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."

However, the stated belief is neither a method of natural science itself, nor is it a result obtained with this method, not does it as such belong to the categories and things recognised by natural science (material objects, fields, natural laws, ...). Thus this belief does not form a proper element in any philosophical or other inquiry, by its own lights. Hence it is self-contradictory.

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. I don't think that that has any relevance other than to detail just how precisely Dawkins is an intellectual failure. It is entirely possible that upon close examination nobody in this world is actually a scientismist. I have said nothing about all that. I have simply pointed out that scientism - as commonly understood - is not intellectually defensible. I have added only one other statement, which makes it plausible that some scientismists might exist. Namely that if one accepts that scientism fails, then one has to actually argue against all kinds of metaphysics and epistemology for being "the most true". The core motivation for turning to scientism would be to avoid all further justifications. If I define "only this is true", then I don't have to bother with people who say something else is true. By definition, they are wrong. This is the power of an absolutist claim. Unfortunately, this particular one logically falls flat on its face.
 
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:

In short, it feels like a thread with a hidden agenda.

You are incorrect. Incomplete, quite possibly; not as effectively stated as possible, quite likely. But not hidden.
 
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:

...
quote:
Originally posted by itsarumdo:
I find the Scientism proposal tha the senses are fundamentally unreliable to be its biggest danger. As soon as someone swallows that particular whopper, they are at the mercy of whatever anyone tells them, because they no longer believe the evidence of their senses when their senses present them with something new.

Of course the senses are fundamentally unreliable. Without the senses being unreliable we could not have a working TV screen by the means we use. With perfect senses we wouldn't have Derren Brown (or Penn and Teller for Americans).
...

No, no, no - that's the usual trite answer dragged out time and time again - namely that - because (usually visual) tricks spoecifically designed to fool the senses fool the senses, then the senses are foolable (and indeed, usually fooled) in ALL matters. This position is itself a Descartian sleight of hand. A very dangerous sleight of hand. It neatly removes the one tool that anyone has to detect and experience the numinous.

If the senses are always fooled, then please tell me how you experience reality, and what your concept of it is? And how you know that is anything like "real"? Because even scientific instruments and computer printouts have to be detected by entering through the sensory system. Ok - it's the Matrix. Gottit.

It is true that a lot of people in the western world and in conflict areas have a certain degree of sensory dissociation. That is what allows people to kill and torture - their sense of empathy is already shot to pieces, and with each additional act of violence it becomes ever more lost. It's also why we live in such a loud and in-yer-face culture, because the society-wide emotional-sensory numbness means that life cannot be perceived unless it is turned beyond full volume. But neither of these are sustainable sensory states. When the senses are not numbed, they are extraordinarily accurate and perceptive.
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Wood:
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. 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.

But there are Christians, entire movements and congregations of them, that do actually include "fundamentalist" in the labels they apply to themselves (Google told me so and Google must be right).

Just because it is widely used as a pejorative does not mean that it isn't proudly owned by many.

I can't speak for the States/UK, but around these parts "fundamentalist" is nearly always accompanied by the words "Muslim" or "extremist" - and is usually a slur.
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. 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 ...
 
Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :
 
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.

quote:
quote:
quote:
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. Scientismist 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. [/QB]
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 a 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.

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.

quote:
Originally posted by Wood:
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:

quote:
Like Dawkins, when Terry Eagleton and others pointed out that he didn't know anything about religion, make the rejoinder that if it was a load of shit from the get-go, why should he need to?
Given that there is little evidence in Terry Eagleton's review of The God Delusion that he even opened the cover before writing it, he is not worth quoting.
Whoa. I've read both. I found Eagleton's review to be pretty representative of what I got from Dawkins to be honest, but mileage may vary.
Eagleton's review of Dawkins TGD I'd have said was a fair reflection of what Dawkins had written on the subject of religion prior to The God Delusion. And of about two thirds of The God Delusion itself. But a big part of TGD was why it's important and why he has no time for sophisticated theology.

quote:
Yes, but no. It is the study of a thing that isn't worth studying if you're a New Atheist, but it is also the study of belief, and of ontology, and of the history of ideas, and in that respect it is a branch of philosophy.
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.

quote:
Many theologians do and have dealt with many of the questions that New Atheists do, but aren't permitted to advance their arguments because lalalalalalala I can't hear you because you believe in fairies.
And that's one reason despite being an atheist I spend time here [Smile]

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.
 
Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :
 
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.
 
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :
 
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] 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?
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
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.
quote:
quote:
quote:
quote:
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.

quote:

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.
 
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :
 
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.
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
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.

[Confused] 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 ]
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
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.
quote:
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.
quote:

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.
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.
 
Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :
 
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.

quote:
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.

quote:
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.

quote:
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

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.

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.

quote:
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?

quote:
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.
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
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.
 
Posted by Wood (# 7) on :
 
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.
 
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
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.
 
Posted by Wood (# 7) on :
 
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...
 
Posted by SusanDoris (# 12618) on :
 
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
 
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :
 
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"?
 
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 
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:
quote:
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?
 
Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :
 
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.
 
Posted by Wood (# 7) on :
 
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.
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
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 ]
 
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
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).
 
Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :
 
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.
 
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
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}
 
Posted by SusanDoris (# 12618) on :
 
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] )
 
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :
 
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?
 
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 
quote:
itsarumdo: {The physical Universe} ∩ {The experiencable universe}

{The explicable Universe} ∩ {The experiencable universe}

Er ... these are not complete propositions.
 
Posted by Wood (# 7) on :
 
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.
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
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.
 
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :
 
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?
 
Posted by SusanDoris (# 12618) on :
 
Just noticed I said 'sneer', when I should have (quoted 'snarl'.)


LeRoc
I will come back to your question asap.
 
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :
 
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.
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
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.
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
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.
 
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :
 
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?
 
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :
 
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.
 
Posted by Wood (# 7) on :
 
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 ]
 
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 
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.
 
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 
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'.
 
Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :
 
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 ]
 
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 
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.

quote:
[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.

quote:
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.

quote:
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 ]
 
Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 
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.
 
Posted by Russ (# 120) on :
 
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
 
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :
 
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?
 
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 
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.
 
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 
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?
 
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :
 
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 ]
 
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :
 
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).
 
Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :
 
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.

quote:
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.

quote:
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.
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
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]
 
Posted by Dave W. (# 8765) on :
 
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.
 
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 
quote:
Dark Knight: That post you keep linking to DOES NOT SAY THAT. [brick wall]
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".
 
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
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.
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
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]

[ 07. October 2014, 01:45: Message edited by: Dark Knight ]
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Grokesx:
Are you, Dark Knight and Mousethief, saying that the philosophy of science departments should be the science police, decreeing what can be studied as science and what can't? If not, what's so problematical about science sticking its nose into something that may not be amenable to a scientific approach?

1. No. 2. Because then it ceases to be science.
 
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Hell, LilBuddha's opening post is all about motives.

No, no it isn't. I've read it multiple times and I do not see that. But then I wrote it, so I kind of knew that already.
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:

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.

IME, snarling causes people to dig in their heels and stop their ears all the sooner.
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
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.

Not precisely. No, one cannot prove God does not exist, however Christianity has used reports of evidence as proof of God's existence for centuries so it is not unreasonable to question the lack of continued evidence.
And there have been several claims on the ship about empirical evidence for religion, so...
 
Posted by Net Spinster (# 16058) on :
 
Re: Fundamentalism

Liberty University has a course on "History of Fundamentalism" web page which states, "This course presents that knowledge and seeks to equip students for
the future of the Fundamentalist movement." The overall tenor seems to assume the students are in the [Christian] Fundamentalist movement.

There is certainly a good size subsection of American Christians who consider themselves fundamentalists. However the term is often applied to though not accepted by other evangelical Christians and also applied though not accepted by people in other religions.

I do not know of any group that accepts 'scientism'.
 
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Not precisely. No, one cannot prove God does not exist, however Christianity has used reports of evidence as proof of God's existence for centuries so it is not unreasonable to question the lack of continued evidence.

What lack of continued evidence? [Confused]
 
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :
 
I'm open, show me.
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Net Spinster:
Re: Fundamentalism

Liberty University has a course on "History of Fundamentalism" web page which states, "This course presents that knowledge and seeks to equip students for
the future of the Fundamentalist movement." The overall tenor seems to assume the students are in the [Christian] Fundamentalist movement.

There is certainly a good size subsection of American Christians who consider themselves fundamentalists. However the term is often applied to though not accepted by other evangelical Christians and also applied though not accepted by people in other religions.

I do not know of any group that accepts 'scientism'.

I was wrong. I assumed the negative defintion was more prevalent than it is, based on not much more than my experience. No one uses the term around these parts as a self descriptor unless they don't understand it. Nevertheless, that was an inappropriate assumption.
Nowhere near as inappropriate as Justinian and Croesus' ridiculous caricatures of me based on it, but wrong nonetheless.
 
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
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]

So you keep saying. And then contradicting that assertion. Your posts seem to boil down to a repeating series of "using your senses to examine reality cannot be justified, just assumed" followed by "I totally didn't say that! It's totally valid to examine reality with your senses." Then there's usually some bit about how you can distinguish between things you can and can't examine with your senses and that there's some kind of rational process involved in making this determination, but then insist that there's no rational reason to believe sensible observations are any more or less valid than anything else. It's not that I can't grasp what you're saying, it's that I'm getting whiplash from the vacillations.

Taking your proffered example of climate science, some would say making observations using our senses is a good way to understand what's going on. Others postulate that taking large amounts of money from petrochemical companies and then telling them what they want to hear is the best way to gain climatological knowledge. You claim to hold that the whole observation thing is an axiom, unjustifiable by any rational means and simply assumed. If that's the case, why wouldn't the "telling oil companies what they want to hear" method be just a valid? It can (and has) also been assumed.
 
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :
 
I have come late to this thread, but it bears on some issues that interest me, so rather than respectfully hold back and let it pursue its current recondite philosophical course, I thought I’d just barge in and disrupt it by riding a couple of banal hobby horses.

(Golly, that’s not like me…..)

Zyklon B symbolizes the gap between science and scientism.

An extremely efficient pesticide, it was a product of modern Western science, and manufactured by one of the world’s leading scientific nations.

At the same time, science has absolutely nothing to say about the question of whether or not it was evil to use it to exterminate Jews, and it is sheer scientism to pretend that it has.

Even if science descriptively exposes the pseudo-science of Nazi race theories, or analyses the neurological processes that are associated with anti-Semitism, it still cannot say anything prescriptive to the person who says, “I just hate Jews and will do anything in my power to eradicate them”, because as David Hume showed, it is impossible to derive an ought from an is, whether in ethics, justice, relationships or aesthetics.

There was an egregious manifestation of scientism a few years ago when those opposed to the production of fetuses for stem cells were accused of being anti-scientific.

No, they were anti-scientism, not anti-science, because the fact that something can be done (such as build and drop a nuclear device) says nothing about whether it should be done, which is a philosophical and ethical question, not a scientific one.
 
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
I think he's arguing that once a marker for love is physically measurable then love can be detected in any circumstance by looking for that marker. Which would be fine if we were looking at simple systems, but as the system gets more complex, that aint necessarily so. For instance with oxytocin, the Love Hormone - usually if there is a moderate amount of oxytocin i nthe blood stream, then someone is more or less in a loving state, or has been in the past few tens of seconds. However, during late stage pregnancy, oxytocin is released that is nothing to do with the mothers emotional state. If the mother is relatively unstressed and undistracted, then the prresence of ocytocin will tend to gravitate her towards a loving emotional state. But other emotions are also possible ... and here comes the complexity of human emotion, because in this state it is possible to feel love (throgh the effects of oxytocin) and stress or fear at the same time. Or the latter two can blank out the oxytocin effects if they are stroing enough. One could also look at hgeart rate variability - it falls into a very neat 10 second sinusoid when someone is ain a loving/appreciative state, but can also fall into that if they force a 10 second breath cycle. And so it goes on. The fact that love can be fooled with - by oxytocin injection or by forced breath cycling or maybe other means does not mean that love is unreliable, but it does somewhat make more difficult a consistent definition through means of measurement. How to measure a rose with a ruler?
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
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]

So you keep saying. And then contradicting that assertion. Your posts seem to boil down to a repeating series of "using your senses to examine reality cannot be justified, just assumed" followed by "I totally didn't say that! It's totally valid to examine reality with your senses." Then there's usually some bit about how you can distinguish between things you can and can't examine with your senses and that there's some kind of rational process involved in making this determination, but then insist that there's no rational reason to believe sensible observations are any more or less valid than anything else. It's not that I can't grasp what you're saying, it's that I'm getting whiplash from the vacillations.

Taking your proffered example of climate science, some would say making observations using our senses is a good way to understand what's going on. Others postulate that taking large amounts of money from petrochemical companies and then telling them what they want to hear is the best way to gain climatological knowledge. You claim to hold that the whole observation thing is an axiom, unjustifiable by any rational means and simply assumed. If that's the case, why wouldn't the "telling oil companies what they want to hear" method be just a valid? It can (and has) also been assumed.

This will be the last time I dance this round with you. If you don't get it this time, the next waltz will be in hell.
This thread is about the phenomenon "scientism." My argument is that this phenomenon (which some here have said is not a real thing, but merely a slur, but they can thrash that one out) is based on the idea that only that which is empirically verifiable is valid. This principle itself is not empirically verifiable.
Does that mean empiricism itself is invalid? No. I have not said this. I don't care what you think I've said (you have not only misappropriated me, but you have actually misquoted me twice on this thread). I would be cautious in the use of empirical methods, but I think they have their place in the universe that we see laid out before us. Otherwise, things like medicine would be impossible.
What are the boundaries of empiricism, and science itself? That is an interesting question, not one that I have directly addressed here. I think there should be limits, I am not postulating here what they should be. To paraphrase Galileo (badly) "measure what is measurable, and what is not measurable maybe try and understand some other way."
This is done. I am not interested in what you think I am saying, or how you misread or misunderstood me. That is your problem, not mine.
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:

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.

IME, snarling causes people to dig in their heels and stop their ears all the sooner.

You mean like this?

[ 07. October 2014, 08:33: Message edited by: Dark Knight ]
 
Posted by Wood (# 7) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
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. ]

I'll grant you that, but that doesn't make it OK, does it?
quote:
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.
Ah now, waaaait a minute, this is the field where I can reasonably claim expertise, and when you go around saying that the guys in the early church were absolute bastards to each other I'm going to have to stand up and say, uh, yeah.

Actually, fair point.

Damn you, Cyril of Alexandria.

quote:
That said, you really can't compare the beards of comic fans and theologians.
Theologians wash, basically.

(In a previous life I remember seeing on a large BBS for RPGs a long, unironic thread entitled "do you shower?" with an unintentionally hilarious lively discussion of the pros and cons of soap. No lie.)

quote:
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.
No harm, no foul, no offence taken. I'm actually enjoying this thread, and finding much to agree and disagree with on both sides.

quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.:
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.

Yeah, but actually that was sort of my point. Both are complex, nuanced and valid forms of post-doctoral study, and 90% of STEM research (so most stuff except possibly the more abstract forms of maths and physics) has an intended end outcome that is actually way easier to describe than Humanities research.

And by the time you get to a Humanities postdoc, you are doing stuff like investigating the nuances of the philosophy of Maurice Blanchot (like another academic I made art with, and by the way, everyone should read Blanchot because it's beautiful) and that's the point.

Even Physics can be explained more easily: when they found the Higgs Boson, anyone can understand that some of the cleverest men who ever lived built a machine that could see smaller things than anyone has ever seen before (which I know isn't exactly what happened, but it is an accurate enough approximation that my eight-year-old son could grasp).

The standouts in humanities are History and Archaeology, I would think, which have relatively straightforward outcomes: like the historian I met there trying to write a history of the copper industry in Swansea, thinking about what that did to the city, and what effects that will have on the regeneration of an area that has in places literally seen nothing grow for 100 years, except already this is less obvious than the guy I worked with who is building tidal energy turbines.

STEM research creates stuff, by its nature. Humanities research creates ideas. Neither is superior; together they create a totality of learning.

But by its very nature STEM research has demonstrable material results that research of the same level in humanities simply doesn't have, meaning that even if an outsider doesn't get the maths or physics, they can go yeah, of course, smartphones, tidal turbines, cures for HIV, Large Hadron Colliders, teeny tiny particles that the universe is made from.
 
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :
 
Take a piece of paper, and from the left side to the middle write down STEM fields in order of their "applied" nature, with the most "conceptual" (mathematicians, theoretical physicists) on the left edge, and the most applied (engineers) towards the middle. Now do the same for the humanities, with the most "conceptual" ones (philosophers, critical theorists) on the right edge, and the most applied ones (linguists, historians) towards the middle. (Sorry, I can't do this so well for the humanities myself.) The people in the middle always have been close to each other in a practical sense, because they have been trying to get things done together.

But in my opinion what is happening in our days is that the left and right edge of that piece of paper - at an apparent "maximum distance" - are getting bent towards each other. Eventually I believe they will be joined, turning that piece of paper into a torus. We are, I believe, in the process of re-establishing a coherent system of ideas and knowledge.

I don't really have that much clean evidence for this in my hands. But I find that much of the speculative side of theoretical physics really is starting to sound like philosophy and even a bit like myths, just with lots of maths in it. And neuroscience, where I work now, just has the mind-body problem lurking at every corner, with people constantly running into problem of qualia and philosophical zombies whether they realise it or not. Furthermore, when I got into "philosophical religion" I found that my "modern physics" mindset seemed to make it really easy to track its arguments. A modern physicist has to go intellectually where common sense and intuition are starting to collapse on themselves, and theology is just like that. And arguing by analogy is rather similar to the typical "imagining a simpler related system that I understand to guess where the truth of the complex system is located" that physicist do all the time.

Anyway, I think we are heading towards a new synthesis now. And I don't mean a synthesis in the sense of a "Theory of Everything", but rather a re-consolidation of human approaches to ideas and knowledge. Give it a few hundred years...
 
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
I'm open, show me.

I can't show you a lack of continued evidence. Your post seemed to imply there was some, then it somehow disappeared. What do you mean by that?
 
Posted by Wood (# 7) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Take a piece of paper, and from the left side to the middle write down STEM fields in order of their "applied" nature, with the most "conceptual" (mathematicians, theoretical physicists) on the left edge, and the most applied (engineers) towards the middle. Now do the same for the humanities, with the most "conceptual" ones (philosophers, critical theorists) on the right edge, and the most applied ones (linguists, historians) towards the middle. (Sorry, I can't do this so well for the humanities myself.) The people in the middle always have been close to each other in a practical sense, because they have been trying to get things done together.

But in my opinion what is happening in our days is that the left and right edge of that piece of paper - at an apparent "maximum distance" - are getting bent towards each other. Eventually I believe they will be joined, turning that piece of paper into a torus. We are, I believe, in the process of re-establishing a coherent system of ideas and knowledge.

I don't really have that much clean evidence for this in my hands. But I find that much of the speculative side of theoretical physics really is starting to sound like philosophy and even a bit like myths, just with lots of maths in it. And neuroscience, where I work now, just has the mind-body problem lurking at every corner, with people constantly running into problem of qualia and philosophical zombies whether they realise it or not. Furthermore, when I got into "philosophical religion" I found that my "modern physics" mindset seemed to make it really easy to track its arguments. A modern physicist has to go intellectually where common sense and intuition are starting to collapse on themselves, and theology is just like that. And arguing by analogy is rather similar to the typical "imagining a simpler related system that I understand to guess where the truth of the complex system is located" that physicist do all the time.

Anyway, I think we are heading towards a new synthesis now. And I don't mean a synthesis in the sense of a "Theory of Everything", but rather a re-consolidation of human approaches to ideas and knowledge. Give it a few hundred years...

I sort of hope you're right, I really genuinely do, because that's a picture that inspires, but in my experience in academic institutions, in administration, teaching, and as an attached observer, what I'm seeing is a ragged tear down the middle of the sheet.

But my experience is by no means everything.
 
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
Same with the body therapies and psychotherapies - there is a convergence of model and technique and the exciting thing is that it looks as if there is some coherent shape emerging for the body-mind phenomenon.


It's a shame that at the same time the legislators would like to cut off the body from the head for sake of professional demarcation.

When our jaws shrunk and our brains expanded (due to less structural mechanical requirement for massive cranial bones and ridges), that point in eviolution also more or less defined the relationship bewteen structural musculoskeletal function and brain morphology. And going from "we only use 10% of our brains", we now know that maybe 25% of the brain is taken up by a premotor cortex which also symbolically represents (in terms of motor acftivity) everything that we read, think, see, hear and feel.

The feedback loop sensory -> interpretative -> movement ->sensory that the brain mediates relies on a willingness to be a fully commited experiential participant in the body, and a lot of the scientism arguments head back to Descartes and a denial of the proper body-mind sensory-motor relationship. If it isn't in a peer reviewed journal or capable of being analysed and measured in a reductionist fashion, it doesn't exist and it's an illusion to be derided and ignored. And of course, unless embodiment is taken seriously, the usual background level of sensory activity is so "normal" and familiar that it doesn't appear to have anything missing. Not only are the blind leading the blind, but some of them are through apparently intellectual argument, persuading the half blind that they don't need their eyes at all.
 
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
One might call it a war between holism and reductionism?

I too hope Ingo is right and the twain shall one day again meet. I have heard it said that quantum physics is the beginning , but I don't know enough about it to know if that is true. Sounds like Ingo thinks it might be tho so perhaps there is hope.
 
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
One might call it a war between holism and reductionism?

I too hope Ingo is right and the twain shall one day again meet. I have heard it said that quantum physics is the beginning , but I don't know enough about it to know if that is true. Sounds like Ingo thinks it might be tho so perhaps there is hope.

Yes - and yes there is always hope.

And the level of noise coming from this particular conflict suggests that we're getting close to a shift. The difficulty is that there are not many people like Ingo who can talk about the subject and not simultaneously expose the stuffing from their teddy bear.
 
Posted by Dave W. (# 8765) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Wood:
But by its very nature STEM research has demonstrable material results that research of the same level in humanities simply doesn't have, meaning that even if an outsider doesn't get the maths or physics, they can go yeah, of course, smartphones, tidal turbines, cures for HIV, Large Hadron Colliders, teeny tiny particles that the universe is made from.

OK. I guess I was interpreting "having an idea what humanities (or STEM) people actually do" a little differently. But I also wouldn't have said that
quote:
Even Physics can be explained more easily: when they found the Higgs Boson, anyone can understand that some of the cleverest men who ever lived built a machine that could see smaller things than anyone has ever seen before (which I know isn't exactly what happened, but it is an accurate enough approximation that my eight-year-old son could grasp).
is much of an explanation of the search for the Higgs boson. (You could be talking about the invention of the microscope in 16th century Holland.)

I'd be surprised if it were really impossible to come up with a condensed, approximate "explanation" that did similar justice to the work of Roland Barthes - though I wouldn't be surprised if people were less interested in it, if for no other reason than he didn't spend $4.75B writing it. (I presume.)
 
Posted by Wood (# 7) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.:
But I also wouldn't have said that
quote:
Even Physics can be explained more easily: when they found the Higgs Boson, anyone can understand that some of the cleverest men who ever lived built a machine that could see smaller things than anyone has ever seen before (which I know isn't exactly what happened, but it is an accurate enough approximation that my eight-year-old son could grasp).
is much of an explanation of the search for the Higgs boson. (You could be talking about the invention of the microscope in 16th century Holland.)

Well, fair point. I was being about as reductionist as it's possible to be there.
quote:

I'd be surprised if it were really impossible to come up with a condensed, approximate "explanation" that did similar justice to the work of Roland Barthes - though I wouldn't be surprised if people were less interested in it, if for no other reason than he didn't spend $4.75B writing it. (I presume.)

Gotta be honest, I've read Barthes in painful detail.

Let's try: "He wrote that you could find out something about how you read stories (and about yourself) by chopping up the stories into tiny bits and examining each of those bits in turn."

See, it's still not as immediately inspiring as Higgs Bosons.
 
Posted by Wood (# 7) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.:
OK. I guess I was interpreting "having an idea what humanities (or STEM) people actually do" a little differently.

IME most people are more interested in what you're going to come out with at the end. A person who writes about the dissection of an idea (like Maurice Blanchot writes about being and death, and living, and the fear of death) is going to come out at the end with a book about that idea. A powerful, valuable book, but the idea, what it contains, is a thing that it harder to get a grip on.

A scientist is going to come out with a way of doing stuff. Or a way of making something. Or is going to find something. Or make something. Here is the Higgs Boson. Here is a way to make weird swirly pictures and holy fuck don't they look like leaves? Here is the world's fastest car.

I actually know someone working on the bid to make a car that goes 1000mph and the whole point of the project is that it will excite people and make them want to study science. Humanities, and I speak as a holder of two humanities degrees and the conviction to fight for the death for the humanities, simply can't compete with that sort of thing.
 
Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
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.

No. Your attempt to say that a dualistic universe in which there are no observable physical consequences of events is creating this mess. This attempt to hypersimplify the universe and put it into nice neat boxes simply doesn't work.

quote:
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?
And this comes from the mistaken epistemological belief that you must always have a complete and accurate theory before you can look at what is in front of your nose.

quote:
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.
And this is based on your fundamental misunderstanding of what is going on. When you look at the scan you do not say "This is love" you say "Love's consequences include this." If there is no observable consequence of love then you are making the claim that "Love's consequences are absolutely nothing." A brave claim and not one I would care to defend.

In other words height is not the measure of a human any more than neurochemistry is the measure of love. But every human has a height and you can measure that height. Your claim is akin to the idea that because height isn't the full measure of a human (it absolutely isn't) there is nothing to be gained from measuring heights (my medical colleagues would disagree) and therefore you should treat humans as heightless.

quote:
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.
It would also confuse the existence of God with the existence of belief in God. Evidence for belief in Santa does not demonstrate the existence of Santa.

But if all you have to offer is belief then this means that God has no impact on this world.

quote:
In short, you continue down the line of answering questions that cannot be answered empirically, using strictly empirical methods.
Nope. This is your misunderstanding. The nature and total properties of God can probably not be answered empirically. Existence is an empirical property. Actions can be empirically measured. Much as the height of a person can be measured even if it does not tell the whole story.

quote:
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.
The reductionism here is coming from you. It is the sort of reductionism that says "Because we can not get everything we therefore can not get anything. And therefore we should give up before we've started."

To get to your position you need to start with the assumption that (a) God has no measurable properties and (b) God undertakes no meaningful actions in this world. In short God has no impact on the universe and can not be reached from the universe. I fail to see a practical difference between such an apathetic God and hardline atheism.


quote:
Originally posted by Wood:
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
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. ]

I'll grant you that, but that doesn't make it OK, does it?
This reaches a fundamental problem where politeness and religion intersect. It's also why any group of radicals is perceived as impolite. There are some things it is literally impossible to say politely - anything along the lines of "Your entire worldview is wrong and you've been wasting your time" (add "and you deserve to be punished eternally" and it gets so much worse). All you can do is dress it up prettily.

quote:
quote:
That said, you really can't compare the beards of comic fans and theologians.
Theologians wash, basically.

(In a previous life I remember seeing on a large BBS for RPGs a long, unironic thread entitled "do you shower?" with an unintentionally hilarious lively discussion of the pros and cons of soap. No lie.)

I only wish I found that hard to believe. Although I do find it hard to believe that everyone on the anti-soap side was serious.

quote:
STEM research creates stuff, by its nature. Humanities research creates ideas. Neither is superior; together they create a totality of learning.

But by its very nature STEM research has demonstrable material results that research of the same level in humanities simply doesn't have, meaning that even if an outsider doesn't get the maths or physics, they can go yeah, of course, smartphones, tidal turbines, cures for HIV, Large Hadron Colliders, teeny tiny particles that the universe is made from.

Yup. Also by their nature it's much easier to tell when a STEM subject has veered off the rails and is either doing not much more than gazing at its own navel, or is as captured by outside interests that are against their stated mission goals as many economics departments are.
 
Posted by Wood (# 7) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
Yup. Also by their nature it's much easier to tell when a STEM subject has veered off the rails and is either doing not much more than gazing at its own navel, or is as captured by outside interests that are against their stated mission goals as many economics departments are.

Yeah, completely. Although someone mentioned the inventors of Zyklon B, or any Nazi science experiment project really, as precisely that: Science Gone Bad.

When Science Attacks.

You've Been Scienced.

I'll grant you that no one is as vulnerable to outside interests as Economics and Business. But then, they are also departments that do have demonstrable outcomes (ie, money).
 
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 
quote:
Wood: Humanities, and I speak as a holder of two humanities degrees and the conviction to fight for the death for the humanities, simply can't compete with that sort of thing.
Still, it seems that the Sciences have more difficulty in attracting new students than the Humanities, at least in my country.
 
Posted by Wood (# 7) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:
Wood: Humanities, and I speak as a holder of two humanities degrees and the conviction to fight for the death for the humanities, simply can't compete with that sort of thing.
Still, it seems that the Sciences have more difficulty in attracting new students than the Humanities, at least in my country.
Would that it were the case here.

Hence my woes with STEM supremacists upthread.
 
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:

quote:
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.
It would also confuse the existence of God with the existence of belief in God.

That's exactly what he said.

quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
Evidence for belief in Santa does not demonstrate the existence of Santa.

We had leprechauns, moon made of cheese and now we have Santa clause as analogies for the existence of God.

It seems you are appealing to ridicule as a rhetorical device because you are unable to deal logically and philosophically with the question at hand.

I'm just surprised the flying spaghetti monster hasn't been mentioned yet.

quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:

But if all you have to offer is belief then this means that God has no impact on this world.

And here we have another left field entry. Alan was talking precisely about the belief in God affecting things which you dismissed as being not the same as the actual existence of God, then critisized him for belief having no bearing on reality. Holy Shit you're all over the godamn place in your logic.

quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:


quote:
In short, you continue down the line of answering questions that cannot be answered empirically, using strictly empirical methods.
Nope. This is your misunderstanding. The nature and total properties of God can probably not be answered empirically.
HUZZAH! ONE ATHEIST THAT GETS IT!

quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:

Existence is an empirical property.

Says who? Prove it. There is no evidence to believe such a thing.


quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:

quote:
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.
The reductionism here is coming from you. It is the sort of reductionism that says "Because we can not get everything we therefore can not get anything. And therefore we should give up before we've started."


That's not what AC is saying at all. You're getting confused like Croesus is getting confused with DK.

I notice no rebuttal to my argument from ignorance btw. I'll assume I'm correct then.
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
No Justinian - the misunderstanding here is yours. You are not reading my posts, but what you want to hear. I never, ever claimed that you need a complete theory of something before you start investigating it. I said nothing that in any way resembles such a thing. I am saying that your continued category error is based on the fact that you have bypassed ontology and gone straight to epistemology. In fact, to claim I've said that you need a complete theory before proceeding is almost the opposite of what I'm sayjng. If you start with the wrong ontology, you adopt the wrong axioms, and proceed to try and answer ontological questions empirically. Which, once again (and hopefully for the last time) is a category error.
And your interpretation of what I said about love is just as faulty. I am of course not saying love doesn't exist. However, if I was to try to demonstrate empirically the significance of love, and it's significance informs us what it is, not merely its effects (and certainly not its atomic structure) - as I say, if I were to try and do that, I would fail. Because, and here it is again - some things cannot be established using empirical "proof."
 
Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
No Justinian - the misunderstanding here is yours. You are not reading my posts, but what you want to hear. I never, ever claimed that you need a complete theory of something before you start investigating it. I said nothing that in any way resembles such a thing. I am saying that your continued category error is based on the fact that you have bypassed ontology and gone straight to epistemology.

Given that your posts frequently and directly contradict each other in this thread I'm not sure what I'm meant to do.

And here where you are being clear you are also demonstrating you miss the point and are hideously reductionist.

Ontology without epistemology is the creation of fictional constructs. Neither more nor less. You can create whatever you like with just ontology. And without epistemology you have absolutely no way of telling whether what you are talking about is a fictional construct.

If you start with ontology (you've got to start somewhere) then a very early question needs to be the epistemological one. Because either all possible entities exist or you need an arrogance far beyond that of the mythical scientismist to be able to claim that your unverified hypothetical construct is in fact a real thing.
quote:
And your interpretation of what I said about love is just as faulty. I am of course not saying love doesn't exist. However, if I was to try to demonstrate empirically the significance of love, and it's significance informs us what it is, not merely its effects (and certainly not its atomic structure) - as I say, if I were to try and do that, I would fail. Because, and here it is again - some things cannot be established using empirical "proof."
Indeed. Science is normally very poorly placed to answer the question "Why?" But the question "Why?" follows the questions "What?", "Where?", "When?", and "How"

And the answers to those assuming the line you and Evensong appear to be both arguing are "Absolutely nothing", "Nowhere or everywhere - the two are indistinguishable", and "No time or all times", and "Through methods that are indistinguishable from them having happened by natural causes".

All of these, of course, have consequences for the Why.
 
Posted by SusanDoris (# 12618) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
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:
quote:
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?

I think that the words ‘universal applicability’ sound right; the words ‘physical science … most authoritative approach are correct. This is not of course to state that this is so to the exclusion of others but it is the best we have if we want to have reliable, testable information.
Is Science the ‘Most valuable part of human learning’? – That is a matter of personal judgement of course, butscientific knowledge is always there, a foundation constantly being strengthened. I set this against the foundation of religious beliefs which proposes god/s of some sort, all of which remain elusive and whose presence or absence does not alter the natural universe.

My view of the authority of Science is that I am confident of its being the best we have BECAUSE the Theories of Science are always subject to revision and updating when better, more correct information becomes available. Of course, mistakes are made – scientists are human beings after all – but we have only to look around us to see where it has brought us today to appreciate that it works. From the accumulated scientific and philosophical information throughout history, we know that not only should the views of all those in the world of the ~Arts be given the very high respect and authority they deserve but that their survival value must have been as strong as the ability to find food and stay alive. But these are evolved skills, contained in evolved human brains. This fact can be taken for granted.

Actually, having spent quite some time this afternoon thinking about the subject (thank you, LeRoc!), writing, deleting and re-writing, I don’t think I really know what scientism is or whether it is a necessary word!
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
No Justinian - the misunderstanding here is yours. You are not reading my posts, but what you want to hear. I never, ever claimed that you need a complete theory of something before you start investigating it. I said nothing that in any way resembles such a thing. I am saying that your continued category error is based on the fact that you have bypassed ontology and gone straight to epistemology.

Given that your posts frequently and directly contradict each other in this thread I'm not sure what I'm meant to do.

You have asserted this without evidence. I'm dismissing it without evidence.
quote:

And here where you are being clear you are also demonstrating you miss the point and are hideously reductionist.

No, the poster who has been unrelentingly reductionist on this thread is you. Your approach attempts to reduce phenomena that cannot be established by empirics to empirics.
quote:

Ontology without epistemology is the creation of fictional constructs. Neither more nor less. You can create whatever you like with just ontology. And without epistemology you have absolutely no way of telling whether what you are talking about is a fictional construct.

Never claimed I was insisting on ontology without epistemology. Straw man.
quote:

If you start with ontology (you've got to start somewhere) then a very early question needs to be the epistemological one. Because either all possible entities exist or you need an arrogance far beyond that of the mythical scientismist to be able to claim that your unverified hypothetical construct is in fact a real thing.

You do have to start somewhere. You have to start with ontology. This is the path Heidegger takes when he tries to roll back Descartes error of confusing ontology with epistemology. You can ask epistemological questions as soon as you like. As long as you don't bypass ontology, because to do so is to risk trying to answer or understand phenomena in ways that that they cannot be answered or understood.
quote:

quote:
And your interpretation of what I said about love is just as faulty. I am of course not saying love doesn't exist. However, if I was to try to demonstrate empirically the significance of love, and it's significance informs us what it is, not merely its effects (and certainly not its atomic structure) - as I say, if I were to try and do that, I would fail. Because, and here it is again - some things cannot be established using empirical "proof."
Indeed. Science is normally very poorly placed to answer the question "Why?" But the question "Why?" follows the questions "What?", "Where?", "When?", and "How"

And the answers to those assuming the line you and Evensong appear to be both arguing are "Absolutely nothing", "Nowhere or everywhere - the two are indistinguishable", and "No time or all times", and "Through methods that are indistinguishable from them having happened by natural causes"..

No idea what you are trying to say here.
 
Posted by SusanDoris (# 12618) on :
 
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?

You probably know this, but may I suggest
this talk titled The Higgs Boson and the Fundamental Nature of Reality by physicist and skeptic Sean Carroll. I think it was very interesting and the discussion I followed concerning it was too.
 
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 
quote:
SusanDoris: I think that the words ‘universal applicability’ sound right; the words ‘physical science … most authoritative approach are correct. This is not of course to state that this is so to the exclusion of others but it is the best we have if we want to have reliable, testable information.
This is contradictory. I'm trying to ascertain if your position coincides with Scientism of course; from what I've read from you on the Ship you seem to be at least close to it. But I'm not sure if I'll get a clear enough answer to make that ascertainment.
 
Posted by SusanDoris (# 12618) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
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.

Sorry to sound a bit daft, but can you please point me in the direction of a couple of such questions? Thank you.
 
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
do angels exist?

what is consciousness?

is everything amenable to reductionist scientific analysis?

what was my ancestors name 153 generations ago?

what emotional state was I in yesterday morning?

have I ever had a past life that affects this life?

is there such a thing as the collective unconscious?

given that some children are born with ambiguous genitalia, what is the ethical response to this problem?

to you internally perceive the colour purple the same way that I perceive it?
 
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Wood:
I actually know someone working on the bid to make a car that goes 1000mph and the whole point of the project is that it will excite people and make them want to study science. Humanities, and I speak as a holder of two humanities degrees and the conviction to fight for the death for the humanities, simply can't compete with that sort of thing.

Not all STEM is sexy engineering. Ask non-applied mathematicians how easy they find it to compete for funds or explain to the public what they are doing. Ask the many fundamental scientists who have to be very optimistic that their research will one day cure cancer, or the like, and who dread the research councils' "Impact" section on grant proposals as an exercise in wishful pretending.

For that matter, when our university finished making our "REF impact" statement to the government, they had a day long workshop for academics to get them to be more "impactful". As part of this, they had four speakers presenting impact cases that the university really liked. Here are the topics:
Notice something? This was for the entire university, but the only thing that was STEM was a talk from psychology (and psychology is borderline STEM, frankly). The last talk was from a guy who could be considered a STEM person (agriculture), but he really was speaking about politics, namely about his dealings and wheelings in Westminster. So, apparently good impact is primarily delivered by the humanities around here...

As for the supposed academic divide: one of my friends here is an archaeologist, and he regularly collaborates with people from the maths department. The head of our neuroimaging facilities is a linguist, a former student of Noah Chomsky. And before that, a hermit. No, really. I have tried pretty hard to get a collaboration / grant proposal with one of our resident philosophers going, and while that didn't work out I'm now negotiating a collaboration with a psychologist and a different philosopher. I share supervision of a PhD student with someone from pharmacy, and of a postdoc with someone from meteorology and the aforementioned ex-hermit linguist neuroimager. I have a PhD in perturbative quantum chromodynamics and I'm about to start a project building a robotic frog faithful in its motion control to biological recordings. Today I have been asked to collaborate in an EU proposal aimed at ADHD, and I was member of a funding panel on dementia tech. Right now I'm working on a paper about spatiotemporal neural bursting in anaesthesia. The last paper I published was about the neural anatomy in layer II/III. Nevertheless, many of my colleagues probably know me best for creating really spiffy scientific movies / animations. And of course in my free time I pretend to have a clue about Catholic theology and Thomist philosophy on SoF.

Yes, the old science world with its clear cut boundaries between disciplines is still very much around, in particular also among the research councils, and it is a pain in the butt. But frankly, a new science is rising and it is all about crossing over and working the edges. And I think we are just at the start of that. Furthermore, I think we had the pendulum swing way to the specialisation side, and it is now swinging back to the polymaths. We basically needed to develop the tech (in particular: computers) and collaborative methods to keep multiple balls in the air, now that they all have become huge and heavy. Leonardo da Vinci juggled by his own power, we are learning how to team-juggle with electronic power. These are exciting times for people with good and flexible brains...
 
Posted by SusanDoris (# 12618) on :
 
Le Roc

Sorry about that!! I'm afraid I'll have to blame having to listen not read.

itsarundo

Well, I did ask, I suppose!! [Smile] back tomorrow.
 
Posted by Wood (# 7) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:

Yes, the old science world with its clear cut boundaries between disciplines is still very much around, in particular also among the research councils, and it is a pain in the butt. But frankly, a new science is rising and it is all about crossing over and working the edges. And I think we are just at the start of that. Furthermore, I think we had the pendulum swing way to the specialisation side, and it is now swinging back to the polymaths. We basically needed to develop the tech (in particular: computers) and collaborative methods to keep multiple balls in the air, now that they all have become huge and heavy. Leonardo da Vinci juggled by his own power, we are learning how to team-juggle with electronic power. These are exciting times for people with good and flexible brains...

You are fortunate enough to be in a really good uni, mind. The uni I have connections with...

Isn't. Not really.
 
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
I'm open, show me.

I can't show you a lack of continued evidence. Your post seemed to imply there was some, then it somehow disappeared. What do you mean by that?
Show me evidence. Show me an empirical way to demonstrate God.
 
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:

Zyklon B symbolizes the gap between science and scientism.

I don't think so. Scientism does not say use of science is good. It demonstrates that science can be used for good or ill.

quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:

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.

IME, snarling causes people to dig in their heels and stop their ears all the sooner.

You mean like this?
Yes. It would be easy to make the argument, however, by that time the heels which were going to be dug were already. any
 
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
quote:
by IngoB
Today I have been asked to collaborate in an EU proposal aimed at ADHD

You would perform a great service if you happened to demonstrate a clear connection between ADHD-type brain activity and plagiocephaly (either cranial bone displacement or falx/tentorium displacement or deformation of the jugular foramen). Provided, that is, no silly bugger suggests we keep the "back to sleep program" and just perform surgical interventions on childrens heads.
 
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Show me evidence. Show me an empirical way to demonstrate God.

Everything & anything. Cosmological argument. Done.

Would you like some fries with that?
 
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
I'm open, show me.

I can't show you a lack of continued evidence. Your post seemed to imply there was some, then it somehow disappeared. What do you mean by that?
Show me evidence. Show me an empirical way to demonstrate God.
I could say that you're walking around in one.

This is interesting, though it doesn't strictly constitute repeatable evidence... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUYZZsm5gqo
 
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 
Olives. Surely, olives are empirical proof that God exists.
 
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
Olives. Surely, olives are empirical proof that God exists.

And they are definitely repeatable
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
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.

Sorry to sound a bit daft, but can you please point me in the direction of a couple of such questions? Thank you.
Well, itsarumdo has given quite a few possible candidates, but I think I've outlined some examples in quite a bit of detail. But since you asked so nicely ...
What is love? (Baby don't hurt me, don't hurt me ... Sorry. Had to). But seriously - science may be able to speculate as to which part of my brain certain chemicals combine or electrical impulses occur, and say something like "this is what happens to your brain when you feel love" or something. Without doing the ontological work to figure out what love is, such an approach is facile. I think that doing that work here is endless, as direct, non-metaphorical language (I mean in the general sense here, of course all language is fundamentally metaphorical) cannot adequately express the significance of love. Therefore measuring the effects of love is going to be impossible, since these are contingent and unpredictable, varying in different people and circumstances. The same applies to isolating the brain chemistry that "causes" love. Hopefully it is evident from this reasoning how wrong headed that must be. If we can't even agree as to what it is, what its effects are - how on earth can we muck around trying to measure it?
Another example is God. What is God, does God exist, does God not exist, what is the nature of God's interaction with the world? ... ad infinitum. Questions science cannot help us with.
 
Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:
Dark Knight: That post you keep linking to DOES NOT SAY THAT. [brick wall]
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".

Yup. I agree.
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:

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.

IME, snarling causes people to dig in their heels and stop their ears all the sooner.

You mean like this?
Zing.

quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
If you start with ontology (you've got to start somewhere) then a very early question needs to be the epistemological one. Because either all possible entities exist or you need an arrogance far beyond that of the mythical scientismist to be able to claim that your unverified hypothetical construct is in fact a real thing.

You do have to start somewhere. You have to start with ontology. This is the path Heidegger takes when he tries to roll back Descartes error of confusing ontology with epistemology. You can ask epistemological questions as soon as you like. As long as you don't bypass ontology, because to do so is to risk trying to answer or understand phenomena in ways that that they cannot be answered or understood.
Seems like you are both making this a linear process -- you start at point A, and proceed through points B, C, etc. -- when it's really iterative. Start with the chicken or the egg, who cares, but you keep tinkering, and going back and forth between making observations and changing your theory, including your ontology.
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
Yes, agreed and conceded. A linear scheme is not helpful here.
 
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
"The disciplines that rely on the scientific method are sufficient to explain everything that happens in the Universe. All other disciplines can ultimately be reduced to those. We may not be able to make this reduction right now, but one day we will be." ... But I don't think it's self-contradictory.

The catch is the claim that modern natural science can explain everything in the universe, as you would have it, or some similar claim. Actually you may have intended to escape the trap by including the word "happens" in your statement. But that does not help. To the extent to which that breaks the self-application it also ceases to be representative of actual scientism.
I had the feeling that the addition of "one day we will be" gives me even more wiggle room. I got the idea; you'll want to apply this statement to itself. This basic assertion can't be derived from the scientific method. But to this, a scientismist could answer "... yet."

(I'm playing a bit of the devil's advocate here. I'm actually getting rather fed up with people saying "Maybe Science isn't able to explain X, but one day it will be.")
 
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Show me evidence. Show me an empirical way to demonstrate God.

Everything & anything. Cosmological argument. Done.

Would you like some fries with that?

While you know I'm a big Feser fan, there has to be a simpler way to explain the argument surely.

What was wrong with my pictoral representation again? I showed it to you a year or so ago.
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:


(I'm playing a bit of the devil's advocate here. I'm actually getting rather fed up with people saying "Maybe Science isn't able to explain X, but one day it will be.")

You and me both.
 
Posted by SusanDoris (# 12618) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by itsarumdo:
do angels exist?

That's an easy one! Angels are human ideas, depicted by artists as they imagine such beings would be, if they existed. So all that is needed here are evolved brains. If someone asserts that angels exist, it is up to them to provide a basis for a hypothesis and tests to prove them.
quote:
what is consciousness?
A function of the brain/mind. Still has undefined areas, yes, but whatever else is not known about it, the fact that a living brain is necessary cannot be doubted, can it?
quote:
is everything amenable to reductionist scientific analysis?
Hmmm, I think, yes, but this question need only be considered occasionally, otherwise it can be taken for granted.
quote:
what was my ancestors name 153 generations ago?
There is no doubt from a scientific point of view that you had such an ancestor and that he had a name, so if a record of it exists somewhere, it could be found using research tools and skills produced of course by living humans.
quote:
what emotional state was I in yesterday morning?
Unless you were attached to some piece of brain sensing machine at the time and the results indicated some particular, known aspect of brain activity, then the only way that someone could know is if you gave the information. What other answer could you give to this question?
quote:
have I ever had a past life that affects this life?
No. The circumstances of your ancestors’ lives and their genetic make-up could well affect you and your circumstances, but reincarnation? Definitely not!!
quote:
is there such a thing as the collective unconscious?
No! Dr Sean Carroll can explain!
quote:
given that some children are born with ambiguous genitalia, what is the ethical response to this problem?
Okay, a question like this needs (scientific) knowledge of the physical condition, consideration of what is the best option for the child concerned; but whatever decision is arrived at, it will be made by humans using physical brains, referring to the life experiences that they have had and that others before them have had and communicated by language. All morals and ethical ideas are as they are because humans have made them so.
quote:
to you internally perceive the colour purple the same way that I perceive it?
For me personally, no, since all dark colours look the same to me! [Smile] However, I understand scientist have invented machines which can analyse colours and identify them without the need for a human eye. I’ve heard of a little gadget which blind people can use to tell what colour garment they have picked up. It’s science all the way down, you know!!
 
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :
 
[crosspost]

Almost as fed up as I get with those who say "science can't answer this question therefore God must exist".

[ 08. October 2014, 10:45: Message edited by: Marvin the Martian ]
 
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 
quote:
Marvin the Martian: Almost as fed up as I get with those who say "science can't answer this question therefore God must exist".
I'm not one of them.
 
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
[crosspost]

Almost as fed up as I get with those who say "science can't answer this question therefore God must exist".

Science can answer the question, but empiricism can't.

Both "empiricism can't answer the question therefore God must exist"

and

"empiricism can't answer the question therefore God doesn't exist"

are a logical fallacy from the argument of ignorance. Neither are true.
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
quote:
quote:
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
is everything amenable to reductionist scientific analysis?

Hmmm, I think, yes, but this question need only be considered occasionally, otherwise it can be taken for granted.
This is really the only answer we need, with respect, because all of your answers are reductionist.
What makes you think that is a legitimate approach?
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
[crosspost]

Almost as fed up as I get with those who say "science can't answer this question therefore God must exist".

If that is expressed as a gap hypothesis (i.e. God gets shoehorned into the gaps in our knowledge, until tomorrow when science fills those gaps), then I agree.
I also think it is an illegitimate conclusion from the proposition that there certainly are many questions science cannot answer, and will never be able to answer, because they are not questions that can be investigated using science. To infer from that God's existence is a non sequitur.
That isn't what this thread is about, though.

[ 08. October 2014, 11:37: Message edited by: Dark Knight ]
 
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
quote:
quote:
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
is everything amenable to reductionist scientific analysis?

Hmmm, I think, yes, but this question need only be considered occasionally, otherwise it can be taken for granted.
This is really the only answer we need, with respect, because all of your answers are reductionist.
What makes you think that is a legitimate approach?

It would actually be insane to live like this. For example, if I am wondering whether to have chocolate or vanilla ice-cream, probably I could be subject to various kinds of physiological tests, to find out which suits my taste-buds more at that moment. However, I can also go to the freezer, and choose.
 
Posted by Wood (# 7) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
[crosspost]

Almost as fed up as I get with those who say "science can't answer this question therefore God must exist".

Actually, yes. I'm down with this, too. Both viewpoints are so very, very problematic.
 
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
It would actually be insane to live like this. For example, if I am wondering whether to have chocolate or vanilla ice-cream, probably I could be subject to various kinds of physiological tests, to find out which suits my taste-buds more at that moment. However, I can also go to the freezer, and choose.

Isn't "go to the freezer and choose" exactly what Susan means by "taken for granted"?

By which I mean that the process by which you decide which ice cream to have can (in principle) be described through 'reductionist scientific analysis', but that doesn't mean you have to do such an analysis every time you make a decision. That would be like saying you have to examine the performance of every rod and cone cell in your retinas every time you want to look at something.
 
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
It would actually be insane to live like this. For example, if I am wondering whether to have chocolate or vanilla ice-cream, probably I could be subject to various kinds of physiological tests, to find out which suits my taste-buds more at that moment. However, I can also go to the freezer, and choose.

Isn't "go to the freezer and choose" exactly what Susan means by "taken for granted"?

By which I mean that the process by which you decide which ice cream to have can (in principle) be described through 'reductionist scientific analysis', but that doesn't mean you have to do such an analysis every time you make a decision. That would be like saying you have to examine the performance of every rod and cone cell in your retinas every time you want to look at something.

Yes, but it's not that it 'can' be taken for granted; it has to be, otherwise life would be completely insane.
 
Posted by SusanDoris (# 12618) on :
 
Thank you for your response, which I have much enjoyed thinking about and answering as best I can.
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
Well, itsarumdo has given quite a few possible candidates, but I think I've outlined some examples in quite a bit of detail. But since you asked so nicely ...
What is love? (Baby don't hurt me, don't hurt me ... Sorry. Had to). But seriously - science may be able to speculate as to which part of my brain certain chemicals combine or electrical impulses occur, and say something like "this is what happens to your brain when you feel love" or something. Without doing the ontological work to figure out what love is, such an approach is facile. I think that doing that work here is endless, as direct, non-metaphorical language (I mean in the general sense here, of course all language is fundamentally metaphorical) cannot adequately express the significance of love. Therefore measuring the effects of love is going to be impossible, since these are contingent and unpredictable, varying in different people and circumstances. The same applies to isolating the brain chemistry that "causes" love. Hopefully it is evident from this reasoning how wrong headed that must be. If we can't even agree as to what it is, what its effects are - how on earth can we muck around trying to measure it?

Yes, I do agree with you actually! It is, I think, all the overtones and variations of meaning of that one word, love, that give it a much greater significance in our minds and experience that is far beyond that of the ability to measure the brain’s workings. We could, I suppose, have different words for each aspect of it, but that wouldn’t work after so many thousands of years since we’ve had the word love. I love my family – a sentence that does not in any way express the multi-faceted feelings and emotions I have when I think of them, but from a scientific point of view, I appreciate that these are all reactions, sensations, emotional etc processes taking place in my brain and body. This does not diminish in any way the love I feel and to know that I have evolved to feel and understand this is far more exciting and magical to me than to believe it is because of some mystical, inexplicable something. Why should I want to fool myself into thinking that?
quote:
Another example is God. What is God, does God exist, does God not exist, what is the nature of God's interaction with the world? ... ad infinitum. Questions science cannot help us with.
Maybe it is because believers do not like to accept no God, or perhaps more likely want there to be a mystical something beyond the reach of Science, and that's human nature. If, however, you feel that you communicate with God*, and vice versa, then these interactions would be connected with reality and therefore, have an effect which would be measurable. )

*No answer requested, but I will add a regular sceptic’s question – how do you know which god to worship, and what makes you so sure it is the right one?
 
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Yes, but it's not that it 'can' be taken for granted; it has to be, otherwise life would be completely insane.

I'd say the same applies to any theory about how the decision making process works.
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
In short, the idea that science someday will be able to explain any X, where X is something that it cannot currently explain, is a confession of faith in science. In shorter, scientism.
 
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
In short, the idea that science someday will be able to explain any X, where X is something that it cannot currently explain, is a confession of faith in science. In shorter, scientism.

Doesn't that make all forms of scientific research "scientism"?
 
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
No. Science is not scientism.
 
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
No. Science is not scientism.

It would seem to be, according to MT's formulation. Saying "we don't currently know how to formulate a vaccine for Ebola (for example), but pursuing these lines of research is likely to produce one" is, according to him, "a confession of faith in science" and therefore "scientism".
 
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 
quote:
Crœsos: It would seem to be, according to MT's formulation. Saying "we don't currently know how to formulate a vaccine for Ebola (for example), but pursuing these lines of research is likely to produce one" is, according to him, "a confession of faith in science" and therefore "scientism".
It is most definitely a confession of faith in Science. It becomes Scientism by the use of the word 'any' in mousethief's post: if you believe that Science can explain all X.
 
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
It is most definitely a confession of faith in Science. It becomes Scientism by the use of the word 'any' in mousethief's post: if you believe that Science can explain all X.

Given a world of limited resources and time, wouldn't the likely course be to stop at one Ebola vaccine, provided it was effective, and not try to develop all possible Ebola vaccines? I suppose you're right about that, but I'm not sure there's anyone who thinks science can or should be so exhaustive.
 
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 
quote:
Crœsos: Given a world of limited resources and time, wouldn't the likely course be to stop at one Ebola vaccine, provided it was effective, and not try to develop all possible Ebola vaccines? I suppose you're right about that, but I'm not sure there's anyone who thinks science can or should be so exhaustive.
I'm not sure if you grasp the range of the word 'all' here. I'm learning about Scientism on this thread while I'm posting about it, but as I understand it, one aspect Scientism is its claim of universality. It's not only that Science will be able to develop all possible Ebola vaccines, but that it will be able to explain everything.
 
Posted by goperryrevs (# 13504) on :
 
You're missing the point. "Any X" is absolutely everything and anything at all, not "any and every ebola vaxine". Mousethief's post had nothing to do about ebola vaxines; you brought that in.

It was about the blind faith that despite knowing that we are incapable of something now, nevertheless we are sure we will be capable in the future.

Until we've achieved X, we can't be sure that we will be able to. For some X's, there's probably a good chance that we'll get there. For others, it might be impossible.

(X-post with LeRoc)

[ 08. October 2014, 14:49: Message edited by: goperryrevs ]
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
With respect Susan (and I do mean that - you at least have been polite) you've missed the point. My remarks about love are not meant to indicate there is a mystical "something" that you seem to be referring to. Rather, I was trying to explain that you cannot reduce love to what is going on in your brain - which is what you ended up doing. As I think AC made clear earlier, you can't describe what something is made of and then just step away and say "finished!" No - not even close.
In the case of love, we can't actually agree on what it is, what it should feel like, what its effects are, how it manifests, what causes it (I mean, what circumstances cause us to feel love, and what that feeling even feels like, at the risk of sounding tautological) - how on earth could we even begin to point to the brain and say "this is love right here"? More importantly - infinitely more importantly - what on earth would that even establish? It might have significance for a brain surgeon, or a neuroscientist like IngoB. Not terribly much for me.
I certainly have no intention of trying to diminish anyone's sense of wonder at the natural world, or what science has revealed. But if I want to understand the significance of phenomena that can't be empirically measured, why would I consult a set of methods that empirically measure stuff?
To do so would be an act of blind faith, rather than reason.
I think when you say things like "people want to believe" you have to be careful. People also want to believe all phenomena can be reduced to empiricism. I don't really understand why, just as you apparently don't understand the existence of religious faith.
Re the sceptic's question - it's a modern question of course. Prior to modernity, one typically (though not always) observed the religion of one's culture and region. As a modern person, I do compare religions - although admittedly I have only recently started doing this. If I found a religion that more adequately articulated the significance of my experience of the divine, I would convert. That hasn't happened yet. It might.
 
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
It's interesting how there is a lot of faith in the Brain being the seat of consciousness. In fact, this is one argument used time and time again to either repudiate or explain all kinds of numoinous phenomena.

"http://www.resuscitationjournal.com/article/S0300-9572%2814%2900739-4/pdf"

Given that this research indicates that credible memories of events occurring around the "dead" people occureed long after the nominal 30 seconds it takes for the brain to shut down with no blood supply....

a) consciousness is not strictly related to brain function - i.e. there may be a soft linkage between brain function and consciousness, but that is not fixed by virtue of blood flow, oxygen supply or associated physiological processes - and neiother is it fixed to EEG signals

b) biological death is not the same as death of consciousness

c) consciousness is not necessarily fixed to living tissue (though it preferentially resides there)

d) biological death is a transition in a similar way to conception/birth (into another life)

heading slightly off into the long grass, but still relevant.

[ 08. October 2014, 18:52: Message edited by: itsarumdo ]
 
Posted by Russ (# 120) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:

In the case of love, we can't actually agree on what it is, what it should feel like, what its effects are, how it manifests, what causes it (I mean, what circumstances cause us to feel love, and what that feeling even feels like,..

...how on earth could we even begin to point to the brain and say "this is love right here"? More importantly - infinitely more importantly - what on earth would that even establish?

We don't have to agree on what love is as a first step. The process could be more like discovering by the methods of science that when certain chemicals are present in the brain at certain levels, the subject reports feelings that are consistent with the way that the word "love" is commonly used. Doesn't matter whether such a discovery happens as part of an attempt to "research love" or as a chance by-product of a project with other aims.

What we call "love" may turn out not to be a single phenomenon, but a complex of effects that through scientific research we come to describe in more precise terms.

Such research probably won't explain the quality of the feeling. In the same way that there is a scientific explanation for pain, which has led to the development of better painkillers, without us having much understanding of why pain feels the way it does.

I don't know whether a "love potion" will be invented. It's not inconceivable.

Committing oneself to the proposition that scientific methods will lead to an understanding of love does seem like an act of faith. Faith in both the order and comprehensibility of the universe, and faith in the ingenuity of working scientists like IngoB and Alan C.

I don't think I'm making that act of faith here; just opining as to what seems likely, in the light of the rapid progress of scientific knowledge over the last century.

What I find less easy to understand and sympathise with is those whose faith is in the opposite direction; who commit to the idea that life is incomprehensible, that we will never understand.

Best wishes,

Russ
 
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 
quote:
Russ: Committing oneself to the proposition that scientific methods will lead to an understanding of love does seem like an act of faith. Faith in both the order and comprehensibility of the universe, and faith in the ingenuity of working scientists like IngoB and Alan C.

What I find less easy to understand and sympathise with is those whose faith is in the opposite direction; who commit to the idea that life is incomprehensible, that we will never understand.

I hope you realize that these are only the extremes, and there is actually a lot in between. Some things we will understand (and probably more in the future than we do now), and perhaps some things we never will. I don't think that's a bad thing though. Completely understanding ourselves would take a bit of the Mystery out of things.
 
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
We don't have to agree on what love is as a first step. The process could be more like discovering by the methods of science that when certain chemicals are present in the brain at certain levels, the subject reports feelings that are consistent with the way that the word "love" is commonly used. Doesn't matter whether such a discovery happens as part of an attempt to "research love" or as a chance by-product of a project with other aims.

What we call "love" may turn out not to be a single phenomenon, but a complex of effects that through scientific research we come to describe in more precise terms.

I don't think that would make sense unless the different effects that are called love are distinguishable in terms of their social and psychological effects. If research shows that effect one is accompanied by jealousy and effect two isn't, then that's one thing. But suppose the effects manifest in ways that are indistinguishable in their social and psychological causes and consequences? Would it then make sense to say that it's not one phenomenon? Surely, it is the social and psychological consequences that make us interested in the phenomenon at all. Therefore, why in that case would the neuroscientific basis, a rather abstruse and hard to determine phenomenon, get definitional priority?

This isn't an argument against materialism. Nobody(*) disputes that one dollar American banknotes and one hundred dollar American banknotes are entirely material objects. But they have completely different causal effects that are not explicable in terms of any of the natural sciences.

(*) For a value of nobody that excludes utter cranks.
 
Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
In short, the idea that science someday will be able to explain any X, where X is something that it cannot currently explain, is a confession of faith in science. In shorter, scientism.

Doesn't that make all forms of scientific research "scientism"?
Nope. Scientific research is about biting off things that scientists believe they can realistically chew. Scientism is declaring that everything is edible.
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
No. Science is not scientism.

It would seem to be, according to MT's formulation. Saying "we don't currently know how to formulate a vaccine for Ebola (for example), but pursuing these lines of research is likely to produce one" is, according to him, "a confession of faith in science" and therefore "scientism".
Go back and read what I said. I said the belief that science can and will explain EVERYTHING. Not any one particular thing. Not be able to create a bunch of different Ebola viruses (what a bizarre misinterpretation!). Everything. Can you see the difference? One is saying, "I think science can beat this" (and has good reason to think so). The other is saying, "It doesn't matter what it is, it is scientifically explainable."

Can you really, in your brain of brains, not see the difference? If not, then I submit we may never have a meeting of minds.
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
Russ - what LeRoc and Dafyd said.
And no one here is saying that the world is "incomprehensible." This is, once again, a category error that implies that only scientific knowledge of the world renders the world "comprehensible." Which is nonsense. There are other ways of knowing, understanding and even finding out things.
The belief that only scientific knowledge counts in making the world comprehensible is a symptom of the phenomenon this thread is about - scientism or perhaps STEM supremacy.
(Which is still think sounds like a plot to breed a race of super humans from stem cells. And that is an HBO series I would watch the absolute shit out of).
 
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
If not, then I submit we may never have a meeting of minds.

I do not think there will be one here. ISTM, there is as much emotion as reason powering the responses. Some are thinking other people are not "getting" their argument, but I think most people are. At least mostly.

quote:
Originally posted by itsarumdo:
long after the nominal 30 seconds it takes for the brain to shut down with no blood supply....

This is not accurate. Times will vary depending on various factors, including cold, heath and age, but cells begin to die after ~ 1 minute. 3 to 4 minutes and severe brain damage becomes likely. 10 minutes and recovery unlikely. 15 minutes and recovery virtually impossible.
 
Posted by SusanDoris (# 12618) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
In short, the idea that science someday will be able to explain any X, where X is something that it cannot currently explain, is a confession of faith in science. In shorter, scientism.

Yes, but a faith based on evidence, on the knowledge of what has been found out already, and on the knowledge too that if the answer is not found, then it is not considered to be an objective fact, but remains a don't know yet.
 
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
Russ - what LeRoc and Dafyd said.
And no one here is saying that the world is "incomprehensible." This is, once again, a category error that implies that only scientific knowledge of the world renders the world "comprehensible." Which is nonsense. There are other ways of knowing, understanding and even finding out things.
The belief that only scientific knowledge counts in making the world comprehensible is a symptom of the phenomenon this thread is about - scientism or perhaps STEM supremacy.
(Which is still think sounds like a plot to breed a race of super humans from stem cells. And that is an HBO series I would watch the absolute shit out of).

I can't believe that anybody really thinks that science makes life comprehensible. Well, I can see that it might, in one kind of way - when I'm hungry I eat, and so on. But is that life?

Yesterday, I was staring at the purple sheen on the neck of a pigeon, kind of transfixed by it. I expect a scientific explanation of the sheen could be given, but that would not change my marveling. The experience is sui generis. But I suppose this is getting closer to a religious sensibility.

It reminds me of working with some people in therapy - there is lots of explanation at first, but there comes a time when we are able to be with each other. If we started to explain that, we would no longer be with each other.
 
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
I noticed a long time ago that I was taking some pretty good pictures with my camera. But in order to do so I had separated myself into an observer and had somehow also disconnected form the place I was in. After a lot of years not taking photos and then being a bit more careful as to how far I objectified the world, I still don't fully have the capacity to both observe enough in the way necessary to take composed photographs AND be fully present and connected in the time and place in the way that I like to be. Well - "like" is a bit of a weak word - the way that feels to be most wholesome is more to the point.
 
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by itsarumdo:
I noticed a long time ago that I was taking some pretty good pictures with my camera. But in order to do so I had separated myself into an observer and had somehow also disconnected form the place I was in. After a lot of years not taking photos and then being a bit more careful as to how far I objectified the world, I still don't fully have the capacity to both observe enough in the way necessary to take composed photographs AND be fully present and connected in the time and place in the way that I like to be. Well - "like" is a bit of a weak word - the way that feels to be most wholesome is more to the point.

I think this is a good point, and I would enlarge it. Doing science is in the third person, whereas living is in the first. These are very different, and I don't live in a kind of detached observer-like way. Well, sometimes I may do, but I also participate in life, I enjoy it, I am in life.

This is one of the problems with saying that science describes the world; well, maybe, but it doesn't enter into it. The scientist leaves work, goes home, and connects with other people, enjoys himself, and so on. Hopefully, at any rate.
 
Posted by SusanDoris (# 12618) on :
 
Too late for edit: I think I should have said 'faith based on the testable reliability of knowledge accumulated using the scientific method'.
 
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
Too late for edit: I think I should have said 'faith based on the testable reliability of knowledge accumulated using the scientific method'.

Ah yes - I had a conversation some time ago with someone who followed that one - she was convinced that - because reflexology was not proven by science, the principles behind it could not possibly "exist", and it was therefore demonic. There are quite a few misunderstandings here, but one of them is an assumption that science describes everything - whereas in reality science is necessarily an incomplete description of the world (and always will be).

Kurt Gödel was slightly crazy, but produced a couple of theorems on the logical universality of axiomatic systems for integers which are also relevant here. Basically it is not possible to describe all truths by using a self-consistent set of axioms. There is some heated debate as to whether this applies beyond the world of integers, but if time-space is quantised, one could argue that everything is integers ("and the rest is the work of man", according to Kronecker). In less formal terms (again there is some debate as to whether it is possible to express Gödel in anything other than formal terms), logically any given model of how the universe works can never be complete, and there will always be something that either is indemonstrable through it and/or is downright inconsistent with it. And interestingly, here we don't even need to enter any spiritual world - this applies equally to the physical universe. As I said, Gödel was slightly crazy - he eventually starved himself to death because he was paranoid that someone was poisoning his food.
 
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
In short, the idea that science someday will be able to explain any X, where X is something that it cannot currently explain, is a confession of faith in science. In shorter, scientism.

Yes, but a faith based on evidence, on the knowledge of what has been found out already, and on the knowledge too that if the answer is not found, then it is not considered to be an objective fact, but remains a don't know yet.
Which is why atheism is "scientifically" invalid and irrational.

Agnosticism is the true empirically scientific position as it acknowledges empiricism is incapable of either proving or disproving the existence of God as objective fact.
 
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :
 
But many atheists are agnostic about God.
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
Too late for edit: I think I should have said 'faith based on the testable reliability of knowledge accumulated using the scientific method'.

That is one of the wordiest oxymorons I've ever seen.
You're still not getting it, Susan. Some things cannot be established and investigated using science. That's not something that will one day change. It will always be so, because of the mature of science.
 
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
But many atheists are agnostic about God.

That's an oxymoron too

[ 09. October 2014, 11:33: Message edited by: Evensong ]
 
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
quote:
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
Too late for edit: I think I should have said 'faith based on the testable reliability of knowledge accumulated using the scientific method'.

That is one of the wordiest oxymorons I've ever seen.
You're still not getting it, Susan. Some things cannot be established and investigated using science. That's not something that will one day change. It will always be so, because of the mature of science.

She knows DK, she knows. Yet she persists in faith. Save your breath. And don't be beguiled by the smiley faces and apparent politeness.

[ 09. October 2014, 11:36: Message edited by: Evensong ]
 
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 
There's nothing wrong with SusanDoris persisting in faith. I think it's rather beautiful actually.
 
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
Some things cannot be established and investigated using science.

I think there's some confusion here about what "established and investigated" means.

Take pain, for instance. We know that it's basically the response of nerve cells to damage sustained by the body. That's the scientific explanation for it, but that explanation doesn't get to the heart of what it actually feels like to the one sustaining the damage - and it certainly doesn't provide any insight into what we should do to minimise pain for ourselves or others.

BUT - the fact that the scientific answer doesn't do those things doesn't mean there's anything actually happening other than what the scientific explanation describes.

It's like how you can describe a game of football as two teams of 11 people trying to kick a ball into a net for 90 minutes. That explanation doesn't get anywhere near to describing what it's like to play in a game of football, but that doesn't mean there's actually something happening other than two teams of 11 people trying to kick a ball into a net for 90 minutes.

Basically, something happens and then we add a bunch of extra layers of understanding and interpretation to that. Science can establish and investigate what the thing that happened actually was, but it can't do anything like as good a job of analysing the extra layers that we add to everything - not least because there are as many different understandings and interpretations as there are people.
 
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
There is nothing beautiful about consistenly trying to undermine the faith of others when you know you don't have a leg to stand on but do it anyway.

[x-posted with Marvin]

[ 09. October 2014, 12:19: Message edited by: Evensong ]
 
Posted by Net Spinster (# 16058) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by itsarumdo:
quote:
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
Too late for edit: I think I should have said 'faith based on the testable reliability of knowledge accumulated using the scientific method'.

Ah yes - I had a conversation some time ago with someone who followed that one - she was convinced that - because reflexology was not proven by science, the principles behind it could not possibly "exist", and it was therefore demonic. There are quite a few misunderstandings here, but one of them is an assumption that science describes everything - whereas in reality science is necessarily an incomplete description of the world (and always will be).

Reflexology makes claims about the material world that can be tested; science is a good tool for showing that those claims are wishful thinking or not and it does show the former is so for reflexology. Given that why should one accept the claimed underlying principles for something that doesn't happen? A foot massage does feel good (barring cases such as now when I have a bad case of poison oak on one foot) but little more.
 
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 
quote:
Evensong: There is nothing beautiful about consistenly trying to undermine the faith of others when you know you don't have a leg to stand on but do it anyway.
She isn't succeeding very well in undermining my faith. Yours?
 
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
Ain't the point. She's dishonest.
 
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
But many atheists are agnostic about God.

That's an oxymoron too
The trouble is, you're now defining other people's ideas for them. It's a bit like an atheist saying that you believe in a zombie on a stick.

I know plenty of atheists who define their atheism as not having a belief in God; but they don't know that there is no God. Hence 'agnostic atheist' is an accurate reflection of their views.
 
Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Ain't the point. She's dishonest.

Evensong, you know that comment on people's characters does not belong in Purgatory. Don't do it.

Gwai,
Purgatory Host
 
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Net Spinster:
quote:
Originally posted by itsarumdo:
quote:
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
Too late for edit: I think I should have said 'faith based on the testable reliability of knowledge accumulated using the scientific method'.

Ah yes - I had a conversation some time ago with someone who followed that one - she was convinced that - because reflexology was not proven by science, the principles behind it could not possibly "exist", and it was therefore demonic. There are quite a few misunderstandings here, but one of them is an assumption that science describes everything - whereas in reality science is necessarily an incomplete description of the world (and always will be).

Reflexology makes claims about the material world that can be tested; science is a good tool for showing that those claims are wishful thinking or not and it does show the former is so for reflexology. Given that why should one accept the claimed underlying principles for something that doesn't happen? A foot massage does feel good (barring cases such as now when I have a bad case of poison oak on one foot) but little more.
It was introduced into a hospital in Wales about 20 years ago, based ion clinical evidence that it reduced postop hospital bed time by about 3 days. But this is irrelevant - the point I was making is that the use of science as a definition of what is holy is totally barking.
 
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
But many atheists are agnostic about God.

That's an oxymoron too
The trouble is, you're now defining other people's ideas for them. It's a bit like an atheist saying that you believe in a zombie on a stick.

I know plenty of atheists who define their atheism as not having a belief in God; but they don't know that there is no God. Hence 'agnostic atheist' is an accurate reflection of their views.

People are quite welcome to make up whatever they think a word means. But we do have dictionaries for a reason.

Atheism and Agnosticism are most definitely two different things.

[ 09. October 2014, 13:40: Message edited by: Evensong ]
 
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Ain't the point. She's dishonest.

Evensong, you know that comment on people's characters does not belong in Purgatory. Don't do it.

Gwai,
Purgatory Host

Was kicking myself shortly afterwards. Sorry......moment of weakness. [Hot and Hormonal]
 
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Atheism and Agnosticism are most definitely two different things.

Well yeah. The former is about content of belief, the latter is about certainty of belief. They're not necessarily mutually contradictory.
 
Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Ain't the point. She's dishonest.

I disagree. She's honestly arguing what she believes. She's been consistent over the years, and expresses herself well. I always look forward to her posts.

Susan and I disagree on a great deal--though I suspect that if we had a long, lazy lunch together, we'd find we agree more than we disagree. (We already agree on 42 and the H2G2 books--and that covers all that's really important. [Biased] )
 
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :
 
Evensong wrote:

People are quite welcome to make up whatever they think a word means. But we do have dictionaries for a reason.

Dictionaries record usage. As usage changes, so do dictionary entries.
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
Susan and I disagree on a great deal--though I suspect that if we had a long, lazy lunch together, we'd find we agree more than we disagree. (We already agree on 42 and the H2G2 books--and that covers all that's really important. [Biased] )

Philistines. LotR is importanter.
 
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 
I wonder if the scientific method can help us decide which series is the most important?
 
Posted by Net Spinster (# 16058) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
I wonder if the scientific method can help us decide which series is the most important?

Depends on how you define 'important'. One could do surveys to figure out which is better known or how widespread quotes (and misquotes) from each are (and repeat in a hundred years time). However if by important one means how it is weighed by an ineffable ground of being (i.e., which author god is going to have a longer discussion with over a fine dinner), science can't determine that.
 
Posted by SusanDoris (# 12618) on :
 
I can see I have quite a bit of thinking to do!

EvensongAbsolutely no need to kick self! [Smile]

Golden KeyThank you! I think a room full of all the people on this thread would be talking away nineteen to the dozen and thoroughly enjoying every minute, whether agreeing or not!

Back later. I'll try to avoid the oxymorons!
 
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 
quote:
SusanDoris: talking away nineteen to the dozen
I didn't know this expression. Thank you.
 
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :
 
19, 000 gallons of water pumped out for every 12 bushels of coal, by beam engines. Well, it could be true.
 
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
19, 000 gallons of water pumped out for every 12 bushels of coal, by beam engines. Well, it could be true.

sounds quite likely - the steam engines of that time were like our apollo missions

sixes and sevens comes originally from the tallying of the sun and moon in an early medieval calculation of the moons nodes. The sun moves once every 6 1/2 days relative to the moon, so that's a 6 day wait and then a seven day wait. The year was split into 56 divisions, one for each day of 13 degrees lunar motion
 
Posted by SusanDoris (# 12618) on :
 
Posted accidentally, so deleted until I've got it right ... well as near right as I can!

[ 09. October 2014, 19:07: Message edited by: SusanDoris ]
 
Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Evensong wrote:

People are quite welcome to make up whatever they think a word means. But we do have dictionaries for a reason.

Dictionaries record usage. As usage changes, so do dictionary entries.

What does the dictionary currently say "atheist" means, then?

EDIT: And I'm well aware we've already had a version of this conversation in Hell.

[ 09. October 2014, 23:45: Message edited by: orfeo ]
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
Some things cannot be established and investigated using science.

I think there's some confusion here about what "established and investigated" means.

Take pain, for instance. We know that it's basically the response of nerve cells to damage sustained by the body. That's the scientific explanation for it, but that explanation doesn't get to the heart of what it actually feels like to the one sustaining the damage - and it certainly doesn't provide any insight into what we should do to minimise pain for ourselves or others.

BUT - the fact that the scientific answer doesn't do those things doesn't mean there's anything actually happening other than what the scientific explanation describes.

Yes, it does. It means exactly that. This is the materialist position, writ large. I don't accept it. It is a statement of faith.
quote:

It's like how you can describe a game of football as two teams of 11 people trying to kick a ball into a net for 90 minutes. That explanation doesn't get anywhere near to describing what it's like to play in a game of football, but that doesn't mean there's actually something happening other than two teams of 11 people trying to kick a ball into a net for 90 minutes.

Again, yes it really does. The problem is with your use of "actually." The materialist or reductionist position suggests that, whatever we think or feel about a phenomenon, what is actually going on is what is happening at the molecular level, or the scientifically verifiable level. This is not the case, at all. And you don't just get to assume it is.
What is actually going on in a football game is ... well, people have written books, made films, sung fucking songs about it. I'm not trying to be romantic about this (I've been accused of that before, I guess as accusations go its kinda flattering. Moving on ...). To presume that what is actually going on is what can be stated in empirical or scientific terms is exactly the problem here.
quote:

Basically, something happens and then we add a bunch of extra layers of understanding and interpretation to that. Science can establish and investigate what the thing that happened actually was, but it can't do anything like as good a job of analysing the extra layers that we add to everything - not least because there are as many different understandings and interpretations as there are people.

For one thing, this assumes quite naively that science is not interpretive. Which is nonsense.
More importantly - for me, anyway - this is a prioritization of the scientific perspective, as if that is the way to understand what is really going on. And that prioritization happened without any real justification.
 
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

BUT - the fact that the scientific answer doesn't do those things doesn't mean there's anything actually happening other than what the scientific explanation describes.

Yes, it does. It means exactly that. This is the materialist position, writ large. I don't accept it. It is a statement of faith.
This argument is no more than "I do not believe it, therefore it is not true".
Nothing argues thus far puts paid to MtM's statement.
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

BUT - the fact that the scientific answer doesn't do those things doesn't mean there's anything actually happening other than what the scientific explanation describes.

Yes, it does. It means exactly that. This is the materialist position, writ large. I don't accept it. It is a statement of faith.
This argument is no more than "I do not believe it, therefore it is not true".
Nothing argues thus far puts paid to MtM's statement.

This is flat out dishonest, or really dumb. Did you even bother to read the rest of my post? I did not conclude with this, I offered reasons for my position.
 
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :
 
I read it, it was not convincing.
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
So you decided to misrepresent it? Nicely played.
I am happy to discuss further on the hell thread, as I've pretty much had enough of your tactics here. Join me there if you want.
 
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Evensong wrote:

People are quite welcome to make up whatever they think a word means. But we do have dictionaries for a reason.

Dictionaries record usage. As usage changes, so do dictionary entries.

What does the dictionary currently say "atheist" means, then?

EDIT: And I'm well aware we've already had a version of this conversation in Hell.

I think traditionally dictionaries have given a version of 'strong' atheism, i.e. a rejection of God. But in the last 20 years, 'weak' atheism has been argued for much more, and is beginning to percolate into dictionaries.

Thus the Merriam-Webster online dictionary has two entries: 'a disbelief in the existence of deity', and 'the doctrine that there is no deity'.

The second one here is definitely strong.

One thing that happened in many atheist groups, is that the strong version was rejected, as being actually unsustainable. If you say 'there is definitely no God', how are you going to defend that? It seems impossible, therefore the idea of agnostic atheism began to develop - basically that one cannot 'know' that there is no God, while one lacks belief.

Hence an agnostic atheist lacks both knowledge and belief in God. The Wiki entry actually is quite comprehensive and describes both positions.

What I find odd about this, is that theists often reject the weak version, and insist that the strong version is the only possible view! This is linguistic imperialism, I think.

It's quite comical that when Dawkins recently said he was agnostic about God, some newspapers announced this as a shock development, but he has always said this. On his 1-7 scale, he is a 6.9, and many atheists say they are a 6.
 
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :
 
Just an addendum to that - the reason that some theists insist on the strong meaning of atheism, is that this then has the burden of proof, 'I am certain there are no gods, and these are the reasons'. You're having a giraffe, ain't you?
 
Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Evensong wrote:

People are quite welcome to make up whatever they think a word means. But we do have dictionaries for a reason.

Dictionaries record usage. As usage changes, so do dictionary entries.

What does the dictionary currently say "atheist" means, then?

EDIT: And I'm well aware we've already had a version of this conversation in Hell.

I think traditionally dictionaries have given a version of 'strong' atheism, i.e. a rejection of God. But in the last 20 years, 'weak' atheism has been argued for much more, and is beginning to percolate into dictionaries.

Thus the Merriam-Webster online dictionary has two entries: 'a disbelief in the existence of deity', and 'the doctrine that there is no deity'.

The second one here is definitely strong.

Well, I'd say the first one is strong as well. It says 'disbelief', not 'lack of belief', and it's lack of belief that would be the "weak" form that you describe as agnostic atheism.

The leading Australian dictionary has much the same definition.

I remain of the view that there's not a lot of point in turning 'agnostic' into some kind of qualifier of 'atheism' (and perhaps a qualifier of 'theism' as well, as we discussed in Hell), rather than having 'agnostic' as a distinct position. I can't see the value of moving from having "Yes, No, Don't Know" as 3 distinct answers and instead trying to blur the "Don't Know" answer by either treating it as part of a collective "Not Yes", or dividing it up into "Don't Know but leaning No" and "Don't Know but leaning Yes".

It's instructive that I've yet to encounter anyone who describes themselves as an "agnostic theist". It only seems to be from the atheist side that there's some kind of push to claim ownership of the uncertain middle ground.
 
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :
 
I think there are agnostic theists, people who believe in gods but don't actually know if there are any. Well, hang on, that describes me!

'Agnostic atheism' is required to distinguish knowing and believing, which are orthogonal to each other, not on a continuum.

I think also it's an extra degree of precision, to separate out people who don't have a belief in gods, but don't categorically know that there aren't any. This seems to describe an awful lot of atheists today.

But as I said, some theists are quite irate at this, because of the shifting burden of proof. If someone is certain that there are no gods, they are now required to produce an argument. Errm, what would that be?

Oh, I forgot 'disbelief' - it depends on whether you take 'dis' as a privative, like 'a', i.e. lacking belief.

[ 10. October 2014, 08:25: Message edited by: quetzalcoatl ]
 
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
The materialist or reductionist position suggests that, whatever we think or feel about a phenomenon, what is actually going on is what is happening at the molecular level, or the scientifically verifiable level. This is not the case, at all. And you don't just get to assume it is.

Well, I'm unconvinced that what we think or feel about any given event is an inherent part of the event itself. If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is around, it still fell. And if somebody had been watching, it would still have fallen in exactly the same way. And that is true regardless of what that observer might have thought or felt about it.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that our thoughts and feelings aren't real. I'm just saying that they are a different thing to the events that cause them. No event is inherently tragic, comic, momentous, insignificant, etc. - those are meanings we ascribe to events, but the events themselves are exactly the same regardless of how we happen to categorise them. We can talk all night about what an event meant to us, about its significance, it's meaning, and so forth - but we would be talking about our thoughts and feelings about the event, not the event itself.

Also, there's unarguably a definition of "real" that doesn't include thoughts and feelings. If I feel such strong hatred for someone that I think about killing them, they don't actually die. In fact, my thoughts and feelings in and of themselves have zero effect on the person whatsoever.
 
Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I think also it's an extra degree of precision, to separate out people who don't have a belief in gods, but don't categorically know that there aren't any. This seems to describe an awful lot of atheists today.

If you get terribly picky it describes every atheist, just as belief in God, rather than knowledge that God exists, describes every theist. I suspect the only distinction here is between people who assert certainties with a degree of bravado/self-deception and those who have more circumspect personalities.

In fact we could get into fascinating philosophical discussions about any number of things that people don't really "know" but merely "believe", things that have nothing to do with theology.

But (as arguably demonstrated by a rather lengthy Hell post I made a short while ago), right now I'd rather not get into such discussions, and instead I'd prefer to go and enjoy the experiences of having some dinner, listening to some Dvorak and watching the season premiere of The Good Wife.
 
Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Also, there's unarguably a definition of "real" that doesn't include thoughts and feelings. If I feel such strong hatred for someone that I think about killing them, they don't actually die. In fact, my thoughts and feelings in and of themselves have zero effect on the person whatsoever.

They have an effect on you, though. It seems as if this definition of "real" excludes you from the universe.
 
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Also, there's unarguably a definition of "real" that doesn't include thoughts and feelings. If I feel such strong hatred for someone that I think about killing them, they don't actually die. In fact, my thoughts and feelings in and of themselves have zero effect on the person whatsoever.

They have an effect on you, though. It seems as if this definition of "real" excludes you from the universe.
This is the rational scientific observer position. All interaction with the outside world can be suspended indefinitely so that the true nature of things may be investigated.
 
Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by itsarumdo:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Also, there's unarguably a definition of "real" that doesn't include thoughts and feelings. If I feel such strong hatred for someone that I think about killing them, they don't actually die. In fact, my thoughts and feelings in and of themselves have zero effect on the person whatsoever.

They have an effect on you, though. It seems as if this definition of "real" excludes you from the universe.
This is the rational scientific observer position. All interaction with the outside world can be suspended indefinitely so that the true nature of things may be investigated.
Pity no-one told Einstein or Schroedinger about this.
 
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Also, there's unarguably a definition of "real" that doesn't include thoughts and feelings. If I feel such strong hatred for someone that I think about killing them, they don't actually die. In fact, my thoughts and feelings in and of themselves have zero effect on the person whatsoever.

They have an effect on you, though. It seems as if this definition of "real" excludes you from the universe.
That's not exactly what I was talking about, though. If I think about committing a murder, has a murder actually been committed? Of course not. Therefore the thought is not the action (and vice versa).

Similarly, if I accidentally drop a hammer from a window and it hits someone on the head and kills them then that isn't murder - but if I deliberately dropped the hammer at them such that it hit and killed them in exactly the same way then that would be murder. But the actual event of dropped-hammer-hitting-head is exactly the same in both cases. The intention - the thought and feeling, if you will - doesn't change the event itself, it only changes how we in turn will think and feel about it.
 
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I think also it's an extra degree of precision, to separate out people who don't have a belief in gods, but don't categorically know that there aren't any. This seems to describe an awful lot of atheists today.

If you get terribly picky it describes every atheist, just as belief in God, rather than knowledge that God exists, describes every theist. I suspect the only distinction here is between people who assert certainties with a degree of bravado/self-deception and those who have more circumspect personalities.

In fact we could get into fascinating philosophical discussions about any number of things that people don't really "know" but merely "believe", things that have nothing to do with theology.

But (as arguably demonstrated by a rather lengthy Hell post I made a short while ago), right now I'd rather not get into such discussions, and instead I'd prefer to go and enjoy the experiences of having some dinner, listening to some Dvorak and watching the season premiere of The Good Wife.

Fair enough. I think a lot of this is a fightback against what I call linguistic imperialism, that is, people who start saying, 'X is the correct definition of 'atheism', and you are using the incorrect definition'.

This is nonsense really. Meaning is use. The end.
 
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Also, there's unarguably a definition of "real" that doesn't include thoughts and feelings. If I feel such strong hatred for someone that I think about killing them, they don't actually die. In fact, my thoughts and feelings in and of themselves have zero effect on the person whatsoever.

They have an effect on you, though. It seems as if this definition of "real" excludes you from the universe.
That's not exactly what I was talking about, though. If I think about committing a murder, has a murder actually been committed? Of course not. Therefore the thought is not the action (and vice versa).

Similarly, if I accidentally drop a hammer from a window and it hits someone on the head and kills them then that isn't murder - but if I deliberately dropped the hammer at them such that it hit and killed them in exactly the same way then that would be murder. But the actual event of dropped-hammer-hitting-head is exactly the same in both cases. The intention - the thought and feeling, if you will - doesn't change the event itself, it only changes how we in turn will think and feel about it.

OK - though whenever you think about something, it immediately plays out in your premotor cortex as if you were actually dong it. And the only way that can be suppressed is for the motor cortex in the same motor segment to correspondingly reduce its background activity. So it's still playing through your body, and neurology, it's still playing out emotionally, and these are real. But not easily measured by external means. The effect of the intervention or non-intervention you describe will probably live with you for the rest of your life and may then affect future decisions or actions. So how real is it? Is it necessary for something to have the force of a hammer falling for it to be "real"?

Is there a threshold of activity or effect above which reality exists (and below which it doesn't exist)? I'd say not. Tiny flickers of quantum activity determine whether a bird can detect magnetic orientation well enough to navigate. Just a few photons hit the retina of a sperm whale or giant squid at 2km. Does the fact that a snake might wait for 3 hours in one spot for something to pass it so that it can strike - make that inaction meaningless? The problem lies with the measurement devices not being sensitive enough or not being capable of detecting certain events or the operator simply thinking that they are so tiny as to not be important. Also, as we become more subtle in our scope of attention, "noise" becomes more and more difficult to filter out - it becomes harder and harder to separate one subtle signal or response from another in an analysable manner. However, our brains and our senses do this very well in an environment they have learned. Small imperceptible signals or juxtapositions tell our dog no matter how careful we are - that someone will be packing bags to go out within 24 hours. The effect of these subtle changes is that his behaviour alters and it becomes almost impossible not to trip over him.
 
Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
This is nonsense really. Meaning is use. The end.

No it's not. Meaning is shared use.

If meaning was use, I wouldn't have to spend quite so much time discussing with more senior drafters how to improve the language of my drafts. The whole notion of 'improving' wouldn't exist. The draft would be perfect because it conveyed my thoughts in my words.

[ 10. October 2014, 10:04: Message edited by: orfeo ]
 
Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 
In fact, my entire job gives the lie to the proposition that dictionary meanings don't matter. I have to rely on dictionary meanings sometimes, for the precise purpose of communicating to the greatest number of people possible. I also have to consciously avoid some words or expressions because of the risk of ambiguity, of people reaching different conclusions as to what I meant.
 
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by itsarumdo:
OK - though whenever you think about something, it immediately plays out in your premotor cortex as if you were actually dong it.

But my point is that that's not the same thing as actually doing it. I'm not really doing it - I'm just thinking about doing it. There's a significant difference there.

quote:
So it's still playing through your body, and neurology, it's still playing out emotionally, and these are real.
Yes, they are real. But they're still different to the action itself - they aren't really the action, in other words.

quote:
Is it necessary for something to have the force of a hammer falling for it to be "real"?
No. But it's necessary for a hammer to actually fall in order for a hammer to be falling. Simply thinking about a falling hammer doesn't mean a hammer is really falling.

quote:
Is there a threshold of activity or effect above which reality exists (and below which it doesn't exist)?
This isn't about what's real and what's not. It's about whether what we think about an event actually changes the event itself. I say not.
 
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
In fact, my entire job gives the lie to the proposition that dictionary meanings don't matter. I have to rely on dictionary meanings sometimes, for the precise purpose of communicating to the greatest number of people possible. I also have to consciously avoid some words or expressions because of the risk of ambiguity, of people reaching different conclusions as to what I meant.

I agree about shared use, and I think Wittgenstein meant that with his famous statement.

I don't think dictionaries don't matter, but see Evensong above who is using the argumentum ad lexicon, as if it trumps any argument.

As usage shifts, dictionaries begin to reflect this, and I expect that the sense of 'lacking belief in gods' will begin to figure for 'atheism'.
 
Posted by goperryrevs (# 13504) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Is it necessary for something to have the force of a hammer falling for it to be "real"?
No. But it's necessary for a hammer to actually fall in order for a hammer to be falling. Simply thinking about a falling hammer doesn't mean a hammer is really falling.
This is maybe just an interesting aside, but I recall there have been studies that make this distinction a bit more blurry. So, for example, thinking about doing exercise actually builds up muscle (obviously nowhere near as much as doing it, but more than not thinking about doing exercise), and people who imagined learning piano for two weeks (without actually sitting in front of a piano) prior to taking lessons, then developed much more quickly than people who started lessons cold. Interesting huh? Anyway, carry on.
 
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
In fact, my entire job gives the lie to the proposition that dictionary meanings don't matter. I have to rely on dictionary meanings sometimes, for the precise purpose of communicating to the greatest number of people possible. I also have to consciously avoid some words or expressions because of the risk of ambiguity, of people reaching different conclusions as to what I meant.

I agree about shared use, and I think Wittgenstein meant that with his famous statement.

I don't think dictionaries don't matter, but see Evensong above who is using the argumentum ad lexicon, as if it trumps any argument.

Actually I started out using Susan Doris's own lexicon

Atheism (by her definition) is not a scientific position. Yet she consistently argues that science is the only important and "true" position.

I agree with orfeo that meanings are about shared use.

In my experience, those aboard this ship ( and on other online websites and articles ) that state themselves to be atheists do not come from the position of your "agnostic" atheism, they come from a very strong anti-position that ridicules theism with such analogies like Justinian has provided: leprechauns, moon made of cheese, Santa Claus and the flying spaghetti monster to name a few.

In my experience atheism is hard line and seeks to ridicule faith as being irrational. Different from your experience perhaps but there you go.

If we take the atheism/agnosticism meaning that you are proposing, then atheism is a faith position, not a scientific position. But I really reckon you'd be hard pressed to get a self-confessed atheist to accept that.
 
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Is it necessary for something to have the force of a hammer falling for it to be "real"?
No. But it's necessary for a hammer to actually fall in order for a hammer to be falling. Simply thinking about a falling hammer doesn't mean a hammer is really falling.
This is maybe just an interesting aside, but I recall there have been studies that make this distinction a bit more blurry. So, for example, thinking about doing exercise actually builds up muscle (obviously nowhere near as much as doing it, but more than not thinking about doing exercise), and people who imagined learning piano for two weeks (without actually sitting in front of a piano) prior to taking lessons, then developed much more quickly than people who started lessons cold. Interesting huh? Anyway, carry on.
Yes. Mind matters.
 
Posted by Grokesx (# 17221) on :
 
quote:
In my experience, those aboard this ship ( and on other online websites and articles ) that state themselves to be atheists do not come from the position of your "agnostic" atheism, they come from a very strong anti-position that ridicules theism with such analogies like Justinian has provided: leprechauns, moon made of cheese, Santa Claus and the flying spaghetti monster to name a few.
You're right, we're all bastards. And that Susan, who doesn't ridicule theism that way, she's just as bad.

Fucking hilarious.
 
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
You've never heard of passive aggressive?
 
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :
 
It just illustrates the point that some theists don't like weak (or agnostic) atheism, as then they don't have their favourite straw man to play with, that is, the nasty anti-theist who yells 'Sky-daddy' when he wakes up, and then 'leprechauns' when he has his dinner, and 'Pastafarian' when he goes to sleep. How uncouth.
 
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I think there are agnostic theists, people who believe in gods but don't actually know if there are any. Well, hang on, that describes me!


Me too.
 
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
It just illustrates the point that some theists don't like weak (or agnostic) atheism, as then they don't have their favourite straw man to play with, that is, the nasty anti-theist who yells 'Sky-daddy' when he wakes up, and then 'leprechauns' when he has his dinner, and 'Pastafarian' when he goes to sleep. How uncouth.

This, as well.
 
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
It just illustrates the point that some theists don't like weak (or agnostic) atheism, as then they don't have their favourite straw man to play with, that is, the nasty anti-theist who yells 'Sky-daddy' when he wakes up, and then 'leprechauns' when he has his dinner, and 'Pastafarian' when he goes to sleep. How uncouth.

Not at all. Susan Dories is not an agnostic atheist. She firmly believes in scientism as her new God.

That last definition was an oxymoronic stumble from her usual high falutin dismissal of theism.

[ 10. October 2014, 12:07: Message edited by: Evensong ]
 
Posted by Grokesx (# 17221) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
You've never heard of passive aggressive?

Since you're such a fan of definitions, Wikipedia has that as: "indirect expression of hostility, such as through procrastination, sarcasm, stubbornness, sullenness, or deliberate or repeated failure to accomplish requested tasks for which one is (often explicitly) responsible".

I suppose Susan is exhibiting a deliberate failure to agree with you.
 
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
As usage shifts, dictionaries begin to reflect this, and I expect that the sense of 'lacking belief in gods' will begin to figure for 'atheism'.

Beliefs aren't things such that you can lack them.

I've seen the weak atheist definition used in two contexts.

The first, and comparatively trivial, is to claim that the burden of proof lies on religious believers, and that therefore religious believers are rightly subject to the rationality sanction police.
The underlying assumptions about 'burden of proof' are really problematic. (Let's just say that burden of proof is a legal phrase. Epistemology is not a law court.)

The second is to claim that as the children of religious believers are atheists on this definition, atheists have the right to police religious childbearing until such time as the children have been inoculated with the belief that religion is an irrational pastime that only weirdos engage in.
Let's just say that the right to bring up one's children in one's own religion and culture is enshrined in the United Nation Declaration of Human Rights. It's that important.
 
Posted by SusanDoris (# 12618) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
With respect Susan (and I do mean that - you at least have been polite) you've missed the point. My remarks about love are not meant to indicate there is a mystical "something" that you seem to be referring to. Rather, I was trying to explain that you cannot reduce love to what is going on in your brain - which is what

you ended up doing.

Thank you for your response. I think I canfairly claim, even assert, that I fully appreciate this emotion called love is of the very greatest importance, to believers and non-believers alike, and that whatever the extent,duration and range of feelings and emotions that are encompassed by that word love, they all originate in the human brain and body. They are evolved traits which most certainly have helped to ensure the survival of our species. This does not mean that every aspect of the processes can be individually measured and analysed, but love, and all the other emotions humans feel are instinctive, inherited characteristics. Do yu agree with this?
quote:
As I think AC made clear earlier, you can't describe what something is made of and then just step away and say "finished!" No - not even close.
I agree - this is a subject whose study will never cease.
quote:
In the case of love, we can't actually agree on what it is, what it should feel like, what its effects are, how it manifests, what causes it (I mean, what circumstances cause us to feel love, and what that feeling even feels like, at the risk of sounding tautological) - how on earth could we even begin to point to the brain and say "this is love right here"? More importantly - infinitely more importantly - what on earth would that even establish? It might have significance for a brain surgeon, or a neuroscientist like IngoB. Not terribly much for me.
but infinite as the range of feelings involved in the emotion of love may be, there is never going to be a discovery which says that the source of it exists outside of (living) humans themselves.
quote:
I certainly have no intention of trying to diminish anyone's sense of wonder at the natural world, or what science has revealed.
I agree! The more I know about its scientific basis, the more it can be wondered at.
quote:
But if I want to understand the significance of phenomena that can't be empirically measured, why would I consult a set of methods that empirically measure stuff?
To do so would be an act of blind faith, rather than reason.

I don'tthink I've ever said that love, a single syllable (in English anyway) which has no defining boundaries should be given measurements, but knowing that the whole of it is an evolved human trait, and that it can be shown which chemicals are produced and whereabouts in the brain certain areasare activated when aspects of love are experienced, I think. makes it more of a wonder, not less, I think.
quote:
when you say things like "people want to believe" you have to be careful. People also want to believe all phenomena can be reduced to empiricism.
Point taken.
quote:
I don't really understand why, just as you apparently don't understand the existence of religious faith.
That I do understand because I had a religious faith. There was no doubting the beliefs of mye CofE background, Sunday School, confirmation, etc.
quote:
Re the sceptic's question - it's a modern question of course. Prior to modernity, one typically (though not always) observed the religion of one's culture and region. As a modern person, I do compare religions - although admittedly I have only recently started doing this. If I found a religion that more adequately articulated the significance of my experience of the divine, I would convert. That hasn't happened yet. It might.
Your phrase ‘experience of the divine’ – I would be most interested to know how you can differentiate this 'divine'from ideas in our imagination.
 
Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by itsarumdo:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Also, there's unarguably a definition of "real" that doesn't include thoughts and feelings. If I feel such strong hatred for someone that I think about killing them, they don't actually die. In fact, my thoughts and feelings in and of themselves have zero effect on the person whatsoever.

They have an effect on you, though. It seems as if this definition of "real" excludes you from the universe.
This is the rational scientific observer position. All interaction with the outside world can be suspended indefinitely so that the true nature of things may be investigated.
That position is a strawman of anything held by anyone in the mainstream today. It has been utterly untenable, as has already been pointed out, since Einstein's Theory of Relativity and Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle in the early part of last century.

The current mainstream position is that "It is physically impossible to suspend all interaction with the outside world. The mere act of observation changes that which is observed. Therefore we need to check what we think we see is what we are observing rather than something we ourselves have brought with us, and to file it accordingly."

quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
Some things cannot be established and investigated using science.

I think there's some confusion here about what "established and investigated" means.

Take pain, for instance. We know that it's basically the response of nerve cells to damage sustained by the body. That's the scientific explanation for it, but that explanation doesn't get to the heart of what it actually feels like to the one sustaining the damage - and it certainly doesn't provide any insight into what we should do to minimise pain for ourselves or others.

BUT - the fact that the scientific answer doesn't do those things doesn't mean there's anything actually happening other than what the scientific explanation describes.

Yes, it does. It means exactly that. This is the materialist position, writ large. I don't accept it. It is a statement of faith.
And this is a failure of logic that has created another straw man. "I do not know what is in the unopenable box" doesn't mean "There is something in the box." The box might have something in it. It might not. It means simply that I don't know. A position that in my experience almost all atheists are fine with - but many theists have serious problems with such uncertainty.

And if I can't open the box I can still do things to establish whether or not it is likely that there is something in the box. I can weigh the box. I can examine its construction and see what it's made of. I can shake it. I can try to X-ray it. I can tap it and listen to the echoes. I can find its resonant frequency. I can make computer models based on the results. I can find its centre of mass.

If I'm unable to open the box then there's nothing that will prove that the box is empty. I can however discover that it is a box impermeable to x-rays that weighs exactly the same as if all the sides were a certain thickness of the substance the sides are made of. I can establish that there's nothing that shifts position when I move the box. I can establish the resonant frequency of the box.

And from all this I can establish a lot of properties of the box. I can't tell if the box is actually empty or whether it's full of aerogel. I can't even tell whether the laws of physics are the same inside or outside the box. Because it's closed. There are a number of possible things inside the box that I can't test for. But I can tell there's nothing heavy in there. I can tell there's nothing moving around in there with respect to the real world. None of this is a statement of faith even if the likely conclusion, that the box is actually empty, is.

And Evensong you were the one who brought up the Flying Spaghetti Monster. May you be touched by its noodly appendage.
 
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
...Your phrase ‘experience of the divine’ – I would be most interested to know how you can differentiate this 'divine'from ideas in our imagination.

Heck - that's another of the usual "I can't trust my senses" arguments. If you can't tell the difference between a can of baked beans and a west highland terrier, then just be careful when using a can opener.

Or more to the point, if you can't tell the difference between what you have deliberately imagined and what your senses tell you (and you are moderately sane) then you're in deep doodoo. You could be imagining all kinds of things - even that you are having a conversation on ShipOfFools (no it doesn't actually exist - it's a virtual reality).
 
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
quote:
Originally posted by itsarumdo:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Also, there's unarguably a definition of "real" that doesn't include thoughts and feelings. If I feel such strong hatred for someone that I think about killing them, they don't actually die. In fact, my thoughts and feelings in and of themselves have zero effect on the person whatsoever.

They have an effect on you, though. It seems as if this definition of "real" excludes you from the universe.
This is the rational scientific observer position. All interaction with the outside world can be suspended indefinitely so that the true nature of things may be investigated.
That position is a strawman of anything held by anyone in the mainstream today. It has been utterly untenable, as has already been pointed out, since Einstein's Theory of Relativity and Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle in the early part of last century.

The current mainstream position is that "It is physically impossible to suspend all interaction with the outside world. The mere act of observation changes that which is observed. Therefore we need to check what we think we see is what we are observing rather than something we ourselves have brought with us, and to file it accordingly."
...

I don't see many predators jumping onto figments of their imagination and ripping it to pieces. As part of the natural world, we already embody a capacity to work with and live within this universal interaction. Trust your senses.
 
Posted by SusanDoris (# 12618) on :
 
Most interesting sequence of posts – thank you! I think I’ve got the quotes right.
quote:
Originally posted by Grokesx:
You're right, we're all bastards. And that Susan, who doesn't ridicule theism that way, she's just as bad.

quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
You've never heard of passive aggressive?

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Susan Dories is not an agnostic atheist. She firmly believes in scientism as her new God.

quote:
Originally posted by Grokesx:
I suppose Susan is exhibiting a deliberate failure to agree with you.

It is now about 5:20 p.m. and spending the last three hours on SofF catching up on all the posts in this thread, copying and pasting stuff has, as always been absorbing and very interesting. I’m just responding to this exchange first, as it’s going to take quite a time to sort out all the other comments I want to make.
The main thing I think about atheism/agnosticism is that I state firmly that they are most decidedly not on a 50/50 basis. To be correct and accurate in what I say, I have to allow for the possibility – vanishingly small and faint as it is – that there might, one day be found that there is some sort of god. I feel that it is probably a waste of any time between now and my life’s end] to give that possibility more than a very, very low credibility. However, mmy enjoyment of joining in discusssions will never diminish!

[code]

[ 10. October 2014, 16:19: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
No, Justinian, it is not a failure of logic. You have no idea what's going on here, do you? It might have been useful if you had read or understood the rest of my post.
The position I am advocating is not, and never has been, that science or empirics can't teach us anything. You continue to confuse ontoligy and epistemology, because you persist with the Cartesian confusion of the two.
What I object to is the idea that what is happening at the level of scientific understanding is the most real level - the level of what is actually going on, to use Marvin's terminology. That understanding is important. But to say it is the most important, the understanding that is reflective of what is most real, is actually quite arbitrary. My everyday experience is actually a much more useful indicator of what is most important.
As we've talked about this at length now, I don't have much confidence you're any more likely to get it this time (kind of leads to the question of why I'm still posting, other than to torture our poor Purg hosts - seriously, love you guys). If you read orfeo's long but brilliant post in Hell earlier today, maybe it will sink in.

[ 10. October 2014, 16:26: Message edited by: Dark Knight ]
 
Posted by Beeswax Altar (# 11644) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
It just illustrates the point that some theists don't like weak (or agnostic) atheism, as then they don't have their favourite straw man to play with, that is, the nasty anti-theist who yells 'Sky-daddy' when he wakes up, and then 'leprechauns' when he has his dinner, and 'Pastafarian' when he goes to sleep. How uncouth.

Oh...that's just the Courtier's Reply. [Cool]
 
Posted by Carex (# 9643) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:

In my experience, those aboard this ship ( and on other online websites and articles ) that state themselves to be atheists do not come from the position of your "agnostic" atheism, they come from a very strong anti-position that ridicules theism with such analogies like Justinian has provided: leprechauns, moon made of cheese, Santa Claus and the flying spaghetti monster to name a few.

In my experience atheism is hard line and seeks to ridicule faith as being irrational. Different from your experience perhaps but there you go.

In my experience, there are many aboard this ship whose strawman description of atheists has nothing at all in common with my own atheism or that of any other atheists I know. On at least one previous thread someone even tried to redefine "atheist" to better match their strawman. There may be a few anti-theists who resemble portions of that strawman, but they are only a very small (though sometimes vocal) minority. But the strawman is a convenient way to ridicule and dismiss all atheists without actually understanding their views.

Sort of like assuming that all Christians believe YEC and actively support the Inquisition: there may be a few that do, but it isn't a useful premise to use as a base for your interactions with Christians as a whole.


I would suspect, based on my experience, that you actually interact with many atheists who don't meet your strawman definition, but you might not notice because they don't always advertise that they are atheists - they just get on with life like normal people.

Why would one get the impression here on the ship that most atheists are militant anti-theists? Probably because most threads about atheism already assume they are, and the topics are so foreign to the rest of the atheists that we have nothing to contribute. Often for me the starting assumptions are Not Even Wrong.

Which, of course, is similar to why the term "Christian" has acquired a negative connotation in many circles - those who most strongly and publicly self-identify with the term often are those on the fringe who are doing the most to damage society.
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
The materialist or reductionist position suggests that, whatever we think or feel about a phenomenon, what is actually going on is what is happening at the molecular level, or the scientifically verifiable level. This is not the case, at all. And you don't just get to assume it is.

Well, I'm unconvinced that what we think or feel about any given event is an inherent part of the event itself. If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is around, it still fell. And if somebody had been watching, it would still have fallen in exactly the same way. And that is true regardless of what that observer might have thought or felt about it.

But it doesn't have any meaning apart from the observer's thoughts or feelings about it. You could argue, as you seem to be, that the event is objectively real regardless of the observation. But if the observer is required in order for it to have meaning, it has no real significance apart from the observer.
Don't get me wrong - I'm not trying to say that reality just exists in our minds. What I am trying to say that the simple dichotomy of "this is objectively so regardless of the observer" is not quite so clear cut.
quote:
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that our thoughts and feelings aren't real. I'm just saying that they are a different thing to the events that cause them. No event is inherently tragic, comic, momentous, insignificant, etc. - those are meanings we ascribe to events, but the events themselves are exactly the same regardless of how we happen to categorise them. We can talk all night about what an event meant to us, about its significance, it's meaning, and so forth - but we would be talking about our thoughts and feelings about the event, not the event itself.

As human beings, we interpret. We think and feel about what happens. There is no way behind that. We cannot experience pure objectivity, free of our thoughts and feelings about them. Hell, even language is interpretive.
This is where science, rightly, plays the "independent verification" card. And it's a good card. But it still can't get us behind the fact that, if we agree that an event has some kind of objective reality that's free of the interpretive meaning-making of the observer (and that's still an if), we have no access to it. Idependent verification by someone else just gives us another way to verify the meaning attributed to the event.
quote:
Also, there's unarguably a definition of "real" that doesn't include thoughts and feelings. If I feel such strong hatred for someone that I think about killing them, they don't actually die. In fact, my thoughts and feelings in and of themselves have zero effect on the person whatsoever.
I'm afraid I'm not following here. Can you explain the significance of this example?
 
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
This is an interesting turn - a definition of "real" being on the outside, but not the inside.

Is there a way that this argument falls without invoking an everyday shamanic presence in a massively interconnected world where every flutter of a leaf has significance when a question is asked?

Not that I'm against that kind of view of reality, but things have implications.
 
Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
No, Justinian, it is not a failure of logic. You have no idea what's going on here, do you? It might have been useful if you had read or understood the rest of my post.
The position I am advocating is not, and never has been, that science or empirics can't teach us anything. You continue to confuse ontoligy and epistemology, because you persist with the Cartesian confusion of the two.
What I object to is the idea that what is happening at the level of scientific understanding is the most real level - the level of what is actually going on, to use Marvin's terminology.

No. What is going on is that you are trying to assume an answer and then create a situation under which you consider your answer to be tenable. I am starting with what we actually know and trying to work out what is with as few preconceptions as I can manage. And because you have already come up with your answer based on very little you are assuming that you are right and objecting when I don't start with the assumption that you are right.
 
Posted by Ikkyu (# 15207) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
But it doesn't have any meaning apart from the observer's thoughts or feelings about it. You could argue, as you seem to be, that the event is objectively real regardless of the observation. But if the observer is required in order for it to have meaning, it has no real significance apart from the observer......

Meaning and significance are observer created, they have no existence independent of observers and minds. They may be the most important thing to us. But to the Universe? The Universe kept going happily along without us for almost 14 billion years. So it seems to me that if we want to learn anything, starting with the assumption that we are the most "real" part of the Universe could be a bit misleading.
 
Posted by Russ (# 120) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
how do you stand towards the definition of Scientism that was given in the opening post of this thread:
quote:
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

I think the answer to the OP is that the heat is related to the notion of authority. And yes, scientism is to do with falsely claiming authority for the pronouncements of scientists. The idea that atheism is more true, more worthy of consideration, because Dawkins says it as a scientist than when various philosophers have reached this conclusion in the past.

We've covered some of the limits to the applicability of science - that it's about the facts of what is, rather than how things should be. And about explaining from the outside rather than what experience feels like from the inside. The one I'd add would be that it's not about individuals as individuals. We can do chemistry on the assumption that results of experiments on carbon atoms apply to all carbon atoms - functional identity. And what science tells us about a person is those aspects that are common to the other people who have been in some way experimented upon.

I'm less convinced that science can tell us nothing about the past. Although we can't experiment on or in the past, we can look for "natural experiments" - occasions when two situations had such a lot in common that different outcomes can be attributed to the few significant differences.

So yes, scientism tends to be blind to such methodological limitations. But not suggesting that there are fenced-off areas of life with signs saying "no science allowed here".

I'd argue that science doesn't have authority. Something isn't and shouldn't be so just because scientists say so. But there is a sense in which the facts have a sort of authority, and science is often the best way of getting at the facts...

Don't think it's necessarily scientism to think that science is the basis of the most valuable human learning that has taken place. In what ways do we know more than people a hundred years ago, if not in the STEM fields ?

Best wishes,

Russ
 
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Ikkyu:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
But it doesn't have any meaning apart from the observer's thoughts or feelings about it. You could argue, as you seem to be, that the event is objectively real regardless of the observation. But if the observer is required in order for it to have meaning, it has no real significance apart from the observer......

Meaning and significance are observer created, they have no existence independent of observers and minds. They may be the most important thing to us. But to the Universe? The Universe kept going happily along without us for almost 14 billion years. So it seems to me that if we want to learn anything, starting with the assumption that we are the most "real" part of the Universe could be a bit misleading.
How about starting with the assumption that we ARE part of the universe, and so our direct experience is representative of it, and provides insight into it?

Potentially

Which is what meditation and other similar practices are all about

[ 10. October 2014, 20:37: Message edited by: itsarumdo ]
 
Posted by Ikkyu (# 15207) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by itsarumdo:
quote:
Originally posted by Ikkyu:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
But it doesn't have any meaning apart from the observer's thoughts or feelings about it. You could argue, as you seem to be, that the event is objectively real regardless of the observation. But if the observer is required in order for it to have meaning, it has no real significance apart from the observer......

Meaning and significance are observer created, they have no existence independent of observers and minds. They may be the most important thing to us. But to the Universe? The Universe kept going happily along without us for almost 14 billion years. So it seems to me that if we want to learn anything, starting with the assumption that we are the most "real" part of the Universe could be a bit misleading.
How about starting with the assumption that we ARE part of the universe, and so our direct experience is representative of it, and provides insight into it?

Potentially

Which is what meditation and other similar practices are all about

I am definitely not a dualist. We are indeed part of the Universe, our minds included. The basic mistake in my opinion is assuming our minds are made of something else different from what surrounds us. So that,for example, meaning and ideas somehow could exist independently of brains.
About meditation, I have been practicing Zen meditation for eleven years now. It has been of great value in my life. And it indeed provides insights about your "mind" and about your interconnectedness with all that surrounds you.
But for example I see nothing wrong in subjecting any claimed "benefits" of meditation to scientific study. And also I have no problems with the idea that all of the "insights" I may have "gained", (Insights and gain are terms that Zen would never embrace) could all be explained ,in principle, if we gain sufficient knowledge about the complex physical processes that happen in the human brain. I say in principle because I do not believe it is a trivial problem.
And I feel no need to add any "non-material" entities to the explanation. Like I said not a dualist.
 
Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
This isn't about what's real and what's not. It's about whether what we think about an event actually changes the event itself. I say not.

It actually DID start, from where I came in, as being "about what's real and what's not". Because you threw in a bit that said "there's unarguably a definition of "real" that doesn't include thoughts and feelings." It's THAT definition that I attacked.

And I don't know why you bothered throwing that in, because it contradicted your own previous paragraph, where you said "I'm not saying that our thoughts and feelings aren't real." You were right the first time.

Also, your working example was to do with pain. In which case, what we think about it does change the event. Really, really bad example.

I've actually been involved in a tribunal case about this, so I had to research about what pain IS. And pain isn't the "event" of a stimuli causing nerve cells to fire. Pain IS the conscious process. If you're not awake, you don't experience pain. If you're running on adrenalin, the exact same stimulus doesn't produce the same sensation of pain. If you have a chronic pain syndrome, you continue to experience the sensation of pain long after the stimulus that caused the sensation has been removed.

Now, you can perhaps argue that one day, ONE DAY, we will understand every detail of every single cell and neurochemical and their circumstances and other inputs such that we can trace, in a biological version of chaos theory, exactly how the same stimulus in the same location will generate completely different pain sensations.

That, my friend, is scientism right there.

[ 10. October 2014, 22:59: Message edited by: orfeo ]
 
Posted by Grokesx (# 17221) on :
 
quote:
Now, you can perhaps argue that one day, ONE DAY, we will understand every detail of every single cell and neurochemical and their circumstances and other inputs such that we can trace, in a biological version of chaos theory, exactly how the same stimulus in the same location will generate completely different pain sensations.

That, my friend, is scientism right there.

And I can't for the life of me see why this is a big deal. If you replace the word "will" with "maybe" it becomes nothing more than a weird hope that might result in unforeseen benefits along the way. But in my experience that formulation elicits in some people the same excitable reaction that we've had on the two threads here.

As far as I can the see the answer to the OP's question about why so hot and bothered about scientism, is because it's scientism. The argument drifts in a nice circle. Scientism is bad, those horrid new atheists don't understand the limits of science, they don't understand philosophy and if they did they wouldn't be scientismists because its bad. Don't they know that if you start trying to reduce love to physics and chemistry that's bad and leads to scientism, which is bad. Oh, and scientism is why the academic turf wars are in a phase where the STEM fields are in the ascendancy. Which is bad.
 
Posted by Wood (# 7) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Grokesx:
]
As far as I can the see the answer to the OP's question about why so hot and bothered about scientism, is because it's scientism. The argument drifts in a nice circle. Scientism is bad, those horrid new atheists don't understand the limits of science, they don't understand philosophy and if they did they wouldn't be scientismists because its bad. Don't they know that if you start trying to reduce love to physics and chemistry that's bad and leads to scientism, which is bad. Oh, and scientism is why the academic turf wars are in a phase where the STEM fields are in the ascendancy. Which is bad.

Really? I mean, really? [Roll Eyes]
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Wood:
quote:
Originally posted by Grokesx:
]
As far as I can the see the answer to the OP's question about why so hot and bothered about scientism, is because it's scientism. The argument drifts in a nice circle. Scientism is bad, those horrid new atheists don't understand the limits of science, they don't understand philosophy and if they did they wouldn't be scientismists because its bad. Don't they know that if you start trying to reduce love to physics and chemistry that's bad and leads to scientism, which is bad. Oh, and scientism is why the academic turf wars are in a phase where the STEM fields are in the ascendancy. Which is bad.

Really? I mean, really? [Roll Eyes]
It does explain a lot.
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
No, Justinian, it is not a failure of logic. You have no idea what's going on here, do you? It might have been useful if you had read or understood the rest of my post.
The position I am advocating is not, and never has been, that science or empirics can't teach us anything. You continue to confuse ontoligy and epistemology, because you persist with the Cartesian confusion of the two.
What I object to is the idea that what is happening at the level of scientific understanding is the most real level - the level of what is actually going on, to use Marvin's terminology.

No. What is going on is that you are trying to assume an answer and then create a situation under which you consider your answer to be tenable. I am starting with what we actually know and trying to work out what is with as few preconceptions as I can manage. And because you have already come up with your answer based on very little you are assuming that you are right and objecting when I don't start with the assumption that you are right.
Oh, dear. I think we're done.
What is actually going on, which is quite easy to trace here, is that you are assuming you are right. I am actually quite upfront about the need for axioms. My position is based on axioms. I am aware of it. There is no way around the need for axioms.
But I don't see much possibility that you can understand me. You take care now.
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Ikkyu:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
But it doesn't have any meaning apart from the observer's thoughts or feelings about it. You could argue, as you seem to be, that the event is objectively real regardless of the observation. But if the observer is required in order for it to have meaning, it has no real significance apart from the observer......

Meaning and significance are observer created, they have no existence independent of observers and minds. They may be the most important thing to us. But to the Universe? The Universe kept going happily along without us for almost 14 billion years. So it seems to me that if we want to learn anything, starting with the assumption that we are the most "real" part of the Universe could be a bit misleading.
Completely missed the point.
The universe can and probably has continued in our absence for billions of years. We cannot know anything of the universe sans our interpretive, meaning-making perspective. One of those - one - is science. There are others.
But the point you missed is that the everyday meaning of things has a much better claim to be the most important, the most real or actual, than one that claims we need to understand what we experience at its molecular level, or "objective" level (both examples) to know what is real or actual. Most of the time, anyway.
 
Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Grokesx:
And I can't for the life of me see why this is a big deal.

It's a big deal because of the way it makes people behave.

Because there are folk who don't treat it as a some far-off "maybe". There are people who act as if science is this close to having all the answers and solving everything, and look with disdain at anyone who isn't on board with that.

I have a Science degree. Occasionally I encountered people who looked at me like some kind of weird freak for studying science at the same time as going to church, because in their mind there was no room for both - as if 3 years of chemistry, biochemistry and neuroscience was proof enough that science was The Answer.

It's bollocks. The theoretical future where absolutely everything is understood isn't going to happen in my lifetime or their lifetime. Real science is painstaking and slow and full of things that don't work (like that bloody blue-green algae that refused to kill things in its petri dish like it was supposed to *suppresses biochemistry honours flashback with a shudder*). We're nowhere near the end.

It's not as if scientists are being laid off on the grounds that there's nothing left for them to do. The reverse is true: scientists have absolutely enormous lists of things they'd like to investigate, but not enough resources or hours in the day to tackle them all.

It matters that people have faith that science is going to solve everything for them, because that faith is so utterly misplaced.
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
That, and some of them get all pissy about it.
 
Posted by Ikkyu (# 15207) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
quote:
Originally posted by Ikkyu:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
But it doesn't have any meaning apart from the observer's thoughts or feelings about it. You could argue, as you seem to be, that the event is objectively real regardless of the observation. But if the observer is required in order for it to have meaning, it has no real significance apart from the observer......

Meaning and significance are observer created, they have no existence independent of observers and minds. They may be the most important thing to us. But to the Universe? The Universe kept going happily along without us for almost 14 billion years. So it seems to me that if we want to learn anything, starting with the assumption that we are the most "real" part of the Universe could be a bit misleading.
Completely missed the point.
The universe can and probably has continued in our absence for billions of years. We cannot know anything of the universe sans our interpretive, meaning-making perspective. One of those - one - is science. There are others.
But the point you missed is that the everyday meaning of things has a much better claim to be the most important, the most real or actual, than one that claims we need to understand what we experience at its molecular level, or "objective" level (both examples) to know what is real or actual. Most of the time, anyway.

What do you mean by the "everyday meaning of things"? And why does it have a "better" claim?
The world is one, we split it up into parts and assign things like "meaning" to those parts.

For example, speaking about minds without taking into account what is known about brains is at best incomplete. If you want to speak about what is "real" ignoring atoms and molecules will not get you very far.

Is your claim that our subjective "knowledge" is what is important and any "objective" reality is either unimportant or unknowable? If not then what is it?
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
FFS. I'm actually starting to wonder if I'm a masochist. Why do I keep engaging?
The everyday meaning is pretty much what it sounds like. I'm not sure how to make that clearer.
For the zillionth time, I am NOT advocating ignoring the scientific description. Seriously, what is going on with you people that you read all of these posts as if there is this "either/or" foundation to what I'm saying. It took Croesus several attempts, and I'm still not sure he/she got it.
The molecular level of phenomena is not being ignored. It is also not being unduly prioritised, as if that's what is actually real, and the everyday experience of things is less significant. I'm arguing that it should be the opposite.
And as to the rest - think about it. If you can figure out a way to get to some kind of pure "objective" reality that is completely absent the meaning-making of the observer, there's a committee who want to award you a Nobel prize. Or, I have a bridge to sell you.
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
I apologise for all the snark in that lost post. It was gratuitous, and probably better left for hell.
 
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :
 
orfeo wrote:


I have a Science degree. Occasionally I encountered people who looked at me like some kind of weird freak for studying science at the same time as going to church, because in their mind there was no room for both - as if 3 years of chemistry, biochemistry and neuroscience was proof enough that science was The Answer.


I just extracted this from a very good post. I've found this a lot working as a psychotherapist, as people get muddled up about pharmacology being used in treatment, and then therapy, which is based on a relationship.

Well, obviously, it's not either/or. Of course, the relationship aspect can itself be analyzed, but none the less, it's about things like intimacy and trust, which are lived.

I think this is one reason that Freud is often attacked for not being scientific, since at the time, and still even now, people are unsure how to place things like intimacy. In a sense, Freud invented the psychoanalytic space, which is itself something very human.
 
Posted by goperryrevs (# 13504) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
Don't think it's necessarily scientism to think that science is the basis of the most valuable human learning that has taken place. In what ways do we know more than people a hundred years ago, if not in the STEM fields ?

I've found Brian McLaren's analysis of Genesis facinating. He loses the mainstream Christian intepretation of one big Fall that screws up humanity, and instead points out that the narrative is actually about lots of mini-falls, which are often related to technological advancements.

Each time humanity masters a new technology, it brings a new peril to humanity, a new moral failure. From the hunter-gathering of Eden, to the pastoral farming of Cain and Abel, to the masonry of Babel, each time, the new technology is part of the story of human failure.

Whether it's scientism or not, I don't know. But I do think that it's incredibly dangerous to separate the STEM part of human development apart from the moral and philosophical parts, even to think it's the technology that's the important bit, and the other bits are secondary. Just because we CAN do something (the STEM part, doesn't mean we should). And, when we can do something, doesn't mean we shouldn't seriously consider the consequences that go with that. The two go hand in hand.

This too is the story of Nobel, and it's more pertinent today than ever, given that our technological advancements are coming much faster than ever before. It's not saying that development is bad, but that every new discovery brings a new danger, a new thing to wrestle with and master. It says that, yes, in many ways we know much more than we did 100 years ago, but coupled with (and as a result of that), we may have possibly lost some wisdom, or need some new wisdom to deal with that knowledge.
 
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Grokesx:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
You've never heard of passive aggressive?

Since you're such a fan of definitions, Wikipedia has that as: "indirect expression of hostility, such as through procrastination, sarcasm, stubbornness, sullenness, or deliberate or repeated failure to accomplish requested tasks for which one is (often explicitly) responsible".

I suppose Susan is exhibiting a deliberate failure to agree with you.

Having had many conversations with SusanDoris in the past, I know that she knows empirical science is not able to prove or disprove the existence of God. Yet she persists in asking leading questions with smiley faces and being all polite and pretending she's really interested in changing her mind about her faith and doesn't understand what's going on.

I'm just surprised at how often people fall for it.

I'm also surprised by you defending her. It's cute but not necessary. She's very wiley behind all those smileys and works hard and consistently to point out her faith that God doesn't exist.

The fact that her faith is not backed up by objective fact seems to matter not whit (even tho it is supposed to matter very much to her).

Which proves that strong atheism is not a rational position, but an emotional one: usually in reaction to a strong negative experience in the faith the person is rejecting.
 
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Carex:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:

In my experience, those aboard this ship ( and on other online websites and articles ) that state themselves to be atheists do not come from the position of your "agnostic" atheism, they come from a very strong anti-position that ridicules theism with such analogies like Justinian has provided: leprechauns, moon made of cheese, Santa Claus and the flying spaghetti monster to name a few.

In my experience atheism is hard line and seeks to ridicule faith as being irrational. Different from your experience perhaps but there you go.

In my experience, there are many aboard this ship whose strawman description of atheists has nothing at all in common with my own atheism or that of any other atheists I know. On at least one previous thread someone even tried to redefine "atheist" to better match their strawman. There may be a few anti-theists who resemble portions of that strawman, but they are only a very small (though sometimes vocal) minority. But the strawman is a convenient way to ridicule and dismiss all atheists without actually understanding their views.

Sort of like assuming that all Christians believe YEC and actively support the Inquisition: there may be a few that do, but it isn't a useful premise to use as a base for your interactions with Christians as a whole.


I would suspect, based on my experience, that you actually interact with many atheists who don't meet your strawman definition, but you might not notice because they don't always advertise that they are atheists - they just get on with life like normal people.

Why would one get the impression here on the ship that most atheists are militant anti-theists? Probably because most threads about atheism already assume they are, and the topics are so foreign to the rest of the atheists that we have nothing to contribute. Often for me the starting assumptions are Not Even Wrong.

Which, of course, is similar to why the term "Christian" has acquired a negative connotation in many circles - those who most strongly and publicly self-identify with the term often are those on the fringe who are doing the most to damage society.

Yes. Good post. Your vocal assholes make you look bad just like our vocal assholes make us look bad.

quote:
Originally posted by Carex:
Why would one get the impression here on the ship that most atheists are militant anti-theists? Probably because most threads about atheism already assume they are[

Because the threads are responding to the vocal assholes and vocal assholes are only to happy to oblige when they take part. The assholery (IMO) stems not from not believing in God, but in ridiculing theists who do.

We don't see many of you more rational moderate types around as much. It would be better if we did.
 
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:

And Evensong you were the one who brought up the Flying Spaghetti Monster. May you be touched by its noodly appendage.

I was simply pre-empting what was only a matter of time after your moon made of cheese and Santa Claus analogies which were a deliberate dig at what you perceive to be the stupidity of belief in God.

But thank you for the blessing of your non-existent God.

May you be touched by the Holy Spirit that has real evidence for it's existence.
 
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
But it doesn't have any meaning apart from the observer's thoughts or feelings about it.

Correct. The difference between us is that you seem to think that's a problem.

quote:
You could argue, as you seem to be, that the event is objectively real regardless of the observation. But if the observer is required in order for it to have meaning, it has no real significance apart from the observer.
Again, correct.

quote:
As human beings, we interpret. We think and feel about what happens. There is no way behind that. We cannot experience pure objectivity, free of our thoughts and feelings about them.
I don't disagree. We are subjective beings responding subjectively to an objective reality. Now, that obviously means that anything and everything we think about that reality is going to be subjective - but the reality itself remains objective.

quote:
But it still can't get us behind the fact that, if we agree that an event has some kind of objective reality that's free of the interpretive meaning-making of the observer (and that's still an if), we have no access to it.
That doesn't change the fact that it exists, though.
 
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
It matters that people have faith that science is going to solve everything for them, because that faith is so utterly misplaced.

Where should they be placing their faith then?
 
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :
 
Evensong wrote:

Because the threads are responding to the vocal assholes and vocal assholes are only to happy to oblige when they take part. The assholery (IMO) stems not from not believing in God, but in ridiculing theists who do.

We don't see many of you more rational moderate types around as much. It would be better if we did.


Well, I see a lot of moderate and rational atheists, as I go off and read atheist forums. Well, also, I grew up in a family of atheists, and there were some who hated religion (my grandfather), and some who were indifferent to it (my dad). They're a mixed bunch, surprise, surprise.
 
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
...As human beings, we interpret. We think and feel about what happens. There is no way behind that. We cannot experience pure objectivity, free of our thoughts and feelings about them.

I don't disagree. We are subjective beings responding subjectively to an objective reality. Now, that obviously means that anything and everything we think about that reality is going to be subjective - but the reality itself remains objective.
...

isn't this one of the issues? If the observer interacts with the universe, then the universe interacts with the observer - anything that constitutes life OR has processes that occur in the same medium as the thing that creates the interaction (i.e. quantum soup) interacts. So it's not unreasonable to say that everything is conscious in some manner of speaking. The reality only remains objective if it cannot participate.

Which is one reason I rather like Sheldrake's morphic resonance as a principle - and since he's demonstrated it with crystalline structures, even non-organic matter really does interact with this universal consciousness that pervades everything. And although it's not even necessary to invoke a God to get this quantum level interaction, something God-like is at the very least emergent from this.
 
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
It matters that people have faith that science is going to solve everything for them, because that faith is so utterly misplaced.

Where should they be placing their faith then?
I think that science has helped us and is also presenting us more and more with the tools to self-destruct. It hasn't of itself got a moral purpose, and at the moment it is not a part of the ecosystem that we rely on - it tweaks where it doesn;t understand. Frankly, I don't think that we have yet cone to terms with the internal combustion engine - we still have no clear vision of how that fits into an ecology of life, so we just keep producing more to an economic limit - another human construction that has no moral or ecological basis. So we have to put our faith in something else - otherwise there is no end to the destructive possibilities of science and applied science/technology - other than its economic limit.
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
It matters that people have faith that science is going to solve everything for them, because that faith is so utterly misplaced.

Where should they be placing their faith then?
I'll respond to this rather than your response to my posts, because we are basically in agreement about everything you responded to.
I do not at all regard the fact that we are meaning-makers as a problem. Where we differ, as I surmise from your earlier posts, is in the way we think is most useful and should be prioritised in understanding reality as we experience it. You will correct me if I'm wrong, but I understand you to be saying that this objective reality which we have no objective access to should be regarded as primary. This to me is where we run into problems, because we start to approach the world as if the ordinary meaning we make of it is somehow not reflective of the actual reality, which must be objectively verifiable (and I'm aware that the same accusation could be levelled at the modern religious worldview, which in many cases trains adherents that the ordinary, everyday reality is inferior in some sense to spiritual reality - but perhaps that owes more to Platonism than what we are talking about here. Dunno).
Anyway, in answer to your question to orfeo (and in full understanding that he can provide his own), I would say that one of the problems of prioritising this objective, supposedly empirically verifiable understanding (which we haven't actually established we can access anyway, but let's assume that we can to a limited extent) is that it trains us away from the everyday sense we make of the world, which is where most of us spend most of our time living and experiencing the stuff that happens to us. The answers we may seek to the vast majority of our challenges are going to be found here, and it is this that should be primarily understood as the actual, the real. It is that existential - to use that term in an idiosyncratic but hopefully not unhelpful way - experience of the world that we should be regarding as the most real.
I hope that made some sense.

[ 11. October 2014, 11:53: Message edited by: Dark Knight ]
 
Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
It matters that people have faith that science is going to solve everything for them, because that faith is so utterly misplaced.

Where should they be placing their faith then?
How many answers do you want? Everything, and nothing. People should be using their senses and their mind and their experience and their knowledge and living life and trying to make the world a better place or just muddling their way through it. People should be engaged in their own quests, not assuming that someone else has done everything for them. People should be asking questions. People should be restless. People should not be behaving as if it's all sorted.

People should recognise just how damn MESSY it all is. I mean, I actually worked out some time ago that one of my basic drives/desires is to try to impose order on the universe, but I'm also smart enough to know that the universe doesn't cooperate.

Going around declaring that science has all the answers doesn't satisfy me any more than going around declaring that God has all the answers. Either might be true in some ultimate sense, but frankly that doesn't help me. I want to learn about the world, and the more I learn the more I realise I don't know. (There's a deep irony here, in that scientists actually need the kind of curiosity and dissatisfaction that scientism precludes.)

And I have to go through the day, whether I sense God's presence or science's workings or I don't. Certainly, belief in God doesn't seem to preclude me from having bad days or even bad fucking years. God doesn't do my job for me. Even if he's in some way helping me do my job, he's pretty darn patchy about it. God doesn't stop me from getting depression (and I was stunned by seeing someone's glib declaration the other day that depression was basically people not having God in their lives - that particular Christian is going to be up shit creek without a paddle if THEY ever get depressed because they'll believe they did something wrong to make God abandon them). Science doesn't seem to stop me getting depression either. But both sometimes seem to assist in reducing its effects.

I suppose I occasionally envy those who can resolve the world into one neat little box, declare that it works and no other boxes are needed. I envy their blindness. I can't shut my eyes like that. I can't just pretend that whatever my working viewpoint is at the time has no loose ends.

People shouldn't be placing their faith in any one place as some kind of end point. People should be placing their faith in whatever they need to at that moment at time, based on what they know and recognising what they don't know. Whether it's faith in God, faith in science, faith in the power of love, faith in family, friends, colleagues, professionals (I put faith in an employee of the gas company the other night to check there wasn't a leak by trusting he'd know more than I would about how to perform such a check) or faith in themselves. It's not all one thing one time.
 
Posted by Grokesx (# 17221) on :
 
quote:
It matters that people have faith that science is going to solve everything for them, because that faith is so utterly misplaced.
Is that it? That there are people so scientifically illiterate as to believe a crock of shite like that?

I don't buy it as a common reason for the snarl. I'll tell you for why. I can spend time on a thread like the meaning of morality in materialism a while back talking about different levels of explanation, supervenience etc until I'm blue in the face and I can pretty much guarantee that someone will turn up and blather on about scientism if anything vaguely related to science is mentioned. In that case it was itsarumdo and he called it "sciencism, aka the religion of science."

As Dafyd said, there is a conflation of materialism/physicalism with this beast called scientism. Evensong did it explicitly with the post that kicked this whole thing off:

quote:
While science vs faith is certainly a false dichotomy, scientism or scientific materialism vs faith is not.
The thing is, materialism/physicalism is a philosophical position that, whether you agree with it or not, can be defended. It takes some knowledge about what it does or does not say to make a critique. On the other hand, snarling out scientism seems to be a good enough response when, as Croesus - echoing Dan Dennett - said right at the top of the thread, discussion turns to some bit of science people don't like very much, be it evolution, consciousness or whatever.
 
Posted by Grokesx (# 17221) on :
 
Wanted to edit that last bit, meant to say "neuroscience" not "consciousness".
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
Atheism against anything but Love I fully understand and am that atheist. Atheism denying Love is understandable too, because Love is limited to, by, in us. To our realising, invoking it. And there might as well not be anyone else behind that.

But there is.
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Grokesx:
quote:
It matters that people have faith that science is going to solve everything for them, because that faith is so utterly misplaced.
Is that it? That there are people so scientifically illiterate as to believe a crock of shite like that?

I don't buy it as a common reason for the snarl. I'll tell you for why. I can spend time on a thread like the meaning of morality in materialism a while back talking about different levels of explanation, supervenience etc until I'm blue in the face and I can pretty much guarantee that someone will turn up and blather on about scientism if anything vaguely related to science is mentioned. In that case it was itsarumdo and he called it "sciencism, aka the religion of science."

As Dafyd said, there is a conflation of materialism/physicalism with this beast called scientism. Evensong did it explicitly with the post that kicked this whole thing off:

quote:
While science vs faith is certainly a false dichotomy, scientism or scientific materialism vs faith is not.
The thing is, materialism/physicalism is a philosophical position that, whether you agree with it or not, can be defended. It takes some knowledge about what it does or does not say to make a critique. On the other hand, snarling out scientism seems to be a good enough response when, as Croesus - echoing Dan Dennett - said right at the top of the thread, discussion turns to some bit of science people don't like very much, be it evolution, consciousness or whatever.

Right. Because that's exactly what's happened here. No one has articulated why they think scientism is faulty, or engaged at all with a philosophical critique of it, or materialism, or faith. It's just been snarling about science-y stuff people don't like.
Have you been reading along at all, or just dropping in and out?
 
Posted by SusanDoris (# 12618) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
It was about the blind faith that despite knowing that we are incapable of something now, nevertheless we are sure we will be capable in the future.

Until we've achieved X, we can't be sure that we will be able to. For some X's, there's probably a good chance that we'll get there. For others, it might be impossible.

Obviously, the scientific method has a far better chance of finding solutions, but a rational consideration of this point takes into account that there are always questions which will remain as don’t knows, aren't there. It seems to me that it is the believers, e.g. mostly in religions, who do not want to accept that people like me are not blind faith scientismists’ but have feet firmly on the ground and do their best to avoid metaphorical blinkers.
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
We don't have to agree on what love is as a first step. The process could be more like discovering by the methods of science that when certain chemicals are present in the brain at certain levels, the subject reports feelings that are consistent with the way that the word "love" is commonly used. Doesn't matter whether such a discovery happens as part of an attempt to "research love" or as a chance by-product of a project with other aims.

What we call "love" may turn out not to be a single phenomenon, but a complex of effects that through scientific research we come to describe in more precise terms.
***
Committing oneself to the proposition that scientific methods will lead to an understanding of love does seem like an act of faith. Faith in both the order and comprehensibility of the universe, and faith in the ingenuity of working scientists like IngoB and Alan C.

I don't think I'm making that act of faith here; just opining as to what seems likely, in the light of the rapid progress of scientific knowledge over the last century.

What I find less easy to understand and sympathise with is those whose faith is in the opposite direction; who commit to the idea that life is incomprehensible, that we will never understand.

Well said.

quote:
Originally posted by itsarumdo
There are quite a few misunderstandings here, but one of them is an assumption that science describes everything - whereas in reality science is necessarily an incomplete description of the world (and always will be).
In less formal terms (again there is some debate as to whether it is possible to express Gödel in anything other than formal terms), logically any given model of how the universe works can never be complete, and there will always be something that either is indemonstrable through it and/or is downright inconsistent with it. And interestingly, here we don't even need to enter any spiritual world - this applies equally to the physical universe. As I said, Gödel was slightly crazy - he eventually starved himself to death because he was paranoid that someone was poisoning his food.

I wish I’d heard more about Godel years ago – it’s only in recent years that I have.

I hope all this makes sense - I’d copied and pasted more, but all the posts since thenmake the thoughts I’d had at the time out of date!
 
Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Grokesx:
quote:
It matters that people have faith that science is going to solve everything for them, because that faith is so utterly misplaced.
Is that it? That there are people so scientifically illiterate as to believe a crock of shite like that?
You apparently missed the part where I pointed out that this included some of my fellow BSc students back in the day. They were not "so scientifically illiterate". But I will agree that they believed a crock of shite.
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
Nothing obvious about it, SusanDoris. Assumed, axiomatic, a priori - but not obvious. And you have not established anything of the kind.
 
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
Unless you know the metaphysical basis, assumptions for simplifying/formulating the equations/model and the assumptions that have been made in experimental design, every single scientific paper is a hall of mirrors. A lot of the above are fairly well defined and known and standardised for anyone in a particular filed, and for science in general, but actually, there are a lot of hidden assumptions that are not considered because they are just not thought about enough. I got really angry at one point when reading medical research papers because of the way the authors clearly had skated over initial assumptions to the point that the design was a load of old crock, an then they "critically instrumented" lots of animals to perform their ill-designed experiment, all to no end use other than cause animals pain and fill the journals with yet more confusing useless data.
 
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 
quote:
SusanDoris: Obviously, the scientific method has a far better chance of finding solutions
How high do you estimate the chances that the scientific method will find the ideal way to govern a country? Things like this have been tried you know, and they've turned out a disaster.

Science has a very good track record in some things. It's unbeatable in explaining physical things to us. But it's terrible in finding answers to other things.
 
Posted by Grokesx (# 17221) on :
 
Originally posted by Grokesx:
quote:
Right. Because that's exactly what's happened here. No one has articulated why they think scientism is faulty, or engaged at all with a philosophical critique of it, or materialism, or faith.
And do you really think what you have been doing is critiquing materialism? A materialist analysis of love, say, does not necessarily, even commonly, involve atoms or neurons. Materialism says that it can be reduced to them, but an adequate description would have to be done at the appropriate level - involving the psychological, social, physiological, whatever. Only an eliminative materialist like Patricia Churchland would think it desirable to talk of love in terms of chemicals.

And yes, formulations of scientism have been made here that are explicitly self refuting, others that are claimed to be circular at one or more remove, but no one has demonstrated anyone actually admitting to such a belief, so that was all a bit academic.

And we have had some, I think you are one, who seem to know exactly what will and won't turn out to be amenable to scientific investigation before a hypothesis has been formulated to test and suggesting no would worry if only science would keep in its box. I'm sorry, you don't get to tell scientists what the limits of science will turn out to be.

@Orfeo

quote:
They were not "so scientifically illiterate
I don't care what their qualifications were. At the risk of going all no true Scotsman on you, if they believe science is this close to a full understanding of anything they are scientifically illiterate.

[ 11. October 2014, 15:03: Message edited by: Grokesx ]
 
Posted by Grokesx (# 17221) on :
 
The first part of the last post was at Dark Knight.
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
Um, yeah, I am suggesting some things are not amenable to scientific investigation. I see some of the posts on this thread have registered with you, but clearly not all.
And no, I haven't critiqued all forms of materialism, but yes I certainly have been critiquing some. You need to read more closely.
I am becoming more and more convinced that my assessment of you was correct.
 
Posted by Grokesx (# 17221) on :
 
@Dark Knight
I couldn't give a monkey's fuck what your assessment of me is in Hell, I'd need to respect what you write here for that. Right from the get go you were insisting that if science kept within its boundaries, no one would complain. Who the fuck should care about you think the boundaries of science will turn out to be? Yesterday's demons are today's mental illnesses, and their status was changed by scientists doing their stuff. The philosophers of science would do theirs afterwards.

Funnily, it seem that pretty much everyone who engages with you doesn't understand your arguments. Maybe you need to make better ones.

[ 11. October 2014, 17:18: Message edited by: Grokesx ]
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Grokesx:
Funnily, it seem that pretty much everyone who engages with you doesn't understand your arguments. Maybe you need to make better ones.

Mark me down as someone who does understand his arguments. Even when we've crossed swords, which we have done with "fuck you" vehemence more than once, it was because he was wronger than a drooling idiot on stupid juice, not because I didn't understand him. To be fair, he'd probably tell a different story (or a similar story with the names changed).
 
Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :
 
hosting/

The above attempts to import arguments from Hell to Purgatory, and responses thereto (and that includes yours, mousethief), have been referred to admins.

Quit.

/hosting
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
Yes, sir.
 
Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
How many answers do you want? Everything, and nothing. People should be using their senses and their mind and their experience and their knowledge and living life and trying to make the world a better place or just muddling their way through it. People should be engaged in their own quests, not assuming that someone else has done everything for them. People should be asking questions. People should be restless. People should not be behaving as if it's all sorted.

People should recognise just how damn MESSY it all is. I mean, I actually worked out some time ago that one of my basic drives/desires is to try to impose order on the universe, but I'm also smart enough to know that the universe doesn't cooperate.

Going around declaring that science has all the answers doesn't satisfy me any more than going around declaring that God has all the answers. Either might be true in some ultimate sense, but frankly that doesn't help me. I want to learn about the world, and the more I learn the more I realise I don't know. (There's a deep irony here, in that scientists actually need the kind of curiosity and dissatisfaction that scientism precludes.)

And I have to go through the day, whether I sense God's presence or science's workings or I don't. Certainly, belief in God doesn't seem to preclude me from having bad days or even bad fucking years. God doesn't do my job for me. Even if he's in some way helping me do my job, he's pretty darn patchy about it. God doesn't stop me from getting depression (and I was stunned by seeing someone's glib declaration the other day that depression was basically people not having God in their lives - that particular Christian is going to be up shit creek without a paddle if THEY ever get depressed because they'll believe they did something wrong to make God abandon them). Science doesn't seem to stop me getting depression either. But both sometimes seem to assist in reducing its effects.

I suppose I occasionally envy those who can resolve the world into one neat little box, declare that it works and no other boxes are needed. I envy their blindness. I can't shut my eyes like that. I can't just pretend that whatever my working viewpoint is at the time has no loose ends.

People shouldn't be placing their faith in any one place as some kind of end point. People should be placing their faith in whatever they need to at that moment at time, based on what they know and recognising what they don't know. Whether it's faith in God, faith in science, faith in the power of love, faith in family, friends, colleagues, professionals (I put faith in an employee of the gas company the other night to check there wasn't a leak by trusting he'd know more than I would about how to perform such a check) or faith in themselves. It's not all one thing one time.

This is about as fine as I have ever read discussion of these issues. It led me beyond my present state of personal working through of these issues. Something I find rarely in any discourse these days. Well said. Thank-you.

The power in such understanding is that it helps understand the necessarily representational nature of all knowledge, whether via language or perception. With our increasingly technological representations we are in peril.
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
Eutychus - apologies.

quote:
Originally posted by Grokesx:

Funnily, it seem that pretty much everyone who engages with you doesn't understand your arguments. Maybe you need to make better ones.

Which just demonstrates that you only see what you want to see. Good luck with that. I'm not going to engage here with you anymore.
MT - so sweet! Love it! Sincerely.
Thinking of making that my sig. [Killing me]
 
Posted by Russ (# 120) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
How high do you estimate the chances that the scientific method will find the ideal way to govern a country?

The scientific method won't make the value-judgment as to what any person's ideal is.

But there is a school of thought that says that policy should be "evidence-based". E.g. that before the Minister of Finance announces that he's cutting income tax in order to increase employment his civil servants should have some sound reason for thinking that this measure will achieve its stated aim. Either from analysis of what other countries have done. Or on the basis of an economic theory that is best-available in the same way that a leading scientific hypothesis is best-available. Or on the basis that the experiment has already been tried in one region with positive results (Scotland has I believe been used as a test-bed for UK policy ideas in the past).

So, whilst government is more than economic management, and economic management does not seem likely to become a solved problem any time soon, the methods of science are being used to improve the way that countries are governed.

So the idea of government as a science-free zone is as wrong as the idea that science will deliver perfect government in the foreseeable future.

Facile techno-optimism decoupled from politics may seem juvenile but harmless.

Such optimism by those in positions of power is worrying - arguably the financial crisis was caused by flawed risk analysis - a thoroughly STEM field - in the banking sector.

More worrying to me are those whose politics are based on wishful thinking about how they'd like things to work, who defend their fantasy by trying to reject on principle any development of science-type knowledge in the field of government.

Best wishes,

Russ
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
Personally, I don't have a problem with evidence-based approaches as a tool in policy development and evaluation, Russ (it would be problematic if I did, given I'm an academic sociologist when I'm not fighting crime on the streets of Gotham).
We are probably way off topic now, but one of the problems I have with evidence-based approaches is that there are some who seem to think, uncritically, that they tap into a realm of objectivity.
They are a tool, but the results from them still have to be interpreted. Hell, the decisions going into what evidence to assess, the methods etc. are also based on interpretive decisions. If people who use these tools respect and understand that, then I certainly think there is a place for them in government and elsewhere.
It's not so much turtles as hermeneutics all the way down.

Oi, mt! - thanks for the sig! And the best back-handed compliment I've received in weeks. [Killing me]
 
Posted by SusanDoris (# 12618) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:
SusanDoris: Obviously, the scientific method has a far better chance of finding solutions
How high do you estimate the chances that the scientific method will find the ideal way to govern a country?
I think I'd estimate it as very low!As soon as an idea appears to be ideal, the whole world changes and new ideas are needed.
 
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
Personally, I don't have a problem with evidence-based approaches as a tool in policy development and evaluation, Russ (it would be problematic if I did, given I'm an academic sociologist when I'm not fighting crime on the streets of Gotham).
We are probably way off topic now, but one of the problems I have with evidence-based approaches is that there are some who seem to think, uncritically, that they tap into a realm of objectivity.
They are a tool, but the results from them still have to be interpreted. Hell, the decisions going into what evidence to assess, the methods etc. are also based on interpretive decisions. If people who use these tools respect and understand that, then I certainly think there is a place for them in government and elsewhere.

It's only in the last decade or two that the field of medicine has averred to "evidence based medicine". See the Cochrane Collaboration.

Personally I think it's great. They put out reports of systematic research and reviews on available studies in a particular health area.

They do the interpretive work on the mass of conflicting studies.

While obviously they may be subject to bias in their own reviews, it shows (IMO) that really "medical science" is not so clear cut. Which is important to those that believe ONE particular study is the end all and be all. The press has a field day on such studies and the public lap it up because they believe it's "scientific" so it must be true.

There is always a bigger picture involved.
 
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 
quote:
SusanDoris: I think I'd estimate it as very low!
But isn't this sufficient proof that Science doesn't have the answer to everything?
 
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
Personally, I don't have a problem with evidence-based approaches as a tool in policy development and evaluation, Russ (it would be problematic if I did, given I'm an academic sociologist when I'm not fighting crime on the streets of Gotham).
We are probably way off topic now, but one of the problems I have with evidence-based approaches is that there are some who seem to think, uncritically, that they tap into a realm of objectivity.
They are a tool, but the results from them still have to be interpreted. Hell, the decisions going into what evidence to assess, the methods etc. are also based on interpretive decisions. If people who use these tools respect and understand that, then I certainly think there is a place for them in government and elsewhere.

It's only in the last decade or two that the field of medicine has averred to "evidence based medicine". See the Cochrane Collaboration.

Personally I think it's great. They put out reports of systematic research and reviews on available studies in a particular health area.

They do the interpretive work on the mass of conflicting studies.

While obviously they may be subject to bias in their own reviews, it shows (IMO) that really "medical science" is not so clear cut. Which is important to those that believe ONE particular study is the end all and be all. The press has a field day on such studies and the public lap it up because they believe it's "scientific" so it must be true.

There is always a bigger picture involved.

Ah yes - this is where the science gets distorted - evidence based medicine is a nice idea but unfortunately there is a lot of money sloshing around.

The pharma companies a) have a stranglehold on most academic journals, b) fund most of the science, c) fund and advise most of the charitable bodies connected with various illnesses, c) release statements to press as if one paper is definitive, d) are allowed to produce papers that for commercial confidence reasons (!) do not disclose all the baseline data, e) have a proven track record of subverting government advisory bodies. I see that NICE has been persuaded to recommend Statins more universally, completely contrary to the evidence from the biggest public funded (as opposed to pharma funded) studies.

All this activity to increase shareholder profits is fodder for scientism - in fact it may well be one of the main reasons for the growth of scientism. The emphasis is always on paying little attention to detail and a lot of attention to the wonders of modern science and what it can achieve. When the Cochrane collaboration re-analyses data which has not been commercially vetted and statistically manipulated, there are a lot more side effects (sometimes large) and a lot less effect over placebo - sometimes negligible. One could almost say that the influence of money is evil - in that many people die from medication side effects that their GPs have been persuaded are "rare", and the scientism stance that receives so much funding and distracts from spirituality helps to maintain the mythology that keeps the money coming in. this is a good read.
 
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
Or on the basis that the experiment has already been tried in one region with positive results (Scotland has I believe been used as a test-bed for UK policy ideas in the past).

Although 55% of the population of Scotland seem to have forgotten that. Besides, as support for evidence based policy decisions trying something in Scotland, have it fail miserably and then impose it on the rest of the country anyway hardly supports any case you might be trying to make.
 
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
Or on the basis that the experiment has already been tried in one region with positive results (Scotland has I believe been used as a test-bed for UK policy ideas in the past).

Although 55% of the population of Scotland seem to have forgotten that. Besides, as support for evidence based policy decisions trying something in Scotland, have it fail miserably and then impose it on the rest of the country anyway hardly supports any case you might be trying to make.
You mean they voted to remain white mice?
 
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
But there is a school of thought that says that policy should be "evidence-based".
Or on the basis of an economic theory that is best-available in the same way that a leading scientific hypothesis is best-available.

This is as one might say the problem.

For the past thirty five years more or less economic policy in major industrial countries, especially the US and UK, has been decided on the basis of which economic theory is the best available in the sense that a scientific theory is best available. Sadly, it turns out this is not the same as basing economic policy on evidence.

Because the subject matter of economics is in important ways different from the subject matter of physics, the best available policy in economics is best available in an entirely different sense from the sense in which a best available hypothesis is best available in physics.
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
100% agree Dafyd. Well said.
 
Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on :
 
Economics is not a science, neither is politics. Evidence bases is filtred through ideology. Hence bailing out banks and over paying executives while differentially blaming the poor and down and out for their decisions. While interestingly the bankers are actually more blame worthy for their decisions.

It is over stated to suggest the academic medical journals are controlled by pharma companies. Disclosure of financial support and affiliation is required on one hand. On the other, most issues (70 % is quoted here) of health issues have a behavioural component which means that just giving medication isn't going to help if the patient won't reliably take it.
 
Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
No, Justinian, it is not a failure of logic. You have no idea what's going on here, do you? It might have been useful if you had read or understood the rest of my post.
The position I am advocating is not, and never has been, that science or empirics can't teach us anything. You continue to confuse ontoligy and epistemology, because you persist with the Cartesian confusion of the two.
What I object to is the idea that what is happening at the level of scientific understanding is the most real level - the level of what is actually going on, to use Marvin's terminology.

No. What is going on is that you are trying to assume an answer and then create a situation under which you consider your answer to be tenable. I am starting with what we actually know and trying to work out what is with as few preconceptions as I can manage. And because you have already come up with your answer based on very little you are assuming that you are right and objecting when I don't start with the assumption that you are right.
Oh, dear. I think we're done.
What is actually going on, which is quite easy to trace here, is that you are assuming you are right. I am actually quite upfront about the need for axioms. My position is based on axioms. I am aware of it. There is no way around the need for axioms.
But I don't see much possibility that you can understand me. You take care now.

What's going on here is that your position is based on the axiom that you, Dark Knight, are right. And that we should take that for granted and go for the ontology because you are right and you personally being right gives you something to work with. My position is based on the idea that we don't know what's going on - and that therefore any attempt to jump straight to Ontology is only going to end up finding our own preconceptions, whatever those preconceptions are. What we need to work out first of all is what we are dealing with.

Unless we can work out what we actually know then we can not proceed to the point of trying to work out what sort of being we are dealing with. Ontology before epistemology is the ontology of whatever your imagination comes up with.
 
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
there are a lot of children's games and adult gambling games based on not knowing what the cards on the table are... it's a common theme in our culture. But if everyone keeps looking at the cards and doesn;t pick up because they don;t know - agreed that is one possible position to take, but then we just end up sitting at the table staring at the backs of the cards.

In life it's a bit easier - there are more clues.
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
The problem with the concept of "evidence-based medicine" is that studies that fail to corroborate earlier studies don't, generally speaking, get published. Which makes the first studies to affirm something look stronger than they really are. And which makes "it was published in a peer-reviewed journal" far, far less definitive than it should be.
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
No, Justinian, it is not a failure of logic. You have no idea what's going on here, do you? It might have been useful if you had read or understood the rest of my post.
The position I am advocating is not, and never has been, that science or empirics can't teach us anything. You continue to confuse ontoligy and epistemology, because you persist with the Cartesian confusion of the two.
What I object to is the idea that what is happening at the level of scientific understanding is the most real level - the level of what is actually going on, to use Marvin's terminology.

No. What is going on is that you are trying to assume an answer and then create a situation under which you consider your answer to be tenable. I am starting with what we actually know and trying to work out what is with as few preconceptions as I can manage. And because you have already come up with your answer based on very little you are assuming that you are right and objecting when I don't start with the assumption that you are right.
Oh, dear. I think we're done.
What is actually going on, which is quite easy to trace here, is that you are assuming you are right. I am actually quite upfront about the need for axioms. My position is based on axioms. I am aware of it. There is no way around the need for axioms.
But I don't see much possibility that you can understand me. You take care now.

What's going on here is that your position is based on the axiom that you, Dark Knight, are right. And that we should take that for granted and go for the ontology because you are right and you personally being right gives you something to work with. My position is based on the idea that we don't know what's going on - and that therefore any attempt to jump straight to Ontology is only going to end up finding our own preconceptions, whatever those preconceptions are. What we need to work out first of all is what we are dealing with.

Unless we can work out what we actually know then we can not proceed to the point of trying to work out what sort of being we are dealing with. Ontology before epistemology is the ontology of whatever your imagination comes up with.

No. It's about me openly declaring my axioms, because I'm aware enough to realise that I can't say or do anything without them, and you not being aware enough to accept yours. In short, you not understanding what is going on here.
Your comments about ontology and epistemology reveal that. As you will see if you read closely - or really, if you just read at all - my posts, I have not proposed an ontology that is whatever I might imagine, but one based in the everyday experience of us all. I have said that so many times that I have absolutely no confidence that you are you going to get it. So, brief interaction this time.
 
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
The problem with the concept of "evidence-based medicine" is that studies that fail to corroborate earlier studies don't, generally speaking, get published. Which makes the first studies to affirm something look stronger than they really are. And which makes "it was published in a peer-reviewed journal" far, far less definitive than it should be.

There's a sci-fi short story in a collection I got for Christmas in which takes up the phenomenon of a study showing an effect that's initially replicated but soon further experiments fail to show the effect. In the story, it's realised that the act of observing the universe changes it, so as the experiments are repeated the physical reality of the universe is changed until it has changed beyond the point where the experiment produces the previously observed results. All those school experiments which failed to show what they should were not the result of shoddy work by students and inadequate equipment purchased on a limited budget, but reflecting the phenomenon of the universe changing under repeated observation.
 
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
Does that idea have any validity in terms of quantum theory?
 
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :
 
In quantum theory, the act of observation causes wavefunctions to collapse to give a single observed value from the probability spectrum that had previously existed. It doesn't change the underlying nature of reality, so the next time you run an identical experiment the probability spectrum of the wavefunction will be identical (the actual observed value of the experiment will be different).
 
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
That sounds like a yes. But I can't quite tell. [Big Grin]
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
As you will see if you read closely - or really, if you just read at all - my posts, I have not proposed an ontology that is whatever I might imagine, but one based in the everyday experience of us all. I have said that so many times that I have absolutely no confidence that you are you going to get it. So, brief interaction this time.

And indeed your arguments here have made me think about ontology and epistemology in a newish way. Only new-ish, because both Pirsig and the later Wittgentstein hinted at what you're saying: what is real to us is what we interact with and observe, and we don't interact with or observe quarks or gluons, but tables and chairs and other people. Quarks and gluons, however well-attested, are an abstraction from things we actually interact with, like the screens reporting the goings-on in a particle accelerator.
 
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
That sounds like a yes. But I can't quite tell. [Big Grin]

That's the thing about Quantum Mechanics, you can't quite tell.
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
As you will see if you read closely - or really, if you just read at all - my posts, I have not proposed an ontology that is whatever I might imagine, but one based in the everyday experience of us all. I have said that so many times that I have absolutely no confidence that you are you going to get it. So, brief interaction this time.

And indeed your arguments here have made me think about ontology and epistemology in a newish way. Only new-ish, because both Pirsig and the later Wittgentstein hinted at what you're saying: what is real to us is what we interact with and observe, and we don't interact with or observe quarks or gluons, but tables and chairs and other people. Quarks and gluons, however well-attested, are an abstraction from things we actually interact with, like the screens reporting the goings-on in a particle accelerator.
Hell, Berkeley said nearly as much; he just created a wholly different ontology from it. There's a cognitive scientist (Donald D. Hoffman) at UC Irvine who posits that consciousness is ontologically primary, and creates the physical world as an epiphenomenon. I couldn't tell from what I read if he's serious or making some kind of point.
 
Posted by SusanDoris (# 12618) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:
SusanDoris: I think I'd estimate it as very low!
But isn't this sufficient proof that Science doesn't have the answer to everything?
Of course, science doesn't have the answer to everything and I'm pretty sure I've never said so! The scientific method is the best one we have for getting at the truth, but there are of course vast areas that remain under the heading of 'we don't know'.
 
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
Of course, science doesn't have the answer to everything and I'm pretty sure I've never said so! The scientific method is the best one we have for getting at the truth, but there are of course vast areas that remain under the heading of 'we don't know'.

That's not the point. To give an analogy: imagine you are sitting in medieval Europe and say "there still are many lands out there to be discovered." Very true. Then you say "and we will send out these men on horses to discover them." Very good. You will discover much of the world that way. But. Some parts of the world you will not get to on horseback. You will need ships.

So the discussion here is not about how much of the world has been discovered already and when the riders will find the next bit of unexplored territory. We all agree that much remains to be found, and that explorers on horseback will discover much of it eventually. However, the discussion we are having here is that some of us say that we also need ships, whereas some of us think that all of the world can be reached on horseback.

And the focus of this discussion tends to be whether there is a land bridge that will get your riders from Russia to Alaska, or whether one can wait until tectonic shifts will re-attach Australia to other land masses. When in fact one key point about this world is that much of it is covered by oceans. You don't just need ships to go to a separated continent. You need them because most of this planet is actually under water, a point that somehow seems to escape land dwellers... Just ask the fishermen.
 
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 
quote:
SusanDoris: Of course, science doesn't have the answer to everything and I'm pretty sure I've never said so! The scientific method is the best one we have for getting at the truth, but there are of course vast areas that remain under the heading of 'we don't know'.
I don't understand your second sentence, it seems contradictory.

When you say "vast areas remain under the heading 'we don't know'" are you saying that in principle, Science will find the answers to these areas some day? Or are you saying that Science isn't the right way for finding answers to these areas?
 
Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
Of course, science doesn't have the answer to everything and I'm pretty sure I've never said so! The scientific method is the best one we have for getting at the truth, but there are of course vast areas that remain under the heading of 'we don't know'.

That's not the point. To give an analogy: imagine you are sitting in medieval Europe and say "there still are many lands out there to be discovered." Very true. Then you say "and we will send out these men on horses to discover them." Very good. You will discover much of the world that way. But. Some parts of the world you will not get to on horseback. You will need ships.

So the discussion here is not about how much of the world has been discovered already and when the riders will find the next bit of unexplored territory. We all agree that much remains to be found, and that explorers on horseback will discover much of it eventually. However, the discussion we are having here is that some of us say that we also need ships, whereas some of us think that all of the world can be reached on horseback.

And the focus of this discussion tends to be whether there is a land bridge that will get your riders from Russia to Alaska, or whether one can wait until tectonic shifts will re-attach Australia to other land masses. When in fact one key point about this world is that much of it is covered by oceans. You don't just need ships to go to a separated continent. You need them because most of this planet is actually under water, a point that somehow seems to escape land dwellers... Just ask the fishermen.

False analogy. You aren't talking about sending out ships. Ships are yet another tool of science. What you are talking about is exploration through the medium of crystal ball. Much of the world is covered by oceans. And foot exploration won't work. But we don't have just foot exploration. The existing explorers are building boats. And any form of transportation that can be shown to work with a non-zero chance of getting back to land is immediately taken up by the explorers.

The world may be covered by oceans. But the explorers are sailing on those oceans and have been for centuries. We've even produced telescopes and go fishing in the deep water - although we're having a lot of trouble developing submarines. And just because we haven't got there yet doesn't mean we should take what you get from your crystal balls seriously. Especially as the seers in other kingdoms disagree and every time we are able to cross-reference what you claim is there it doesn't match up.

We need ships - which is why we build them. But why do we need your crystal balls? And what makes your crystal balls any better than those of the Wiccans?
 
Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
No. It's about me openly declaring my axioms, because I'm aware enough to realise that I can't say or do anything without them, and you not being aware enough to accept yours.

The difference being that your axiom is a conclusion. And we start from your conclusion, the validity of which may not be investigated because it is an axiom. Not can not be investigated but may not; you reject any attempt to do so as putting the epistemology before the ontology.

My belief on the other hand is that we don't currently know what's going on and therefore anything we can possibly do with ontology is a mere speculative hypothesis until more data is in. This doesn't mean we can't propose possible hypotheses. It means that any hypotheses we have are just that. Hypotheses and should be treated as such. But we can investigate these hypotheses.
 
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
To give an analogy: imagine you are sitting in medieval Europe and say "there still are many lands out there to be discovered." Very true. Then you say "and we will send out these men on horses to discover them." Very good. You will discover much of the world that way. But. Some parts of the world you will not get to on horseback. You will need ships.

False analogy. You aren't talking about sending out ships. Ships are yet another tool of science. What you are talking about is exploration through the medium of crystal ball.
I think you've missed the point of the analogy Ingo made. It may be a poor analogy, but it isn't false.

Horseback and ships are two tools for exploring the world. That's all the analogy is calling for, that ships are physical constructions and we have utilised scientific principles (in the last few centuries at least) to build better ships is irrelevant.

The analogy picks up earlier analogies of tools to understand the world. Quite early on I called science an adjustable spanner, adaptable to lots of applications, but that sometimes we need a hammer.

So, the scientific method is a tool to understand the world, just as riding about on horseback is a tool for exploring the world. But, there are other tools apart from the scientific method - philosophy, poetry, myth, even theology. These other tools are the ships of Ingo's analogy.

Ingo, I hope I understood and explained your analogy adequately.
 
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :
 
I think stories are one of our key tools for understanding life, and getting to grips with it. Maybe you could translate some stories into scientific descriptions, but you would lose something - the story!

This is striking in my profession (therapy), where much story telling is involved, and in fact, retelling, and retelling, and remembering.
 
Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
To give an analogy: imagine you are sitting in medieval Europe and say "there still are many lands out there to be discovered." Very true. Then you say "and we will send out these men on horses to discover them." Very good. You will discover much of the world that way. But. Some parts of the world you will not get to on horseback. You will need ships.

False analogy. You aren't talking about sending out ships. Ships are yet another tool of science. What you are talking about is exploration through the medium of crystal ball.
I think you've missed the point of the analogy Ingo made. It may be a poor analogy, but it isn't false.

Horseback and ships are two tools for exploring the world. That's all the analogy is calling for, that ships are physical constructions and we have utilised scientific principles (in the last few centuries at least) to build better ships is irrelevant.

The analogy picks up earlier analogies of tools to understand the world. Quite early on I called science an adjustable spanner, adaptable to lots of applications, but that sometimes we need a hammer.

So, the scientific method is a tool to understand the world, just as riding about on horseback is a tool for exploring the world. But, there are other tools apart from the scientific method - philosophy, poetry, myth, even theology. These other tools are the ships of Ingo's analogy.

Ingo, I hope I understood and explained your analogy adequately.

I haven't actually missed the point. I'm adding a spin of my own to make my point through his analogy. Not all supposed methods of exploring the world are valid. The tools of most of the liberal arts are. But that doesn't mean they all are. And they certainly don't do all that is claimed for them.
 
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
False analogy. You aren't talking about sending out ships. Ships are yet another tool of science.

[Roll Eyes] The analogy was about the difference between quantity and quality in one's lack of knowledge. Admitting that there are still large gaps in scientific knowledge (quantity) is not the same as admitting that there are things one cannot come to know by science (quality). Just as admitting that there are still large parts of the world undiscovered by explorers on horseback (quantity) is not the same as admitting that they won't be able to get everywhere and some ships will be needed (quality). In terms of this perfectly fine analogy, you are basically saying "there are no oceans, so riders is all we need". You can complain that my analogy puts you into a position where in terms of the actual earth (which has oceans) you are mistaken. But frankly, that is rather tedious. You should be saying that hey, we are living on a desert planet and the water you are seeing is just a Fata Morgana. That may not be true for this earth, but in terms of the analogy it expresses your opinion about the world.
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
No. It's about me openly declaring my axioms, because I'm aware enough to realise that I can't say or do anything without them, and you not being aware enough to accept yours.

The difference being that your axiom is a conclusion. And we start from your conclusion, the validity of which may not be investigated because it is an axiom. Not can not be investigated but may not; you reject any attempt to do so as putting the epistemology before the ontology.

My belief on the other hand is that we don't currently know what's going on and therefore anything we can possibly do with ontology is a mere speculative hypothesis until more data is in. This doesn't mean we can't propose possible hypotheses. It means that any hypotheses we have are just that. Hypotheses and should be treated as such. But we can investigate these hypotheses.

FFS. This ...
quote:
But we can investigate these hypotheses.
... is an axiom.

This ...
quote:
My belief on the other hand is that we don't currently know what's going on and therefore anything we can possibly do with ontology is a mere speculative hypothesis until more data is in.
... is an axiom (at least you were aware enough to note it was a belief).

I am really not sure how to make this any clearer. We are both arguing on the basis of axioms. That's because we are both human.
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
Not all supposed methods of exploring the world are valid.

EUREKA! Eu-fucking-reka. This may be the closest we have come to a meeting of the minds.
We can explore some aspects of the world using some tools - hence the adjustable spanner of science in AC's analogy. But sometimes we need a hammer. Science is not a valid method for investigating or understanding everything, because some things can't be measured, quantified or verified empirically.
 
Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
False analogy. You aren't talking about sending out ships. Ships are yet another tool of science.

[Roll Eyes] The analogy was about the difference between quantity and quality in one's lack of knowledge. Admitting that there are still large gaps in scientific knowledge (quantity) is not the same as admitting that there are things one cannot come to know by science (quality). Just as admitting that there are still large parts of the world undiscovered by explorers on horseback (quantity) is not the same as admitting that they won't be able to get everywhere and some ships will be needed (quality). In terms of this perfectly fine analogy, you are basically saying "there are no oceans, so riders is all we need". You can complain that my analogy puts you into a position where in terms of the actual earth (which has oceans) you are mistaken. But frankly, that is rather tedious. You should be saying that hey, we are living on a desert planet and the water you are seeing is just a Fata Morgana. That may not be true for this earth, but in terms of the analogy it expresses your opinion about the world.
Your analogy is not "perfectly fine". Like most analogies it is deceptive, trying to spin the truth and to only expose the parts you want to be seen while sweeping under the rug things you don't like.

The tools of science look very like ships. It is impossible to deny that ships exist or that they take you other places. There are, however, other methods of exploring than that.

But what is fundamentally disingenuous about your analogy is that it attempts to say that "Because you don't discover everything one way, all other ways must be equivalent to ships as against the land." Ignoring the nature of the various methods. Asking the people who live in the places being explored is a damn good method - and one that doesn't fit direct physical exploration and will find things it won't. Asking the rich and powerful what the people over there are like is a terrible method - and practiced by too many economists. And crystal ball gazing as a method is a terrible one - but is one your boat analogy attempts to put on a level with everything else.

Were your analogy to have made scientists into people who explore but only report on the number of buildings in the cities it would have been much better.
 
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
But what is fundamentally disingenuous about your analogy is that it attempts to say that "Because you don't discover everything one way, all other ways must be equivalent to ships as against the land."

OK, I must be blind because I don't see that in the analogy at all. Where did "all other ways" get in the analogy? You've already admitted the validity of liberal arts to investigation of the world, and quite clearly consider crystal balls as invalid methods. Why can't the ships of the analogy be the liberal arts? Perhaps if we add an "exploring the world on the back of dragons" that would satisfy you by giving you something to hang the crystal ball gazing on.
 
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
Your analogy is not "perfectly fine". Like most analogies it is deceptive, trying to spin the truth and to only expose the parts you want to be seen while sweeping under the rug things you don't like.

So you are saying that analogies are made to argue specific points with great clarity, rather than to say everything possible about a subject? I agree.

quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
But what is fundamentally disingenuous about your analogy is that it attempts to say that "Because you don't discover everything one way, all other ways must be equivalent to ships as against the land." Ignoring the nature of the various methods.

My point was quite simply that saying "more will have to be discovered by science", as SusanDoris admitted, does not in fact address the claim "one cannot use science to discover that", which is what most of us have been going on about. This point has as such nothing to do with what means, or what multitude of means, one may consider more appropriate for discovery. The point does not even depend on whether in fact science can discover all, or not. The point is simply that the former statement is not logically a valid answer to the latter claim.
 
Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
No. It's about me openly declaring my axioms, because I'm aware enough to realise that I can't say or do anything without them, and you not being aware enough to accept yours.

The difference being that your axiom is a conclusion. And we start from your conclusion, the validity of which may not be investigated because it is an axiom. Not can not be investigated but may not; you reject any attempt to do so as putting the epistemology before the ontology.

Honestly, Justinian, this reads as if you don't understand what an axiom is. The very point of an axiom is that it is asserted and not provable.
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
As you will see if you read closely - or really, if you just read at all - my posts, I have not proposed an ontology that is whatever I might imagine, but one based in the everyday experience of us all. I have said that so many times that I have absolutely no confidence that you are you going to get it. So, brief interaction this time.

And indeed your arguments here have made me think about ontology and epistemology in a newish way. Only new-ish, because both Pirsig and the later Wittgentstein hinted at what you're saying: what is real to us is what we interact with and observe, and we don't interact with or observe quarks or gluons, but tables and chairs and other people. Quarks and gluons, however well-attested, are an abstraction from things we actually interact with, like the screens reporting the goings-on in a particle accelerator.
This is good. Thankyou. [Smile]
I must admit, I've heard many good things about the later Wittgenstein, but have not had much to do with him. Most of my thoughts are based on Heidegger (Being and Time phase) and to some degree Gadamer.
 
Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
FFS. This ...
quote:
But we can investigate these hypotheses.
... is an axiom.

This ...
quote:
My belief on the other hand is that we don't currently know what's going on and therefore anything we can possibly do with ontology is a mere speculative hypothesis until more data is in.
... is an axiom (at least you were aware enough to note it was a belief).

I am really not sure how to make this any clearer. We are both arguing on the basis of axioms. That's because we are both human.

It might help if you knew what an axiom was and didn't bounce between definitions of axiom as if they were identical.

quote:
1. A self-evident or universally recognized truth; a maxim: "It is an economic axiom as old as the hills that goods and services can be paid for only with goods and services" (Albert Jay Nock).
2. An established rule, principle, or law.
3. A self-evident principle or one that is accepted as true without proof as the basis for argument; a postulate.

For yourself you are using Axiom Definition 3b. Something that is accepted as true without proof as the basis for argument. Which means that any conclusions you can then draw from your axiom are entirely contingent on whether your axiom is true or not.

You however then point blank refuse to follow through. Every conclusion you can possibly come to is purely theoretical unless you examine the axiom itself. Which you say is something you must not do because to do so would be to put epistemology before ontology. If you do not do this then your conclusions are absolutely worthless except as a parlour game until we find out whether they are applicable.

What you are calling an axiom for me is definition 1. "We can only reliably start with what we know" is a truism. We can unreliably start wherever we like - by assuming any counterfactual we like. But we can only reliably start with what we can know or test.

Yes, English is an imprecise language. The word axiom is used to describe both truisms and hypotheses that are used for the sake of argument. But that doesn't make them the same thing.

Edit: @Orfeo, see the multiple definitions.

[ 13. October 2014, 12:12: Message edited by: Justinian ]
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
Sigh.
No, I'm not bouncing around at all. I am indeed using the term in the sense of definition three. That is what you are doing. Postulating statements that have to be accepted a priori. This is how it works. Language and thought requires axioms. I am not criticising you for using axioms. Seriously, go nuts. I will, too.
What in the actual fuck do you mean I "won't follow through?" Taking mt's point that the relationship between ontology and epistemology is iterative, which I accept, I still maintain that ontology is primary. Otherwise, you run into the fundamental category error you have made this whole thread - postulating that phenomena can be investigated using a method that cannot come to grips with the nature of the being of that phenomenon.
 
Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
Sigh.
No, I'm not bouncing around at all. I am indeed using the term in the sense of definition three. That is what you are doing. Postulating statements that have to be accepted a priori. This is how it works.

No they don't. Postulating statements have to be accepted a priori to find out what the consequences of those postulates are. That is the only time you ever need to accept a postulate a priori.

However if your postulate is counterfactual then, as Bertrand Russel demonstrated, you can get anywhere you like to the point that if 1+1=1 then he was the Pope. If you fail to examine your postulates then you have meaningless theoretical statements. Using unexamined axioms is nothing more than a parlour game.

quote:
Language and thought requires axioms. I am not criticising you for using axioms. Seriously, go nuts. I will, too.
That does not mean you should not also try to check your axioms as far as is available. Note that I don't say prove them - if you could prove them you'd just have found deeper axioms. I say check because you can get literally anywhere from incorrect axioms.

quote:
What in the actual fuck do you mean I "won't follow through?"
I mean that you think that conclusions based on untested axioms should be taken seriously rather than treated as interesting logic games that are likely to be counter-factual. There is an infinite number of wrong axioms you could choose (literally) - and the number of wrong conclusions you can reach using one or more incorrect axioms is of a greater order of infinity (again literally - don't make me break out my transfinite mathematics).

Unless you have some solid reason to think that your axioms may be relevant then all you can come up with is indistinguishable from meaninglessness. And unless you take care to validate your axioms they are indistinguishable from those of leprechaunology.

quote:
Taking mt's point that the relationship between ontology and epistemology is iterative, which I accept, I still maintain that ontology is primary. Otherwise, you run into the fundamental category error you have made this whole thread - postulating that phenomena can be investigated using a method that cannot come to grips with the nature of the being of that phenomenon.
No. This is the error you have made throughout the whole thread. As I demonstrated in the love example, you can use neurochemistry to confirm some of the effects of love despite neurochemistry being utterly unable to come to grips with the nature of love. It can take the part of the phenomenon it is fit to assess and look at that.

There is a limit to what science can fully come to grips with. But for science to be unable to do any investigation at all requires that anything about God must never intersect with what science can come to grips with. It requires that God never makes measurable changes to the universe within our light cone.
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
Sigh.
No, I'm not bouncing around at all. I am indeed using the term in the sense of definition three. That is what you are doing. Postulating statements that have to be accepted a priori. This is how it works.

No they don't. Postulating statements have to be accepted a priori to find out what the consequences of those postulates are. That is the only time you ever need to accept a postulate a priori.
Wronger than a wrong thing that is wrong. That is in itself an axiom. The nature of thinking requires axioms. This is what I am trying to get through to you.
Can axioms be interrogated? Yes, and they should be. But you have to expose them first. You want to pretend you don't have any. You're wrong.
quote:

However if your postulate is counterfactual then, as Bertrand Russel demonstrated, you can get anywhere you like to the point that if 1+1=1 then he was the Pope. If you fail to examine your postulates then you have meaningless theoretical statements. Using unexamined axioms is nothing more than a parlour game.
quote:
Never, ever said they shouldn't be examined. That is a straw man. All you. No me.
quote:
Language and thought requires axioms. I am not criticising you for using axioms. Seriously, go nuts. I will, too.
That does not mean you should not also try to check your axioms as far as is available. Note that I don't say prove them - if you could prove them you'd just have found deeper axioms. I say check because you can get literally anywhere from incorrect axioms.

No shit. Exactly what I'm critiquing you for.
quote:
What in the actual fuck do you mean I "won't follow through?"
Imean that you think that conclusions based on untested axioms should be taken seriously rather than treated as interesting logic games that are likely to be counter-factual. There is an infinite number of wrong axioms you could choose (literally) - and the number of wrong conclusions you can reach using one or more incorrect axioms is of a greater order of infinity (again literally - don't make me break out my transfinite mathematics).
You use that "don't make me ..." way too much.
Other than that, still a straw man.
quote:

Unless you have some solid reason to think that your axioms may be relevant then all you can come up with is indistinguishable from meaninglessness. And unless you take care to validate your axioms they are indistinguishable from those of leprechaunology.

Other than the time I have taken to point out your repeated errors in logic, I have been outlining my solid reasons literally this whole time.
quote:
quote:
Taking mt's point that the relationship between ontology and epistemology is iterative, which I accept, I still maintain that ontology is primary. Otherwise, you run into the fundamental category error you have made this whole thread - postulating that phenomena can be investigated using a method that cannot come to grips with the nature of the being of that phenomenon.
No. This is the error you have made throughout the whole thread. As I demonstrated in the love example, you can use neurochemistry to confirm some of the effects of love despite neurochemistry being utterly unable to come to grips with the nature of love. It can take the part of the phenomenon it is fit to assess and look at that.

And you are still making it. By assuming that a particular method can come to grips with every phenomenon a priori, as you have done, you attempt to measure something that you have not demonstrated can be measured. Having not established what love is ontologically, you rush to think you can measure its effects! Ridiculous. But I've already explained that to you.
quote:

There is a limit to what science can fully come to grips with. But for science to be unable to do any investigation at all requires that anything about God must never intersect with what science can come to grips with. It requires that God never makes measurable changes to the universe within our light cone.

At least you are finally willing to concede that. You have a long way to go in terms of figuring out how an essentially immeasurable phenomenon like God or the divine impacts the world in a measurable way.
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
Sorry about the code, Purg hosts. [Hot and Hormonal]
 
Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
Sigh.
No, I'm not bouncing around at all. I am indeed using the term in the sense of definition three. That is what you are doing. Postulating statements that have to be accepted a priori. This is how it works.

No they don't. Postulating statements have to be accepted a priori to find out what the consequences of those postulates are. That is the only time you ever need to accept a postulate a priori.
Wronger than a wrong thing that is wrong. That is in itself an axiom. The nature of thinking requires axioms. This is what I am trying to get through to you.
Can axioms be interrogated? Yes, and they should be. But you have to expose them first. You want to pretend you don't have any. You're wrong.

This is a complete misrepresentation. I try not to have any uninvestigated axioms. You on the other hand seem to regard a lack of investigation of your axioms as a point of pride.

Something based on axioms you have no idea of the truth value of is utterly irrelevant to anything except parlour games.

quote:
Never, ever said they shouldn't be examined. That is a straw man. All you. No me.
Bullshit! You object every time the attempt is made on the grounds that it is putting epistemology before ontology. Examining axioms is precisely what you are objecting to here.

quote:
quote:
Unless you have some solid reason to think that your axioms may be relevant then all you can come up with is indistinguishable from meaninglessness. And unless you take care to validate your axioms they are indistinguishable from those of leprechaunology.

Other than the time I have taken to point out your repeated errors in logic, I have been outlining my solid reasons literally this whole time.
Your logic is utterly meaningless when your premises are false. From a false premise you merely find falsehoods. But you're averse to actually testing your logic, claiming that you should go full speed ahead with the ontology of your fictional constructs.

quote:
quote:
No. This is the error you have made throughout the whole thread. As I demonstrated in the love example, you can use neurochemistry to confirm some of the effects of love despite neurochemistry being utterly unable to come to grips with the nature of love. It can take the part of the phenomenon it is fit to assess and look at that.
No. This is the error you have made throughout the whole thread. As I demonstrated in the love example, you can use neurochemistry to confirm some of the effects of love despite neurochemistry being utterly unable to come to grips with the nature of love. It can take the part of the phenomenon it is fit to assess and look at that.
In short you just restated me and are claiming it is something that disagrees with what I was saying. Neurochemistry can come to grips with a part of the phenomenon that is love but not all of it. To quote you "Read for comprehension"

quote:
At least you are finally willing to concede that. You have a long way to go in terms of figuring out how an essentially immeasurable phenomenon like God or the divine impacts the world in a measurable way.

"Finally willing to concede that"?

If you had actually been arguing with me rather than with your strawman you'd have known I'd been saying this from the very beginning.

My claim throughout has been that "Either your God does something measurable to change physical reality, which can be through a vast number of approaches, or they do nothing that measurably impacts the world in any way at all and therefore have all the impact on the world of something that doesn't exist and should be treated as such."

It's a position I articulated right here. Five pages ago.

For you to claim that this is something new rather than something I have been saying throughout is simply a demonstration that you have failed to "read for comprehension".

quote:
Me, on page 4
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.

Now. As you are finally agreeing with statements that I was making five pages ago, possibly we can start getting somewhere.
 
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 
What is all this stuff about investigating axioms? If you've investigated them, found reasons why they are true, then they're not axioms anymore. Then they have been derived from these reasons you've found.
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
i have maintained throughout that the correct path is to lay axioms out on the table so that they can be critiqued. There are two possible reasons for you not seeing that. One is deliberate misrepresentation. The second is you are incapable of grasping that. Either way, you're wrong.
My statement about you be willing to concede something refers to the admission that science has limits. Which is what I have been saying this while time. Not about the neuroscience example, which is just as wrongheaded here as it was five pages ago.
You do have quite a talent for surveying defeat and perceiving victory, I'll give you that.
[X-post]

[ 13. October 2014, 14:57: Message edited by: Dark Knight ]
 
Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
What is all this stuff about investigating axioms? If you've investigated them, found reasons why they are true, then they're not axioms anymore. Then they have been derived from these reasons you've found.

An actually sensible question!

The point here is that you can't prove an axiom through investigation - if you do you've simply reached a deeper level of the onion. But you can test it. You can check the consequences of the axiom - if the consequences turn out to be false then you've got something wrong somewhere. And if you have no consequences you have nothing relevant to this world.

Without such tests all your theory is in the realms of pure theory.
 
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
And any form of transportation that can be shown to work with a non-zero chance of getting back to land is immediately taken up by the explorers. And just because we haven't got there yet doesn't mean we should take what you get from your crystal balls seriously.

And we see the problem here. Justinian, a reasonably left-wing individual, thinks that any way of 'finding the ideal way to govern a country' outside the neoclassical models of economics is crystal ball gazing.

After all if non-mathematical interpretive methods of understanding economics or politics worked, the explorers would have immediately taken them up. Of course they would.
There's the old joke about a neoclassical economist not picking up a twenty pound note because if it were really there someone would have picked it up. I never expected to see someone using the argument seriously.
 
Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
i have maintained throughout that the correct path is to lay axioms out on the table so that they can be critiqued. There are two pisdibke reasons for you not seeing that. One is deliberate misrepresentation. The second is you are incapable of grasping that. Either way, you're wrong.

Or the third answer. When I suggest investigating the axiom you complain that that's putting the etymology before the ontology. Which means that you are only prepared to accept theoretical as opposed to empirical means of dealing with axioms.

Indeed this post by you is your attempt to deny any attempt to check your ideas because your position is based on axioms.

quote:
My statement about you be willing to concede something refers to the admission that science has limits. Which is what I have been saying this while time.
And I have accepted throughout. "There are two possible reasons for you not seeing that. One is deliberate misrepresentation. The second is you are incapable of grasping that. Either way, you're wrong."

quote:
You do have quite a talent for surveying defeat and perceiving victory, I'll give you that.
You certainly have a talent for reading what you want to and then projecting your own issues onto the other side. I'll give you that.
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
What is all this stuff about investigating axioms? If you've investigated them, found reasons why they are true, then they're not axioms anymore. Then they have been derived from these reasons you've found.

This is a good point, and somewhere I could justly be accused of a slippage in language (although I suspect the question was directed at Justinian and me). When I am using the term axiom and discussing interrogating a priori positions, I am probably using the word more in the sense of an established rule or principle, not just something that has to be accepted a priori. To me, this is an important part of the hermeneutic circle - understanding your preconceptions, engaging with a phenomenon, revising or critiquing your preconceptions, engaging, and so forth. There is, however, no point at which one does not have a priori positions, whether naive or informed.
Does that make sense?
 
Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
And any form of transportation that can be shown to work with a non-zero chance of getting back to land is immediately taken up by the explorers. And just because we haven't got there yet doesn't mean we should take what you get from your crystal balls seriously.

And we see the problem here. Justinian, a reasonably left-wing individual, thinks that any way of 'finding the ideal way to govern a country' outside the neoclassical models of economics is crystal ball gazing.
[Killing me]

You couldn't be more wrong.
 
Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
What is all this stuff about investigating axioms? If you've investigated them, found reasons why they are true, then they're not axioms anymore. Then they have been derived from these reasons you've found.

This is a good point, and somewhere I could justly be accused of a slippage in language (although I suspect the question was directed at Justinian and me). When I am using the term axiom and discussing interrogating a priori positions, I am probably using the word more in the sense of an established rule or principle, not just something that has to be accepted a priori. To me, this is an important part of the hermeneutic circle - understanding your preconceptions, engaging with a phenomenon, revising or critiquing your preconceptions, engaging, and so forth. There is, however, no point at which one does not have a priori positions, whether naive or informed.
Does that make sense?

And this is something we actually agree on. Where we disagree is the limits of what science can investigate to verify (anything that can be measured in my world) and whether we should start by checking what we can.
 
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Justinian, a reasonably left-wing individual, thinks that any way of 'finding the ideal way to govern a country' outside the neoclassical models of economics is crystal ball gazing.

[Killing me]

You couldn't be more wrong.

You just said that the people trying to model the study of politics and economics on the hard sciences are using all reliable methods already.
If you didn't mean to liken people who think economics and politics oughtn't to be modelled on the hard sciences to crystal ball gazers you chose a funny way of not doing so.
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
i have maintained throughout that the correct path is to lay axioms out on the table so that they can be critiqued. There are two pisdibke reasons for you not seeing that. One is deliberate misrepresentation. The second is you are incapable of grasping that. Either way, you're wrong.

Or the third answer. When I suggest investigating the axiom you complain that that's putting the etymology before the ontology. Which means that you are only prepared to accept theoretical as opposed to empirical means of dealing with axioms.
I'm going to be charitable and presume you mean epistemology here. Yes, ontology is prior. And given axioms are theoretical constructs, it seems reasonable to critique them theoretically. Still, I am happy to consider any of your attempts to establish the existence of God, or explain the significance of love, empirically, before figuring out what they are first. You get started on that. I'll be right over here, on the edge of my seat.
How you propose to investigate things empirically when you haven't established what they actually fucking are is a mystery to me, but I'll certainlt have a look at what you come up with.
quote:

Indeed this post by you is your attempt to deny any attempt to check your ideas because your position is based on axioms.

Link won't work for me. Might be an iPhone thing.
quote:
quote:
My statement about you be willing to concede something refers to the admission that science has limits. Which is what I have been saying this while time.
And I have accepted throughout.
That's risible.
quote:
quote:
You do have quite a talent for surveying defeat and perceiving victory, I'll give you that.
You certainly have a talent for reading what you want to and then projecting your own issues onto the other side. I'll give you that.
If you're going to do this really shitty psychologist thing again, can you please at least have the decency to do it in hell, where I can give it the response it deserves? You know precisely nothing about my issues. Ta muchly.
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
What is all this stuff about investigating axioms? If you've investigated them, found reasons why they are true, then they're not axioms anymore. Then they have been derived from these reasons you've found.

This is a good point, and somewhere I could justly be accused of a slippage in language (although I suspect the question was directed at Justinian and me). When I am using the term axiom and discussing interrogating a priori positions, I am probably using the word more in the sense of an established rule or principle, not just something that has to be accepted a priori. To me, this is an important part of the hermeneutic circle - understanding your preconceptions, engaging with a phenomenon, revising or critiquing your preconceptions, engaging, and so forth. There is, however, no point at which one does not have a priori positions, whether naive or informed.
Does that make sense?

And this is something we actually agree on. Where we disagree is the limits of what science can investigate to verify (anything that can be measured in my world) and whether we should start by checking what we can.
No, I have specifically stated that science can investigate what is measurable. Many times. What we disagree on is what is measurable.
And I have no idea whether or not I disagree with the second part because it doesn't make any sense.

[ 13. October 2014, 15:22: Message edited by: Dark Knight ]
 
Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Justinian, a reasonably left-wing individual, thinks that any way of 'finding the ideal way to govern a country' outside the neoclassical models of economics is crystal ball gazing.

[Killing me]

You couldn't be more wrong.

You just said that the people trying to model the study of politics and economics on the hard sciences are using all reliable methods already.
If you didn't mean to liken people who think economics and politics oughtn't to be modelled on the hard sciences to crystal ball gazers you chose a funny way of not doing so.

[Citation needed]. What I've said is that you need to verify as much as possible.

And one problem with neoclassical economics is that it requires Homo Economicus. Almost as clear illustration that it has faulty premises as the Austrian's refusal to accept any empirical checks.

And Dark Knight, I don't know whether you are refusing to engage in good faith or just not reading both what you are writing and what I am. But either way we're getting nowhere.
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
You are certainly correct we are getting nowhere. I absolutely reject the accusation I am posting in bad faith, or that I am not reading what is being posted, which is easy as you haven't provided any evidence. If you feel that way, fine - my feelings about your posting is about the same.
 
Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :
 
hosting/

Either calm down or, as per the Commandments pursue this line of conversation in Hell. Anyone ignoring this warning is likely to hear from an admin next.

/hosting
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
Sincere apologies, Eutychus.
 
Posted by goperryrevs (# 13504) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
My claim throughout has been that "Either your God does something measurable to change physical reality, which can be through a vast number of approaches, or they do nothing that measurably impacts the world in any way at all and therefore have all the impact on the world of something that doesn't exist and should be treated as such."

My problem with this is the idea that if something impacts the world it must do so in a measurable way.

I believe that the Holy Spirit impacts peoples' lives in all sorts of ways. I don't think that it would be possible to conceive of a way to measure how though, partly because it's impractical, but more because the ways that the Holy Spirit influences us is often subtle, varied, sometimes counter-intuitive. To reduce the way that this person influences me or anyone else to something that can be measured through statistics is a non-starter.

You've essentially given two options:
- Impacts the world in a measurable way
- Does not impact the world at all (for all intents and purposes)

Personally, I reject both of these, and go with "Impacts the world in a non-measurable way". Of course, this is exactly what people have been getting at in questioning the STEM supremacy idea; only that which can be deconstructed / measured / understood is valid. That's not the way the world is. You can't measure Art, Love, Philosophy or Religion.

In terms of the suggestion that people who question scientism are only doing so because they want to reject some certain science or other (Darwinism, or whatever), I can see the validity of that assertion. I'm sure that's often what happens. But I haven't seen that happen at all on this thread. People haven't been rejecting scientism in favour of 6-day creation. They've been rejecting scientism as a philosphical stance because it's insufficient to grapple with the scope of human understanding.

And, if I could jump back a few pages, Justinian, to where you started expounding various Christian doctrines or understandings, and Mousethief took umbridge, I'd say I quite understand MT's frustration. It kind of reminded me of this site.

My problem with that kind of approach is that it appears to assume that, by challenging one part of Christian teaching, the whole of Christianity (or even theism!) falls down.

You want to challenge the idea that God rejects people and sends them to an eternal Hell for not believing in him? Awesome - I'm right with you. I know mousethief would be too, and plenty of others. We've had shedloads of threads about it. Want to challenge the idea that people believe all sorts of strange things because they understand the Bible in an overly literal sense? Again, great. I'm with you all the way. Want to challenge the idea that good people / Christians "go to heaven"? Brilliant. I'd point out that the whole thrust of Scripture is the theme of Heaven coming to Earth, not bits of earth going up to Heaven.

But challenging those things does only that - challenges those individual things. So, if you give a description of Christianity that has little or no relevance to my understanding of Christianity (which is primarily as a faith which is a Way, not a set of doctrines), then you're speaking past me. I'm happy for you to challenge Christians that do think in that way, and there are plenty. But there are plenty of us who see the concept of being followers of Jesus in a very different light. If you want to know what we believe, then great. But telling us what we should believe because we're Christians, then getting frustrated because that's not what we actually believe isn't going to get anyone anywhere.
 
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
Measureable means (I think) repeatably measurable, and there is the problem, Justinian - repeatability.

I can think of numerous instances of people feeling they have received spiritual help in various ways - sometimes very physical help (like tachycardia immediately stopping), and far more of these than I would consider to be normal in the wayt of unexpected occurrences. In fact one could almost say that miracles happen all the time, but also that they are not miraculous, because they follow some quite specific spiritual laws - i.e. they are not extraordinary in that they do not contravene all laws of nature - only maybe a few assumptions we have erroneously gathered as to the limitations of nature and the rigidity of causal interrelationships.

But all of these are personal, specific to the individual, unpredictable. They can be collated - indeed, a book of some 2000 medically documented healings occurring after prayer is currently being compiled - but they are all one-off's. It's just a question of how many one-offs you can see before you are forced to admit that they are not part of any commonly recognised statistical norm.
 
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by itsarumdo:
and far more of these than I would consider to be normal in the wayt of unexpected occurrences. In fact one could almost say that miracles happen all the time

Either miracles happen all the time and are therefore normal, or they aren't normal and don't happen all the time. They can't happen more often than normal.
 
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Justinian, a reasonably left-wing individual, thinks that any way of 'finding the ideal way to govern a country' outside the neoclassical models of economics is crystal ball gazing.

[Killing me]

You couldn't be more wrong.

You just said that the people trying to model the study of politics and economics on the hard sciences are using all reliable methods already.
If you didn't mean to liken people who think economics and politics oughtn't to be modelled on the hard sciences to crystal ball gazers you chose a funny way of not doing so.

[Citation needed].
LeRoc
quote:
How high do you estimate the chances that the scientific method will find the ideal way to govern a country?
SusanDoris:
quote:
I think I'd estimate it at very low.
LeRoc:
quote:
But isn't this sufficient proof that Science doesn't have the answer to everything?
SusanDoris
quote:
The scientific method is the best one we have for getting at the truth, but there are of course vast areas that remain under the heading of 'we don't know'.
Which is where IngoB came in and then you came in responding to IngoB.
So it would appear that by sailing ships IngoB was referring to methods of finding an ideal, or at least better, way to govern the country that don't consider themselves scientific. I.e. not neoclassical economics. (The fact that neoclassical economics does not fit the evidence is neither here nor there if it is nevertheless the only theory to aspire to verifiable measurements. If you rule out the non-measurably verifiable, then whatever is left, however inaccurate, must be the best alternative.)

quote:
And Dark Knight, I don't know whether you are refusing to engage in good faith or just not reading both what you are writing and what I am. But either way we're getting nowhere.
You can't know something if it isn't true.
I think Dark Knight is entitled to wonder why all of the atheists who've responded to him on this thread are straw-manning him.

[code headache]

[ 14. October 2014, 05:04: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
Something based on axioms you have no idea of the truth value of is utterly irrelevant to anything except parlour games.

If you have the ability to verify the truth value of something, it is perforce not an axiom.

quote:
From a false premise you merely find falsehoods.
This is logically inept.

quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by itsarumdo:
and far more of these than I would consider to be normal in the wayt of unexpected occurrences. In fact one could almost say that miracles happen all the time

Either miracles happen all the time and are therefore normal, or they aren't normal and don't happen all the time. They can't happen more often than normal.
But (assuming they happen all the time) they are each a different miracle, and as such not necessarily amenable to scientific investigation, which requires repeatable (and by and large repeating) phenomena.
 
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by itsarumdo:
and far more of these than I would consider to be normal in the wayt of unexpected occurrences. In fact one could almost say that miracles happen all the time

Either miracles happen all the time and are therefore normal, or they aren't normal and don't happen all the time. They can't happen more often than normal.
Which is why it's probably not a good idea to think of tghem as miracles at all - they're on;ly miracles oif your definition of normailty requires physical causaity. If you happen to believe it's a materialised spiritual world, then "normal" has a much wider range of possibility.
 
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :
 
'miracle' is not 'something we can't explain', it's a lrager concept than that. Something can be entirely explicable by scientific methods and be miraculous. Something can be inexplicable by scientific methods and be non-miraculous. A miracle is a sign that points towards something, it may also be a wonder. A wonder that signifies nothing is just a wonder, not a miracle.

Is it explicable that within a few minutes online I'd found a church in a small city in Japan with an English language fellowship group? Of course it is. Is it a miracle that when I needed friends and fellowship with other Christians that this group exists? I would say it is. Can God work in the world to ensure such a group of people exist in this city just when I need them? Yes, He can. Would that exercise of his adjusting the world for a particular purpose be measurable by any scientific method or instrument? I do not believe so.
 
Posted by SusanDoris (# 12618) on :
 
I'm a bit behind things, I'm afraid. [Smile] I wrote this yesterday evening, but only now have time to check and post.

Ingo B
I’m afraid the analogy about the ships and horses was too complicated for me! this is mainly because of having to listen to instead of read it.
Le Roc
quote:
…your second sentence, … seems contradictory.

When you say "vast areas remain under the heading 'we don't know'" are you saying that in principle, Science will find the answers to these areas some day? Or are you saying that Science isn't the right way for finding answers to these areas?

Neither really. There cannot be a rigid line ever between what can or can’t be found out by Science, but Until someone comes up with a better method than the scientific one (and that would be via said scientific method anyway, wouldn’t it) there will never be a time when inquiring minds cease to probe and investigate, search for the most useful and verifiable way for getting at the facts. In any case, what other methods are there?
The next sentence is straightforward, not flippant. Any suggestion such as prayer or interpretation of dreams etc goes via human thought
Which needs a living brain which is slowly being researched so that more can be understood about how it works.
AlanCresswell
quote:
So, the scientific method is a tool to understand the world, just as riding about on horseback is a tool for exploring the world. But, there are other tools apart from the scientific method - philosophy, poetry, myth, even theology. These other tools are the ships of Ingo's analogy.
Yes, I do appreciate that, but all of these are human thoughts and ideas. As quetzalcoatl says, stories have always been important tools, but they are humanly imagined. Knowing a live brain is needed for stories is using the scientific method, but that knowledge is taken for granted and does not in any way detract from the value and effects of the story.
Nor, to atheists, does this lessen wonder and amazement that we can think thus.
IngoB
quote:
[QB... admitting that there are things one cannot come to know by science…[/QB]
I’ve been sitting here thinking about this. What things can one come to know without a method which can be tracked back to science? Which aspect of any kind of religious belief is not originally a human idea ? Where, in any kind of religious belief, Is knowledge which can be explained or measured without using some kind of scientific method?
 
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 
quote:
SusanDoris: There cannot be a rigid line ever between what can or can’t be found out by Science, but Until someone comes up with a better method than the scientific one (and that would be via said scientific method anyway, wouldn’t it) there will never be a time when inquiring minds cease to probe and investigate, search for the most useful and verifiable way for getting at the facts.
I'm still trying to get an answer from you, when you say that something can't be found out by Science, is this a temporary thing (inquiring minds will continue to investigate; in principle it can be found) or is this a permanent thing (some things are outside of the realm of Science). But I'm more or less giving up in trying to get straight answers from you.

quote:
SusanDoris: In any case, what other methods are there?
For finding the ideal form of government? (Or even answering the question if there is one.) Democratic dialogue. Romantic ideas. Egoistic fights. Rare bursts of altruism. None of which are the scientific method.

But suppose that you're right. Suppose that one day, scientists are able to completely understand the human mind, and therefore to answer the question what would be the best way to run a society. In this case, the logical option would be to do away with democracy and let our society be run by scientists. Our democratically elected representatives don't have access to all scientific facts, and their egoistic bickering would get in the way of the policies that are demonstratedly the best based on scientific evidence. No, it's better to stay closer to the source and let scientists rule us on the basis of what their evidence says. Would you favour such a government?
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
I’ve been sitting here thinking about this. What things can one come to know without a method which can be tracked back to science? Which aspect of any kind of religious belief is not originally a human idea ? Where, in any kind of religious belief, Is knowledge which can be explained or measured without using some kind of scientific method?

Are you serious? Science is a very recent phenomenon. How on earth do you think people knew stuff before science?
As to the rest, we have been talking about other ways of knowing this whole thread. If you don't understand by now that there must be other ways of knowing, because science is limited by its nature in what it can reveal (only what can be empirically investigated and verified), then I don't know what else to say.
 
Posted by SusanDoris (# 12618) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:
SusanDoris: There cannot be a rigid line ever between what can or can’t be found out by Science, but Until someone comes up with a better method than the scientific one (and that would be via said scientific method anyway, wouldn’t it) there will never be a time when inquiring minds cease to probe and investigate, search for the most useful and verifiable way for getting at the facts.
I'm still trying to get an answer from you, when you say that something can't be found out by Science, is this a temporary thing...
That is why I said there cannot be a rigid line - there is always a middle area where we have to say 'we don't know'. Since no-one can see into the future, then that is impossible to say. I think, bearing in mind the increase in knowledge, understanding of how things work and progress in medicine etc up until now, that the probability is that many things that apparently cannot be found out by the scientific method today will be sooner or later. During this process, no doubt all sorts of other questions will come up, which people will wonder if science can answer and also provide a new set of 'don't know' questions.
quote:
… (inquiring minds will continue to investigate; in principle it can be found) or is this a permanent thing (some things are outside of the realm of Science). But I'm more or less giving up in trying to get straight answers from you.
I think that is a bit unfair! I would say that, again thinking of history and progress up until now, that the probability of anyone ever establishing a real god in any religion is as near to zero as makes no difference. But I even if I get into my 90s – doubtful in my family!! – I shall not be able to give a 100% guarantee. I do hope that that is clear enough. Human nature, societies, technologies, ideas of government, etc are never static, and if they were there would always be someone to stir things up!
I’ll answer the rest of your post asap. It needs a bit more thinking about. I hope you won't give up! on me!
 
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 
quote:
SusanDoris:
quote:
LeRoc: I'm still trying to get an answer from you, when you say that something can't be found out by Science, is this a temporary thing...
That is why I said there cannot be a rigid line - there is always a middle area where we have to say 'we don't know'. Since no-one can see into the future, then that is impossible to say. I think, bearing in mind the increase in knowledge, understanding of how things work and progress in medicine etc up until now, that the probability is that many things that apparently cannot be found out by the scientific method today will be sooner or later. During this process, no doubt all sorts of other questions will come up, which people will wonder if science can answer and also provide a new set of 'don't know' questions.
I'm sorry, your answer is still not clear.

I'd also like it if you'd try to answer my other question in that post.

[Edited to fix code to straighten out attributions. -Gwai]

[ 14. October 2014, 15:42: Message edited by: Gwai ]
 
Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
Something based on axioms you have no idea of the truth value of is utterly irrelevant to anything except parlour games.

If you have the ability to verify the truth value of something, it is perforce not an axiom.
Which is a distraction. If you can verify something through pure logic it ceases to be an axiom. This doesn't mean you can't check certain consequences - and if the consequences are false you have got something wrong somewhere.

quote:
quote:
From a false premise you merely find falsehoods.
This is logically inept.
OK. Refinement. Any truth you can reach via logic from false premises is merely by coincidence.

quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Justinian, a reasonably left-wing individual, thinks that any way of 'finding the ideal way to govern a country' outside the neoclassical models of economics is crystal ball gazing.

[Killing me]

You couldn't be more wrong.

You just said that the people trying to model the study of politics and economics on the hard sciences are using all reliable methods already.
If you didn't mean to liken people who think economics and politics oughtn't to be modelled on the hard sciences to crystal ball gazers you chose a funny way of not doing so.

[Citation needed].
LeRoc
So your argument that I said something is that SusanDoris in reply to LeRoc said something. Right. And when we look at what SusanDoris said and you quoted it doesn't actually mean what you claim I said either:

quote:
quote:
The scientific method is the best one we have for getting at the truth, but there are of course vast areas that remain under the heading of 'we don't know'.

And in the context you are making accusations, neo-classical economics' claim to use the scientific method is fallacious. Neoclassical economics, as I mentioned in my rebuttal mangles the approach to one which puts ontology in front of epistemology by relying on the construct of Homo Economicus and rational actors. This is precisely the opposite of the methods I am advocating.

In short you've (a) misrepresented me, (b) put the words of someone else into my mouth, and (c) accused me of supporting something that is demonstrably wrong directly because of the arguments I'm making.
 
Posted by SusanDoris (# 12618) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
I'm sorry, your answer is still not clear
I'd also like it if you'd try to answer my other question in that post.

[Edited to fix code to straighten out attributions. -Gwai]

My apologies, Leroc! to help me make my answer clear, may I ask you please, to give me a few suggestions as to what you thought I might say as I am interested to know. An yes, I will come back to your other question as soon as I can.
 
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 
Gwai: I'm sorry for my code mess-up, and thank you for repairing it.

quote:
SusanDoris: My apologies, Leroc! to help me make my answer clear, may I ask you please, to give me a few suggestions as to what you thought I might say as I am interested to know.
Let's try multiple choice! [Biased] (I'm not mocking you here, I just thought it was funny to say that.)

Options:
  1. At the moment, Science does not know the answer to how to govern a society. But it is the right way to find the answers to this. Maybe it won't find them all at once, some questions will still remain open. But eventually, it will find the answers to those too.
  2. The scientific method may give us some information that will help us how to govern a society. However, there will always be questions about how to do this that are outside of the realm of Science.
A or B please. The answer is worth 10 points [Biased]
 
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
So your argument that I said something is that SusanDoris in reply to LeRoc said something. Right.

IngoB appears to have dropped out of your summary.

LeRoc and SusanDoris and IngoB were arguing over whether the scientific method is the only way to discover whether there's an ideal way to run a country. So either you were talking about how to run a country, or you didn't care enough to find out what IngoB was talking about.

quote:
And in the context you are making accusations, neo-classical economics' claim to use the scientific method is fallacious. Neoclassical economics, as I mentioned in my rebuttal mangles the approach to one which puts ontology in front of epistemology by relying on the construct of Homo Economicus and rational actors.
Homo economicus and rational action are confessedly components of a model. Just as the Rutherford-Bohr atom is a model. Models have a perfectly valid use within the scientific method.

The problem is that if you think anything that has a direct effect upon the world has measurable consequences (here ), then neoclassical economics is the only game in town. Because neoclassical economics is the only school that adopts that axiom. Homo economicus is simply the only way people have so far found of modelling human beings in such a way that everything they do of importance has measurable consequences.

quote:
This is precisely the opposite of the methods I am advocating.

You are advocating epistemology over phenomenological ontology. That is, you are advocating prioritising abstract considerations about what counts as knowledge over actual human experience.
Now maybe if you're unfamiliar with the phenomenological tradition you might have been thrown by Dark Knight using the word 'ontology'. But Dark Knight explained what he meant by that in his posts.

quote:
In short you've (a) misrepresented me, (b) put the words of someone else into my mouth, and (c) accused me of supporting something that is demonstrably wrong directly because of the arguments I'm making.
Annoying, isn't it? Perhaps the next time Dark Knight or I or anyone complains that you're putting words in our mouths you might consider listening? Rather than redoubling your efforts to stuff your words down our mouths as if we're geese you're fattening for foie gras.

Your posts were responding to a conversation that, probably due to inattention on your part, was about something other than you thought the conversation was about.
But even if you think it's illegitimate to respond to a post as if it's meant as a contribution to the conversation to which it's responding - I will stand by the claim that the practical implications of at least some of the positions you're defending on this thread are that neoclassical economics is the only valid economic or political position. If you don't intend those implications, you need to modify at least some of the relevant positions, if my argument is correct.
 
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
Ingo B
I’m afraid the analogy about the ships and horses was too complicated for me! this is mainly because of having to listen to instead of read it.

In a nutshell: to say that more needs to be discovered is one thing, to say that one needs other means to discover it is quite another. The most intrepid explorer on horseback is not going to discover Australia.

quote:
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
What things can one come to know without a method which can be tracked back to science?

Making yourself a cup of tea, you did not learn this by science. The language you are using, you did not learn this by science. Thinking about what cannot be known by science, you did not learn this by science. Deciding that further thought about that would be a waste of your time, you did not learn this by science. Feeling happy anticipation about seeing your good friend instead, you did not learn this by science. There is very, very little indeed in your life that has anything to do with science. Even on the broadest possible interpretation, where you would claim that your electric water boiler is a "product of science", much of your life still has little to do with science. And if you go completely nuts and declare every bit of experience and learning somehow as "science", just because it associates sensory input systematically with cognitive states, then guess what - pretty much everything beyond vegetative body function is this kind of "science" - including, most definitely, every bit of religion.

quote:
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
Which aspect of any kind of religious belief is not originally a human idea ?

Why do you consider that to be a relevant question? We are humans, and you can call all our higher cognition "having ideas". Even if the Holy Spirit inspires us, the result would still be a human idea, a human thinking something. So what?

quote:
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
Where, in any kind of religious belief, Is knowledge which can be explained or measured without using some kind of scientific method?

Why is there something rather than nothing? Because God created it. That is true knowledge. It was not obtained by modern natural science based on empirical data. It can be explained by metaphysical argument from observing nature, but not in a "science" sort of way.

[ 14. October 2014, 22:04: Message edited by: IngoB ]
 
Posted by SusanDoris (# 12618) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
For finding the ideal form of government? (Or even answering the question if there is one.) Democratic dialogue. Romantic ideas. Egoistic fights. Rare bursts of altruism. None of which are the scientific method.

But how we know these things and understand more how they have evolved and how they work are thanks to a scientific method which has itself gradually improved, if only by fits and starts. I suppose it would have been more accurate to say ‘tracks back to nature’.
quote:
[But suppose that you're right. Suppose that one day, scientists are able to completely understand the human mind, and therefore to answer the question what would be the best way to run a society.
But that is not going to happen because there will never be an end to the questions.
quote:
In this case, the logical option would be to do away with democracy and let our society be run by scientists.
I do not agree that is a logical step, but not ever having studied the discipline of philosophy, I can’t find the words for a suitable reply. I agree of course that even the best governments will never be in any way ideal, but that’s human nature. We can only hope that the two steps forward, one step back way that our species has muddled through will continue in an overall forward direction as far as understanding nature and ourselves is concerned.
I appreciate this is a poor response, but I assure you I have been typing, deleting and thinking as hard as I can although Synthetic Dave is bearing up remarkably well! I’m an optimist, you see, even about politics
 
Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
So your argument that I said something is that SusanDoris in reply to LeRoc said something. Right.

IngoB appears to have dropped out of your summary.

LeRoc and SusanDoris and IngoB were arguing over whether the scientific method is the only way to discover whether there's an ideal way to run a country. So either you were talking about how to run a country, or you didn't care enough to find out what IngoB was talking about.

Or IngoB's faulty analogy was faulty in its own right because, like all analogies, it was a distortion of the truth - and in ways that were relevant to the wider conversation about what some people use the slur Scientism to describe.

You are misrepresenting me.

quote:
quote:
And in the context you are making accusations, neo-classical economics' claim to use the scientific method is fallacious. Neoclassical economics, as I mentioned in my rebuttal mangles the approach to one which puts ontology in front of epistemology by relying on the construct of Homo Economicus and rational actors.
Homo economicus and rational action are confessedly components of a model. Just as the Rutherford-Bohr atom is a model. Models have a perfectly valid use within the scientific method.

The problem is that if you think anything that has a direct effect upon the world has measurable consequences (here ), then neoclassical economics is the only game in town. Because neoclassical economics is the only school that adopts that axiom.

Bullshit! Neoclassical economics is the game definitively not in town. Because its models are measurably counter to important ways the universe works. Which makes them simply wrong.

"Everything has measurable consequences" is not the same as "Everything can be directly measured" and it certainly isn't the same as "A simple model can account for everything" - which is what the rational actor approaches are. And "Everything has measurable consequences" is quite literally the opposite of "We should accept ideas grounded in theory that when the consequences are measured turn out not to be true".

Neoclassical economics is textbook pseudoscience - starting off with axioms that have either not been shown to work or been shown not to work. Then appropriating the trappings of scientific terminology while both using them improperly and starting off with a faulty premise.

quote:
Homo economicus is simply the only way people have so far found of modelling human beings in such a way that everything they do of importance has measurable consequences.
Again, this is pure misrepresentation. I'm trying to work out whether it's simply wrong, or whether it's not even wrong. Either way it's putting the cart before the horse. Homo Economicus is the fallacy of starting out with the ontology rather than measuring what we have and then building from there.

quote:
You are advocating epistemology over phenomenological ontology. That is, you are advocating prioritising abstract considerations about what counts as knowledge over actual human experience.
Once more you are misrepresenting me. I'm saying that by starting with ontology you are starting with the exact fallacy used by the neo-classical economists. Neo-classical economists start out with "What is the nature of a person" and decide on the rational actor - the ontology. And never do the checking of how they know.

I'm suggesting starting out with what we know. Starting out by working out what we know and how we know it, starting out with the epistemology quite literally is starting out with prioritising experience over the abstract theoretical considerations that ontology gives us. You are completely misrepresenting me here.

What it doesn't do is start out by assuming, as itsarumdo does, that all human perception is accurate. But human perception is definitely evidence and that humans report something is measurable. Whether that's independent or not is also measurable.

quote:
quote:
In short you've (a) misrepresented me, (b) put the words of someone else into my mouth, and (c) accused me of supporting something that is demonstrably wrong directly because of the arguments I'm making.
Annoying, isn't it? Perhaps the next time Dark Knight or I or anyone complains that you're putting words in our mouths you might consider listening? Rather than redoubling your efforts to stuff your words down our mouths as if we're geese you're fattening for foie gras.
Tell me, is this an admission that the fact you have misrepresented me on almost every single point in this post and have directly put words in my mouth was deliberate?

quote:
But even if you think it's illegitimate to respond to a post as if it's meant as a contribution to the conversation to which it's responding - I will stand by the claim that the practical implications of at least some of the positions you're defending on this thread are that neoclassical economics is the only valid economic or political position. If you don't intend those implications, you need to modify at least some of the relevant positions, if my argument is correct.
And this is, as I have just demonstrated, absolute bullshit. Neoclassical economics is a direct result of doing the opposite of what I am advocating and I have demonstrated how. You can not start with ontology and theory before you look at what you can actually verify.

Now, you've misrepresented me on just about every point, and demonstrably so. You have invented consequences to my position that are the direct opposite of where they lead. You have put words in my mouth. And you have just doubled down. You have directly put words in my mouth that I have not said.

Unless further replies to me open with a genuine apology anything further I have to say to you on this subject will be said within the confines of Hell.
 
Posted by SusanDoris (# 12618) on :
 
Note: For those who feel that my views might cause exasperation, scroll past!!
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
Ingo B
I’m afraid the analogy about the ships and horses was too complicated for me! this is mainly because of having to listen to instead of read it.

In a nutshell: to say that more needs to be discovered is one thing, to say that one needs other means to discover it is quite another. The most intrepid explorer on horseback is not going to discover Australia.
Thank you. But the drive to explore and find the methods of travel is very much an evolved human trait ...information about which has been discovered by people using the scientific method, so although the instinct to explore was not implanted by some abstract subject called Science, the knowledge we have of it is thanks to scientific method.
quote:
quote:
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
What things can one come to know without a method which can be tracked back to science?

Making yourself a cup of tea, you did not learn this by science. The language you are using, you did not learn this by science. Thinking about what cannot be known by science, you did not learn this by science. Deciding that further thought about that would be a waste of your time, you did not learn this by science. Feeling happy anticipation about seeing your good friend instead, you did not learn this by science. There is very, very little indeed in your life that has anything to do with science. Even on the broadest possible interpretation, where you would claim that your electric water boiler is a "product of science", much of your life still has little to do with science.
It is background knowledge which I only bring to the forefront of my mind when discussions like these come up and I realise the huge place that Science has in our lives.
quote:
And if you go completely nuts and declare every bit of experience and learning somehow as "science", just because it associates sensory input systematically with cognitive states, then guess what - pretty much everything beyond vegetative body function is this kind of "science" - including, most definitely, every bit of religion.
I did not learn those things by science it is true, I learnt them from an evolved instinct to survive, observation and teaching from others, but every piece of knowledge about why and how they all work and of what they are made has been defined by people using a scientific method. As I have just said to LeRoc, perhaps I should have said ‘tracked back to nature’.
quote:
quote:
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
Which aspect of any kind of religious belief is not originally a human idea ?

Why do you consider that to be a relevant question? We are humans, and you can call all our higher cognition "having ideas". Even if the Holy Spirit inspires us, the result would still be a human idea, a human thinking something. So what?
But the Holy Spirit is a human assumption that such a spirit exists.
As I have been learning recently from QFT and an associated discussion, If it actually interacted with our world in any way, it could be detected and measured. Fully aware that I must leave an area open in my mind for proof that I might be wrong, I will say that I think it has no existence outside of human imagination. Same for God. The scientific method cannot be used since no fact can be produced about which to hypothesise and test. I do, therefore, consider that they do not exist and that the scientific method is the one to choose to arrive at facts. I suppose then we’re back at scientism, but since, as far as I can gather, the most likely definition of scientism is a sort of blind belief that Science has the exclusive ability and access to answers,then I’ll disagree because all my beliefs and faiths are based on evidence, science style.
By the way, I do agree that parts of this are off the topic of scientism, but I hope that as we are on page 9, that’s allowable.
 
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
SusanDoris - what you seem to be missing is that what you are saying is a statement of faith in empiricism and the scientific method. As many have tried to show you and others this itself is a position that is unverifiable empirically. So yes, that is scientism.
Justinian - Dafyd's statement of what you've been doing in response to me is spot on. You certainly won't be getting an apology from me. You want to tangle in hell, bring it.
 
Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
Justinian - Dafyd's statement of what you've been doing in response to me is spot on. You certainly won't be getting an apology from me. You want to tangle in hell, bring it.

Dafyd's started something in hell. I've replied and brought you strongly into it.
 
Posted by SusanDoris (# 12618) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
SusanDoris - what you seem to be missing is that what you are saying is a statement of faith in empiricism and the scientific method.

But that faith is based on the reliability and consistency of the evidence . which has resulted from empiricism, I think. I do most decidedly not have a blind faith, as it is clear that, being human beings, scientists make mistakes along the way. I don't know how we would have reached the current level of advances in the area of medicine if we'd had to rely on blind faith alone.
quote:
As many have tried to show you and others this itself is a position that is unverifiable empirically. So yes, that is scientism.
I'll go along with that, but why call it scientism? Why not stick to calling it Science?
QUOTE]]Justinian - Dafyd's statement of what you've been doing in response to me is spot on. You certainly won't be getting an apology from me. You want to tangle in hell, bring it. [/QUOTE]You're probably right! I certainly neither ask for nor expect any apology. I only rarely rread posts in Hell - I'm a person who prefers harmony, but do appreciate the opportunities in forums to say what I think and endeavour to be as courteous as possible.

Edited to add - I see Justinian mentions a thread in Hell, so I will just drop in to see what's what!

[ 15. October 2014, 17:31: Message edited by: SusanDoris ]
 
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 
quote:
SusanDoris: But how we know these things and understand more how they have evolved and how they work are thanks to a scientific method which has itself gradually improved, if only by fits and starts. I suppose it would have been more accurate to say ‘tracks back to nature’.
Let me recap our discussion so far.

I asked: Can the scientific method find an answer to whether there is an ideal form of government?

You asked: What other methods would there be? (Insinuating that the scientific method is the only method to find an answer to this question.)

I answered: Democratic processes, romanticism, fights, altruism ...

You answer: But these originate from the brain, and the brain can be understood more and more through the scientific method.

Am I accurate about our conversation so far?

Suppose for a moment that someone does find the answer to the question "what is the ideal form of government?", and that she found this answer through democratic processes, romanticism, fights, altruism ... I know this is unlikely to happen, but for argument's sake.

If I understand your reasoning well, you'll claim that this person has found the answer through the scientific method. After all, she has used methods that originate from her brain, and brains can be described better and better by the scientific method.

Am I still correct?

Now, I have found the answer to the question "Does God exist?" The answer is "Yes." I have found the answer by using a democratic method, romanticism, fights, altruism ... These processes originate in my brain, my brain can be described better and better by the scientific method, therefore I have found the answer through the scientific method.


On the one hand you call everything we do (romanticism, altruism ...) 'using the scientific method', because it originates from our brains and brains can be explained more and more by the scientific method.

On the other hand you call religion unscientific because it originates from our brains.

What is it?
 
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :
 
Come on, Le Roc, you're not using the atheist brain! This is situated about 5cm behind the thinking very hard bit, and over a bit to the left, behind the being very rational bit.

It ain't rocket surgery!
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
But the drive to explore and find the methods of travel is very much an evolved human trait ...information about which has been discovered by people using the scientific method, so although the instinct to explore was not implanted by some abstract subject called Science, the knowledge we have of it is thanks to scientific method.

This is inane. People were building very sophisticated ships and sailing all over the place long, long, long before the Scientific Method ever reared its head
 
Posted by SusanDoris (# 12618) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
Let me recap our discussion so far.

Thank you for your most interesting post. I'm afraid it's tap dancing this morning and a hospital visit this afternoon, but I'll be back asap!

Edited for typo.

[ 16. October 2014, 06:47: Message edited by: SusanDoris ]
 
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
But the drive to explore and find the methods of travel is very much an evolved human trait ...information about which has been discovered by people using the scientific method, so although the instinct to explore was not implanted by some abstract subject called Science, the knowledge we have of it is thanks to scientific method.

This is inane. People were building very sophisticated ships and sailing all over the place long, long, long before the Scientific Method ever reared its head
not to mention the ankythera mechanism (and its stone predecessors). bronze casting, embalming for the dead and a sophisticated herbal repertoire for the living, cross-breeding of different animals and plant strains, and lenses ground in ancient babylon...
 
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 
quote:
mousethief: This is inane. People were building very sophisticated ships and sailing all over the place long, long, long before the Scientific Method ever reared its head
I'm starting to understand SusanDoris's reasoning a bit now. It is somewhat at follows:

Q: Do we use the scientific method to do X?
SD: Yes. Through the scientific method, we are able to explain better and better why we do X.

For X, fill in 'do politics', 'fall in love', 'explore' ... and you get the whole of SusanDoris's reasoning on this thread.

Of course, there are holes in her logic you can fly a 747 through. The most important one being: this isn't an answer to the question. But if you think you can explain this to her, be my guest.

Interestingly, there is one exception. When you fill in X = 'do religion', she suddenly considers this reasoning invalid. My last post was an effort to point this out to her.
 
Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
Thank you. But the drive to explore and find the methods of travel is very much an evolved human trait ...information about which has been discovered by people using the scientific method, so although the instinct to explore was not implanted by some abstract subject called Science, the knowledge we have of it is thanks to scientific method.

You're overextending the term "scientific method" as it is normally used. If I find something true, and then say it's caused by fairies at the bottom of the garden then I've still found something true. I'm just flat wrong about why - and this isn't the scientific method. But what I've found works and is real even if I'm wrong about why.

What the scientific method is is the best way we have of getting the how right and of finding more things that work and joining them up. But far from everything we know about the world is the direct result of the scientific method.
 
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:
mousethief: This is inane. People were building very sophisticated ships and sailing all over the place long, long, long before the Scientific Method ever reared its head
I'm starting to understand SusanDoris's reasoning a bit now. It is somewhat at follows:

Q: Do we use the scientific method to do X?
SD: Yes. Through the scientific method, we are able to explain better and better why we do X.

For X, fill in 'do politics', 'fall in love', 'explore' ... and you get the whole of SusanDoris's reasoning on this thread.

Of course, there are holes in her logic you can fly a 747 through. The most important one being: this isn't an answer to the question. But if you think you can explain this to her, be my guest.

Interestingly, there is one exception. When you fill in X = 'do religion', she suddenly considers this reasoning invalid. My last post was an effort to point this out to her.

It's an interesting leap, from 'scientific method helps explain how omelettes work', to 'science makes omelettes'. I was wondering if she is using metonymy, but how would that be explained by scientific method?
 
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 
quote:
quetzalcoatl: I was wondering if she is using metonymy, but how would that be explained by scientific method?
If I follow her reasoning, it would be: "Through our understanding of the brain and of evolution, we are able to explain better and better why we use metonymy".
 
Posted by SusanDoris (# 12618) on :
 
All comments read and appreciated very interesting of course . I do so much admire the debating skills and knowledge on SofF and it looks as if, with luck and thanks of course to up-to-date medical knowledge, that I'll have a good few more years to read and learn!! Back soon.
 
Posted by Russ (# 120) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:

I asked: Can the scientific method find an answer to whether there is an ideal form of government?

You asked: What other methods would there be? (Insinuating that the scientific method is the only method to find an answer to this question.)

I answered: Democratic processes, romanticism, fights, altruism ...

I suggest that Answering the question "what is the best form of government ?" would require two different types of thought process. One is understanding the impacts of adopting different forms of government. The other is valuing those impacts to see which we prefer, which is closest to our ideal.

The understanding part is a question for science - the activity of gathering data, forming and testing hypotheses, establishing cause-and-effect relationships etc. someone claiming to have such understanding might reasonably be asked to make predictions - what will happen in Libya after the revolution ? - to demonstrate their knowledge.

The valuing part is not something that science can help with.

--------------

That position can be attacked from two sides - anti-rationalism denying the role of science in understanding government, and scientism asserting that better understanding of the human brain will someday tell us what we ought to value.

But none of the alternative methods you mention fot choosing a form of government seems at all likely to arrive at the best form of government...

Best wishes,

Russ
 
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
]I suggest that Answering the question "what is the best form of government ?" would require two different types of thought process. One is understanding the impacts of adopting different forms of government. The other is valuing those impacts to see which we prefer, which is closest to our ideal.

The problem here is that we have reason to believe that the two thought processes cannot be separated out when it comes to human beings. There are a number of reasons for this. One is that human beings act rather than just behave, and there aren't any value neutral ways to understand human action.
A basic and trivial example: somebody who is right-handed doing something with their right hand is doing the same thing as somebody left-handed performing the same task with their left hand. Yet thinking that requires the person thinking to consider only the task performed, and not the bodily movements involved.
To understand what somebody is doing you have to interpret their understanding of what they're doing. And that isn't a value neutral exercise. You have to understand the other person's ideas of what is sensible and what is ethical and what is admirable, and in order to do that you have to draw on your own ideas. You can't study people or societies without studying their normative value judgements, and you can't understand what a normative judgement is without drawing on your own normative judgements.

quote:
The understanding part is a question for science - the activity of gathering data, forming and testing hypotheses, establishing cause-and-effect relationships etc. someone claiming to have such understanding might reasonably be asked to make predictions - what will happen in Libya after the revolution ? - to demonstrate their knowledge.
One obvious problem: how do you do about testing hypotheses at this level? Generally speaking, there are ethical problems with using societies as test subjects. Furthermore, if the society knows you're using it as a test subject that is going to alter the result.
In addition, in the natural sciences cause and effect relationships are mechanical. The billiard ball's opinion of what it's doing doesn't come into it. But in social sciences the people's opinions of what the causal relationships are affects what the causal relationships are. And that is actually hard to handle with logic.

People have been trying to establish social sciences on the model of the natural sciences for over a century now. The results are so far unimpressive.
 
Posted by Russ (# 120) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
there aren't any value neutral ways to understand human action.

'Fraid I'm not seeing your argument here.

A biologist can observe that geese are monogamous - mate for life with a single partner - and chickens are not. Without being compelled to make a value judgment that one species is better than the other thereby.

Why cannot a scientist who studies humankind make the same sort of detached value-neutral observation about the mating habits of humans in different cultures ?

quote:
somebody who is right-handed doing something with their right hand is doing the same thing as somebody left-handed performing the same task with their left hand. Yet thinking that requires the person thinking to consider only the task performed, and not the bodily movements involved.
So what ? Applying any sort of discipline of study means ignoring those factors which seem irrelevant. When Newton invoked gravity to explain why the apple fell, he didn't need to know which variety of apple was involved.

Some things are genuinely irrelevant to the point at issue. Of course, it's possible to be wrong about which they are.

quote:
To understand what somebody is doing you have to interpret their understanding of what they're doing. And that isn't a value neutral exercise. You have to understand the other person's ideas of what is sensible and what is ethical and what is admirable

That's one level of understanding.

But you can have that sort of intimate understanding of an individual person and still not be able to predict what they'll do. And conversely have an understanding of people in general that is sufficient for predicting aggregate behaviour, without going into what ethical or aesthetic principles each individual holds.

quote:
how do you do about testing hypotheses at this level? Generally speaking, there are ethical problems with using societies as test subjects. Furthermore, if the society knows you're using it as a test subject that is going to alter the result.

That's back to "natural experiment" - looking in the data for when particular combinations of conditions happened anyway as part of the natural development of the system.

quote:

People have been trying to establish social sciences on the model of the natural sciences for over a century now. The results are so far unimpressive.

Some of what passes for social science is certainly unimpressive...

But some of the worst are those who don't see any need to keep their political value-judgments out of their publicly-funded supposedly-scientific work.

Best wishes,

Russ
 
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
A biologist can observe that geese are monogamous - mate for life with a single partner - and chickens are not. Without being compelled to make a value judgment that one species is better than the other thereby.

Why cannot a scientist who studies humankind make the same sort of detached value-neutral observation about the mating habits of humans in different cultures ?

The reason is that the mating habits of the humans in different cultures are themselves the result of value judgements.
Geese may be monogamous, but I don't believe they have a concept of adultery or divorce. A goose, as far as we know, cannot think I really want to let that gander mount me but I shall resist because it would be adultery. Nor can a goose think my husband has cheated on me, but I'll try to keep this marriage together for the sake of the goslings. To understand what the geese are doing you don't have to make value judgements on their behalf.
Geese don't argue about whether or not they ought to emulate chickens. Humans in one culture do argue about whether or not another culture is better or worse than they are.

Let's take an example. Bill Clinton famously did or did not commit adultery depending upon what the meaning of 'is' is. An anthropologist observing proceedings would have had to judge whether or not the various parties involved - Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Kenneth Starr, etc were correctly applying the concepts of adultery or impeachment or whether they were misapplying those concepts in order to understand their behaviour. Which is to say that the anthropologist has to be able to make those value judgements - such and such behaviour is or is not adultery - according to the standards of late twentieth century US culture. And there's no way into understanding how to make value judgements without using one's own experience of making value judgements.

quote:
quote:
somebody who is right-handed doing something with their right hand is doing the same thing as somebody left-handed performing the same task with their left hand. Yet thinking that requires the person thinking to consider only the task performed, and not the bodily movements involved.
So what ? Applying any sort of discipline of study means ignoring those factors which seem irrelevant.
Judging that handedness is irrelevant requires understanding what the person is trying to do, which in turn requires understanding what counts as success or failure, what counts as performing the task well.
Handedness might not be irrelevant: consider many cultures in which left-handedness is subject to social sanction.

quote:
quote:
To understand what somebody is doing you have to interpret their understanding of what they're doing. And that isn't a value neutral exercise. You have to understand the other person's ideas of what is sensible and what is ethical and what is admirable

That's one level of understanding.

But you can have that sort of intimate understanding of an individual person and still not be able to predict what they'll do. And conversely have an understanding of people in general that is sufficient for predicting aggregate behaviour, without going into what ethical or aesthetic principles each individual holds.

This assumes that the distribution of various ethical and aesthetic principles is irrelevant to aggregate behaviour. Which is not obviously true.
(Advertisers certainly take the aspirations and values of their target market into account, or try to.)
Also, the degree to which prediction is possible in principle in human affairs is theoretically limited. For example, if a method is found of predicting market behaviour savvy market actors will take it into account in deciding what to do, thereby altering their behaviour and thus altering the force of their predictions. Predictions become self-fulfilling or self-refuting.

quote:
quote:
how do you do about testing hypotheses at this level? Generally speaking, there are ethical problems with using societies as test subjects. Furthermore, if the society knows you're using it as a test subject that is going to alter the result.

That's back to "natural experiment" - looking in the data for when particular combinations of conditions happened anyway as part of the natural development of the system.
The number of combinations of conditions is fairly limited compared with the variety of conditions that can be combined. If you're looking at the behaviour of industrial countries, you've only got about a hundred and fifty years of data at most for only about forty to fifty nations. You can't isolate the variable you wish to study.
Furthermore, one of the variables you would need to compensate for is the nation's awareness of other nations or of its own past.

quote:
quote:

People have been trying to establish social sciences on the model of the natural sciences for over a century now. The results are so far unimpressive.

Some of what passes for social science is certainly unimpressive...

But some of the worst are those who don't see any need to keep their political value-judgments out of their publicly-funded supposedly-scientific work.

If the public decide to fund scientific work then that is itself a political value judgement: that scientific work is worth funding, and that public funding is a valuable way of doing so.
If my argument is correct the choice isn't between political or apolitical scientific work: it's between people making political judgements well and people making them badly.
 
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
Buzzzzzz
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
A biologist can observe that geese are monogamous - mate for life with a single partner - and chickens are not. Without being compelled to make a value judgment that one species is better than the other thereby.

Why cannot a scientist who studies humankind make the same sort of detached value-neutral observation about the mating habits of humans in different cultures ?

Are you seriously saying you believe that humans can just as easily be disinterested about humans as they are about ducks? No difference at all?
 
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Are you seriously saying you believe that humans can just as easily be disinterested about humans as they are about ducks? No difference at all?

Some might suggest that such an idea is quakers.
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Are you seriously saying you believe that humans can just as easily be disinterested about humans as they are about ducks? No difference at all?

Some might suggest that such an idea is quakers.
I doubt the Society of Friends would agree. But it is definitely quackers.
 
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :
 
My sense of humour might not be for the birds, but my typing is.
 
Posted by Russ (# 120) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Are you seriously saying you believe that humans can just as easily be disinterested about humans as they are about ducks? No difference at all?

Is that not the scientific ideal ? Objective, disinterested knowledge, uncontaminated by the prejudices, values and opinions of the observer ?

Best wishes,

Russ
 
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Are you seriously saying you believe that humans can just as easily be disinterested about humans as they are about ducks? No difference at all?

Is that not the scientific ideal ? Objective, disinterested knowledge, uncontaminated by the prejudices, values and opinions of the observer ?

Best wishes,

Russ

wow - that's gone an interesting direction

Actually, imo the answer to both the birds and the humans is more or less the same.

There is a proper order, that - when we experience it - feels to be correct. That goes for birds and it goes for humans. As has been pointed out by Dafyd, birds don't make choices the way that humans do (by mental process, imagination, calculation, and all that) but rather - they feel what is right - they Grok their proper relationship and that's what they do because it is Grokked/Felt - it is (in human terms) an embodied sense of rightness that is just how every living creature apart from humans makes decisions when they are in a healthy relationship with their environment. So - yes - this ideal relationship can be distorted in various ways, but even the adaptations have a certain logic to them when viewed through a physiological lens.

The fact that we can look at geese (or whatever) dispassionately and observe is itself a distortion - because we have separated ourselves from the natural world in order to make that observation. There is a version of scientific analysis - Goethean science - that deliberately requires that the observer NOT be dispassionate, but rather that s/he uses ALL of the sensory capacities (including the "internal"/felt/empathic ones to explore something.

From a Goethean pov, the idea of a dispassionate observer is equivalent to saying that there is a choice to restrict the use of senses in a quite irrational way. Literally irrational - in the original Greek meaning of the word "rational", which included feelings as well as thoughts.
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Are you seriously saying you believe that humans can just as easily be disinterested about humans as they are about ducks? No difference at all?

Is that not the scientific ideal ? Objective, disinterested knowledge, uncontaminated by the prejudices, values and opinions of the observer ?
I didn't ask if it's the ideal. I asked if you seriously think it's possible.

It may be the ideal, but the point being pressed on this thread, repeatedly, is that it's an impossible (and perhaps undesirable) ideal. I'd say this claim and challenge pretty much seal the argument. It's absurd to think humans can be as dispassionate about the behaviors of humans as they are about those of ducks.

[ 19. October 2014, 15:30: Message edited by: mousethief ]
 
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Are you seriously saying you believe that humans can just as easily be disinterested about humans as they are about ducks? No difference at all?

Is that not the scientific ideal ? Objective, disinterested knowledge, uncontaminated by the prejudices, values and opinions of the observer ?
That is certainly a scientific ideal. (Not sure about 'the' scientific ideal.)
But that's not the question at issue. The questions at issue are:
a) if we apply that ideal to knowledge about human society would we get knowledge out of it? ;
b) even if we did get knowledge out of it that way, would it be ethical for someone aim for knowledge about other human beings uncontaminated by the values of the observer?
c) even if it would give knowledge, and it would be ethical, could we do so, anyway, or would prejudices and opinions get back in the back door unrecognised?

(My answers are a) no, b) at best maybe, and c) we couldn't.)
 
Posted by Russ (# 120) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
The questions at issue are:
a) if we apply that ideal to knowledge about human society would we get knowledge out of it? ;
b) even if we did get knowledge out of it that way, would it be ethical for someone aim for knowledge about other human beings uncontaminated by the values of the observer?
c) even if it would give knowledge, and it would be ethical, could we do so, anyway, or would prejudices and opinions get back in the back door unrecognised?

(My answers are a) no, b) at best maybe, and c) we couldn't.)

Let's take an example. Suppose someone does some research into the factors affecting how well children do at school. They give children standardised tests of their academic performance at the end of each school year, and get their parents to fill out a questionnaire. And then they look in the data for explanations as to why some children are improving their performance faster than others.

Can this be done objectively and dispassionately, without value judgments (e.g, without committing to the idea that "academic performance" is the only function of a school, or the idea that if there's something wrong it's a problem with the child rather than a problem with the school) ? Can we get knowledge out of it ? I'd say yes. Some of that knowledge may be negative in the sense of demonstrating that some things which might have been thought significant turn out not to be. But that's also useful. Knowledge isn't always new ideas - it can be a weeding-out of the multiple ideas you already have.

Deciding what goes in the questionnaire is a judgment. But it's not a value judgment, not a judgment of good and bad. The decision will be informed by research findings from elsewhere (cf. repeatability) as well as the intuition and understanding of the researchers,

Would it be ethical to seek knowledge in this way ? Don't see why not... Looking for statistical correlations and hypothesising mechanisms to account for them is still at the level of "natural experiment". Seems to me that the main ethical issue arises when you move to active experiment (such as giving children breakfast at school) and have to decide who to place in the control group.

If anything it's the reverse of what you're saying. There may be an ethical problem if the research isn't done open-mindedly, if it is contaminated by prejudice. If it's sponsored by a cereal manufacturer, for example. Or carried out by someone with fixed ideas about the race of the teachers being an issue.

Would prejudices and opinions creep in anyway ? I wouldn't impugn the professionalism of the researchers by assuming so without some evidence...

The original question was more like whether such research will lead to a scientific answer as to the best form of school. Where it seems to me obvious that what "best" means isn't an empirical question. You can't research the aim and purpose of education - that's philosophy.

But such a study might lead to changes that improve the school's academic results without compromising other aims, by increasing human knowledge about the conditions under which children learn best. With positive side-effects on the quality of the relationships between pupils, parents and teachers.

I'm really not seeing where you're coming from on this.

Best wishes,

Russ
 
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
Heck - the thought that you can assess a childs "performance" (and that there is a performance to assess and this is a Useful Thing To Do) via a questionnaire - itself is a value judgement of gargantuan proportions; that begs more questions than a bus full of itinerant pub quizmasters

The rest is just polyfill.
 
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
The questions at issue are:
a) if we apply that ideal to knowledge about human society would we get knowledge out of it? ;
b) even if we did get knowledge out of it that way, would it be ethical for someone aim for knowledge about other human beings uncontaminated by the values of the observer?
c) even if it would give knowledge, and it would be ethical, could we do so, anyway, or would prejudices and opinions get back in the back door unrecognised?

Let's take an example. Suppose someone does some research into the factors affecting how well children do at school. They give children standardised tests of their academic performance at the end of each school year, and get their parents to fill out a questionnaire. And then they look in the data for explanations as to why some children are improving their performance faster than others.
If you're happy with the idea that performance can be equated with getting higher marks on standardised tests, yes.
Even in mathematics, marks are given for showing one's working. (The better the exam, the more working.) Establishing which bits of working should get the marks is always going to be a value judgement.
And as for standardised tests when it comes to history or English, that looks like a non-starter.

Also, if the researchers are going to give the parents a questionnaire to fill out they need to write it in such a way that the parents understand it in the same sense that the researchers do (and the researchers understand the parents' answers), and in such a way that the parents find it polite and unintrusive. Which means that the writing and the interpretation of the results both have to be done with some empathy for the parents.

quote:
Can this be done objectively and dispassionately, without value judgments (e.g, without committing to the idea that "academic performance" is the only function of a school, or the idea that if there's something wrong it's a problem with the child rather than a problem with the school) ? Can we get knowledge out of it ?
At a minimal level, you can certainly get some knowledge out of it, in the same sense that IQ tests measure the ability to do IQ tests.
But even before you've decided whether or not to commit to the idea that 'academic performance' is the only function of a school, you've already committed to the idea that performance on standardised tests is an adequate measure of academic performance. That way lies the current obsession with standardised testing in education, which is in the eyes of many teachers damaging.

The above is only if you're wedded to the assumption that knowledge is only knowledge if the observers' interpretative skills are called upon as little as possible. If you acknowledge that the researchers have to interpret the results, according to their own frames of reference, then you can arguably get more useful knowledge out of the exercise.

quote:
Deciding what goes in the questionnaire is a judgment. But it's not a value judgment, not a judgment of good and bad. The decision will be informed by research findings from elsewhere (cf. repeatability) as well as the intuition and understanding of the researchers,
How is 'this might (not) be a factor in a child's academic performance' not be a value judgement. Unless you think one can be entirely neutral about whether academic performance is or is not a good thing?

quote:
Would it be ethical to seek knowledge in this way ? Don't see why not... Looking for statistical correlations and hypothesising mechanisms to account for them is still at the level of "natural experiment". Seems to me that the main ethical issue arises when you move to active experiment (such as giving children breakfast at school) and have to decide who to place in the control group.
You really think handing out standardised tests and questionnaires isn't an active experiment?

quote:
If anything it's the reverse of what you're saying. There may be an ethical problem if the research isn't done open-mindedly, if it is contaminated by prejudice. If it's sponsored by a cereal manufacturer, for example.
Would you really want such research carried out by someone who doesn't care whether academic performance is or isn't a good thing?
The problem with cereal manufacturers is as much that they don't care about the important thing, as that they care about the wrong thing.

quote:
Would prejudices and opinions creep in anyway ? I wouldn't impugn the professionalism of the researchers by assuming so without some evidence...
I've already questioned whether the equation of 'ability to give the right answers to standardised tests' is correctly equated to 'academic performance'.

I'm not saying that the exercise wouldn't be useful. But it will be more useful the more self-aware the researchers are about the value assumptions underlying the research. It will be more useful the less complacent the researchers are that their work is objective, value neutral and 'scientific'.
 
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
Interesting that educational tests are brought up on a thread about scientism - but not inappropriate. The recent paperisation of education has more or less expanded in parallel to the growth of popular culture scientism, and both are centred on a fuzzy grey zone that occupies the space between real science, popularised science, the politics of public policy, administration of public policy, ISO 90000, and probably a shipload of other factors.

It's somewhat odd that whilst successive Governments from NuLabour on have delegated responsibility for setting non-H&S standards in the private sector to trades bodies and manufacturers, newspapers and banks etc (i.e. they have completely given up their responsibility of governance) for the public sector (including education) they have imposed quasi (pseudo-) scientific regines of measurement. On the basis that if somnething is measured then one can set a "target" based on that measurement, and then determine if performance criteria have been reached. Almost nobody seems to have twigged that this is a political sleight of hand which relies on the measurement methods and criteria not being critically scrutinised. It plays to the scientism mythology because it tells evberyone that everything is measurable and can be said to pass or fail according to those stringent (even "tough") measurement criteria. In particular, these measurements are used to justify the allocation or withdrawal of public funding/resources/approval and are administratively convenient.

Surely - although a rose may be measured using a ruler, does this tell us anything of real worth about the rose?

The fact that it is possible to gull most of the UK population that this administrative convenience is a real measure of value is a testimony to the prevalance of scientism in the public coinsciousness - and an indication of the dangers of a dogma and an arbitrary system of thinking masquerading as a universal truth.

<gets off soap box, has a cup of tea>
 
Posted by Russ (# 120) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:

The above is only if you're wedded to the assumption that knowledge is only knowledge if the observers' interpretative skills are called upon as little as possible. If you acknowledge that the researchers have to interpret the results, according to their own frames of reference, then you can arguably get more useful knowledge out of the exercise.

There's clearly a place in the research process for the skill of interpreting data. And that place is prior to the design of an experiment which demonstrates conclusively. If at the end of the project the results are so inconclusive that they can be interpreted to mean one thing or quite the opposite, then yes I would question whether real knowledge has been obtained.

Intuition is good. It should be used. As part of a process of establishing facts, evidence of cause-effect relationships, which will then convince those with less-well-developed intuition (and less time to consider the problem).

quote:
Unless you think one can be entirely neutral about whether academic performance is or is not a good thing?

It's optional.

Someone who thought that the academic performance of children in an enemy nation was threatening to the survival of their own nation, and sought subtle ways to reduce that performance, would find the knowledge from this sort of research just as useful, and would probably carry out the research in the same way. Factual knowledge really is value-free stuff that can be used equally for good or evil.

quote:
You really think handing out standardised tests and questionnaires isn't an active experiment?
Heisenbergian uncertainty notwithstanding, I find the distinction between
- changing inputs to the system to see what happens, and
- just measuring what's already happening
to be a useful one.

Of course, people can and do behave differently when they know they're being observed. But I think the experience of people being filmed for TV is that after the first few days the adapted behaviour reduces and they revert to being pretty much their normal selves. So that's not an argument against observations of people, just a footnote that it has to be done with awareness of how to avoid bias.

When I was at school we had end-of-year tests in all academic subjects as a matter of course, so I don't see testing as an intrusion on education.

Trying to keep it short...

Best wishes,

Russ
 
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
It's not viewed as an intrusion on the system because it's normal. In a system in which testing is not the norm, it would be intrusive because it would be a change. So given a system in which testing is normal and universal, there is no data to indicate the intrusiveness or not of that testing regime.

The value of the data is perceived to be greater than any negative influence that might occur, but there is no attempt to evaluate that. In fact, the assumption is that the testing will generate greater effort - a Good Thing. This implicitly assumes a) that greater effort equates with a higher quality of education, and b) the test itself will indicate the quality of each student - therefore the value of both the students and the educational system is measured by virtue of a quantitative "measurement" system. But calling it a measurement - as in using a ruler to measure a piece of wood - is itself deceptive, because the units of measurement are as arbitrary as is the decision as to what is a valuable thing to measure.

If we start to talk about profesional education, there is a slightly different situation. Yes - checking that somebody has a grasp of the necessary knowledge base and is capable of thinking around their subject well enough to perform it - great. However, the ISO 9000 approach to education is a pretty blunt instrument. In fact, the testing and measuring instrument has become the basis for education iteslf. To say this does not interfere with education is pie in the sky, since the delivery structure shoehorns teachers and pupils into a single measurement-oriented structured method of learning. Anyone who does not have a mind that fits with this degree of structure is immediately at a disadvantage regardless of their wider abilities and potential. Just because it is now "nromal" does not necessarily make it inevitable or better or good in any way whatsoever.
 
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
The above is only if you're wedded to the assumption that knowledge is only knowledge if the observers' interpretative skills are called upon as little as possible. If you acknowledge that the researchers have to interpret the results, according to their own frames of reference, then you can arguably get more useful knowledge out of the exercise.

There's clearly a place in the research process for the skill of interpreting data. And that place is prior to the design of an experiment which demonstrates conclusively. If at the end of the project the results are so inconclusive that they can be interpreted to mean one thing or quite the opposite, then yes I would question whether real knowledge has been obtained.

Intuition is good. It should be used. As part of a process of establishing facts, evidence of cause-effect relationships, which will then convince those with less-well-developed intuition (and less time to consider the problem).

That is a funny position to take while writing in natural language. Natural language requires interpretation to understand. It doesn't just read itself. Now, you can say that because it requires interpretation understanding natural language isn't a process that when done well results in knowledge. But it would be odd.

And I wouldn't have used the word 'intuition' in this context myself. I don't understand why you think it's relevant. If you are trying to equate successful interpretation with intuition that seems quite wrong.

If I interpret your argument correctly, I think you're saying the follow:
1) Your proposed standardised tests and questionnaires would give something like knowledge;
2) If the results are open to more than one interpretation, they don't give knowledge;

Therefore, you think your proposed standardised tests and questionnaires would be only open to one interpretation. Which strikes me as highly implausible.

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quote:
Unless you think one can be entirely neutral about whether academic performance is or is not a good thing?

It's optional.

Someone who thought that the academic performance of children in an enemy nation was threatening to the survival of their own nation, and sought subtle ways to reduce that performance, would find the knowledge from this sort of research just as useful, and would probably carry out the research in the same way. Factual knowledge really is value-free stuff that can be used equally for good or evil.

Your researcher is still assuming that academic performance is a good for the enemy nation.

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You really think handing out standardised tests and questionnaires isn't an active experiment?
Heisenbergian uncertainty notwithstanding, I find the distinction between
- changing inputs to the system to see what happens, and
- just measuring what's already happening
to be a useful one.

Oh come - organising standardised testing is incredibly time and labour intensive.

It might very well be a useful distinction in some cases, but in this case it doesn't really apply.

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When I was at school we had end-of-year tests in all academic subjects as a matter of course, so I don't see testing as an intrusion on education.

Certainly if you already have standardised testing in place it's not going to intrude, because it's already there. On the other hand, it is the case that if you assess children and teachers on the basis of standardised tests then they do alter their behaviour: the teachers start to teach to the tests, and the children start to learn only what will be tested.
 
Posted by Russ (# 120) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:

If I interpret your argument correctly, I think you're saying the follow:
1) Your proposed standardised tests and questionnaires would give something like knowledge;
2) If the results are open to more than one interpretation, they don't give knowledge;

No, that's not quite it.

If the data have two possible interpretations, they may still be sufficient to disprove half a dozen other ideas, so that knowledge has been gained by the reduction of the set of possibilities.

Data does not necessarily constitute useful knowledge on its own. The research method I'm suggesting involves analysing the data to identify statistical correlations. Then hypothesising cause-effect relationships that might explain those findings, and devising further experiments (either the natural or the active variety) to provide the evidence to confirm or deny each hypothesis/interpretation, and thus choose between them.

This, as I understand it, is an example of the scientific method in action in the social science field.

Yes, I'm asserting that it leads to knowledge - in this case the fact that children learn better if they've eaten breakfast - but I'm not sure it makes sense to attribute that knowledge to any particular element or step of the process.

Now you're right that if nobody imagines that a particular factor (such as left-handedness) could possibly be relevant, then that data is unlikely to be collected, and so the process won't reveal anything about it. Normally someone needs to have had a suspicion of a possibility that there may be some relationship between handedness and academic performance in order for the data to be collected in order for the research to find an effect. (There is the faint possibility that the data on which of the children were left-handed and which right-handed was collected for some other purpose and was included more or less by chance).

Itsarumdo was talking about "empathic knowledge" which I took to mean something like intuition - a sense of what might be - which I'm agreeing has a role to play.

Best wishes,

Russ
 
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
quote:
Data does not necessarily constitute useful knowledge on its own. The research method I'm suggesting involves analysing the data to identify statistical correlations. Then hypothesising cause-effect relationships that might explain those findings, and devising further experiments (either the natural or the active variety) to provide the evidence to confirm or deny each hypothesis/interpretation, and thus choose between them.

This, as I understand it, is an example of the scientific method in action in the social science field.

Well, again a bus load of quizmasters could beg less questions. Research is iterative - and rather like spiritual wisdom, you have to know which questions to ask in order to get a sensible answer.

For instance, if you were convinced from the start that the crosses placed on football pools entries affected football match outcomes, you would not be gathering any data that related the opposite direction of causality. Or if you were, there likelihood is that it would be incomplete for what is necessary or the way that the data-gathering question was posed would make the data worthless, because there would be insufficient control over the required variables.

So research is not just guesswork in the way you paint it - it is not possible in most circumstances to gather just any old data and then apply every correlation you can think of and then get a result. Apart from which, false correlations also occur for all kinds of reasons. For instance, the price of mars bars in £ sterling vs global CO2 probably has a strong correlation. Does that mean that one is directly causal to the other?

First one has to know roughly the correct question. Only then can data be gathered which answers that question. Then there is a process of refinement as the question is expanded, narrowed, refined, honed, dead ends discarded... - if a computer were doing the same job it would be called synthetic multivariate annealing. But with an intelligence rather than just a nonlinear optimisation matrix.
 
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
Data does not necessarily constitute useful knowledge on its own. The research method I'm suggesting involves analysing the data to identify statistical correlations. Then hypothesising cause-effect relationships that might explain those findings, and devising further experiments (either the natural or the active variety) to provide the evidence to confirm or deny each hypothesis/interpretation, and thus choose between them.

This, as I understand it, is an example of the scientific method in action in the social science field.

That's certainly a general example of the scientific method as you would apply it to the natural sciences. The questions at issue are whether the social sciences add any wrinkles due to their subject matter that make it not quite so straightforward.
And evidently they do.
Let's take the matter of academic success. You suggest measuring academic success by standardised tests. But some components of academic success are the abilities to think critically and originally. Now you can't standardise the ability to think critically, still less the ability to think originally. That means that assessing whether a score on a test exhibits academic success is a matter of interpretation. So interpretation goes into even deciding what your data is, let alone into interpreting the causal relations between them.

Even then, suppose you've got a paper and it opens with the question:
What is 2x3?
The correct answer is quite different depending on whether it's a paper in arithmetic or a paper in typesetting. In order to interpret the answer as a sign of academic success, you have to know that it's an arithmetic paper. (It almost always is, but that's a feature of our society: an interpretation so deeply ingrained that we don't realise it's an interpretation at all.)

Incidentally, it looks from your description that you're assuming that interpretations and hypothesises are the same sorts of things. And I don't think they are.

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Yes, I'm asserting that it leads to knowledge - in this case the fact that children learn better if they've eaten breakfast - but I'm not sure it makes sense to attribute that knowledge to any particular element or step of the process.
The question I was raising with you just then was that you were saying, as I understood you, that if interpretation is required in a project, then the results are inconclusive and you would question whether real knowledge has been obtained.
Whereas I think that in any social scientific situation, interpretation is required pretty much all the way down. And yet knowledge is still possible.

I have to say that as social scientific questions go, whether eating breakfast improves learning is pretty close to the natural scientific area. (Why children do or don't eat breakfast would be a more social scientific question.) Whether someone has or hasn't consumed a certain quantity of calories by a particular time in the morning is not a social scientific question.

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Itsarumdo was talking about "empathic knowledge" which I took to mean something like intuition - a sense of what might be - which I'm agreeing has a role to play.
I'm not coming from the same place as Itsarumdo.
That said, I don't think the ability to correctly recognise emotional states in other people is usefully called intuition. Nor does it correlate well with the aptitude for acquiring objective disinterested knowledge uncontaminated by the values and opinions of the observer.
 
Posted by Russ (# 120) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
some components of academic success are the abilities to think critically and originally. Now you can't standardise the ability to think critically, still less the ability to think originally. That means that assessing whether a score on a test exhibits academic success is a matter of interpretation.

You seem to be assuming that any scientific research has to start from a definition - in this case a definition of what academic success is - and then devise a way to measure the thing you defined in order to gather any data about it. I don't think it always works quite like that. Sometimes science finds out that X causes Y (which bears some unspecified relationship to Z) and puts that fact out there for the Z-policy makers to interpret.

quote:
What is 2x3?
The correct answer is quite different depending on whether it's a paper in arithmetic or a paper in typesetting.

The fact that a symbol can have two different meanings in dfferent contexts somehow invalidates science ? [Confused]

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Incidentally, it looks from your description that you're assuming that interpretations and hypothesises are the same sorts of things. And I don't think they are.

You don't think hypothesising from data is an act of interpretation ? What is it then ? What do you mean by "interpretation" that I'm not getting ?

quote:
I have to say that as social scientific questions go, whether eating breakfast improves learning is pretty close to the natural scientific area. (Why children do or don't eat breakfast would be a more social scientific question.) Whether someone has or hasn't consumed a certain quantity of calories by a particular time in the morning is not a social scientific question.

The important factors which influence learning might also include things like the social class differential between the teacher and the pupil. Could that sort of social factor not be researched in the same way ? Subject to much the same difficulties and limitations ?

quote:

I'm not coming from the same place as Itsarumdo.
That said, I don't think the ability to correctly recognise emotional states in other people is usefully called intuition. Nor does it correlate well with the aptitude for acquiring objective disinterested knowledge uncontaminated by the values and opinions of the observer.

Not sure where you are coming from, exactly. You seem to think that research on human behaviour is a totally different ball game from scientific research, but much of what you're saying seems to about the philosophical impossibility of objective knowledge, across all fields.

"Intuition" seems to me a catch-all term for when we know or suspect that something is true without that knowledge or suspicion arising from conscious reasoning about sensory input. When we can't say how we know something or why we suspect it to be so, we say it's intuition. This would include therefore subconscious processing of body language cues to infer the emotional state of others. And also include subconscious pattern-recognition when looking at scientific data.

The skill-set of a good scientist probably includes pattern-recognition skills alongside logical reasoning skills. And the ability to compartmentalise, to be professional, to be able to present findings in a way that is uncontaminated by their personal opinions.

Best wishes,

Russ
 
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
quote:
You seem to be assuming that any scientific research has to start from a definition - in this case a definition of what academic success is - and then devise a way to measure the thing you defined in order to gather any data about it. I don't think it always works quite like that.

Yes to the first - you first have to define a question - Unless the "What" is properly defined, the way to measure it properly is also not defined. With academic results, we start with a hypothesis that good academic results as measured by an examination system is a useful social (and perhaps economic) measure. I'm sure that someone familiar with the educational literature would be able to point to a range of keynote published papers that dissected that hypothesis and produced evidence for or against it. Ideally then there is a feedback system - you take the evidence, interpret it relative to the hypothesis (there is the difference) and then decide whether you need to reqrite the hypothesis ir rejig the measurement system so that it does what you want more effectively. In fact, for social questions, the act of measurement cannot help but affect the thing being measured, so it is not that simple at all. You only have to look at the national ccensus - quite a few people put "Jedi" as their religion, the auditors rejected that data as being flippant, and before you know it there is an official Jedi religion with lots of followers and the next census has far more Jedis.

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Sometimes science finds out that X causes Y (which bears some unspecified relationship to Z) and puts that fact out there for the Z-policy makers to interpret.
That's a pretty fuzzy tale straight out of the Daily Mirror. Interpreting science into public policy is one of the most dodgy areas of both science and politics. Because 2 years down the line the science could easily move on and show the opposite result. The UK is particularly keen on a proactive public health policy fo rtesting for breast cancer. The evidence is that this creates a lot of false positive results, thus many women who do not have breast cancer end up being treated and the average mortality compared to a public health policy (that e.g. says this should be picked up only through GPs surgeries) is equal or slightly worse. But politically it is preferable to cherry pick the science so that the Govt is seen to be proactive and "doing the right thing". How any politician decides whether the science is reliable or not (when even the scientists sometimes don't know) - actually science and public policy is a huge barrel of worms.
 
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
some components of academic success are the abilities to think critically and originally. Now you can't standardise the ability to think critically, still less the ability to think originally. That means that assessing whether a score on a test exhibits academic success is a matter of interpretation.

You seem to be assuming that any scientific research has to start from a definition - in this case a definition of what academic success is - and then devise a way to measure the thing you defined in order to gather any data about it. I don't think it always works quite like that. Sometimes science finds out that X causes Y (which bears some unspecified relationship to Z) and puts that fact out there for the Z-policy makers to interpret.
I think that is a considerably weaker claim than you were making to begin with.
(Also, I'm unsure that it's appropriate to use 'cause' when all you have is a correlation with no explanation.)

quote:
quote:
What is 2x3?
The correct answer is quite different depending on whether it's a paper in arithmetic or a paper in typesetting.

The fact that a symbol can have two different meanings in dfferent contexts somehow invalidates science ?
It does if you think science requires interpretations to be checked against experimental data. Since the fact that a signal has one meaning or another just is an interpretation: there is no experimental data to check it against that isn't also an interpretation.

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quote:

Incidentally, it looks from your description that you're assuming that interpretations and hypothesises are the same sorts of things. And I don't think they are.

You don't think hypothesising from data is an act of interpretation ? What is it then ? What do you mean by "interpretation" that I'm not getting ?
You can certainly claim that hypothesising from data is one kind of interpretation if you like.
The types of interpretation that I think are relevant here are either the recognition of the meaning of symbols, or else the recognition of the intentional content of intentional attitudes (such as beliefs, knowledge, intentions, wants, desires, hopes, fears, etc).
The second is important in that intentional content of intentional attitude cannot be redescribed in value-neutral terms, since the fact that an intentional attitude is not value-neutral is usually intrinsic to its identity; and it cannot be recognised except by empathic identification by the researcher working from the researcher's own intentional attitudes.

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quote:
I have to say that as social scientific questions go, whether eating breakfast improves learning is pretty close to the natural scientific area. (Why children do or don't eat breakfast would be a more social scientific question.) Whether someone has or hasn't consumed a certain quantity of calories by a particular time in the morning is not a social scientific question.

The important factors which influence learning might also include things like the social class differential between the teacher and the pupil. Could that sort of social factor not be researched in the same way ? Subject to much the same difficulties and limitations ?
Good luck finding a way to objectively assign social class independent of the beliefs of either the subjects or of the researchers is all I can say.
It's just not possible to say what social class is in an objective disinterested fashion, since an objective disinterested phenomenon is exactly what social class is not.

quote:
quote:

That said, I don't think the ability to correctly recognise emotional states in other people is usefully called intuition. Nor does it correlate well with the aptitude for acquiring objective disinterested knowledge uncontaminated by the values and opinions of the observer.

Not sure where you are coming from, exactly. You seem to think that research on human behaviour is a totally different ball game from scientific research, but much of what you're saying seems to about the philosophical impossibility of objective knowledge, across all fields.
I'm talking about difficulty of objective knowledge, not impossibility. And I think that the difficulty does take a step up when it becomes impossible to eliminate observer opinion.

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And the ability to compartmentalise, to be professional, to be able to present findings in a way that is uncontaminated by their personal opinions.
I don't believe personal opinions are a contaminant in the social sciences. Personal opinions that are not open to revision are a bad thing, certainly. But not personal opinions as such.
Also, what is professional conduct is relative to profession.
 


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