Scientific fundamentalism

[juantoo3]

Originally Posted by citizenzen

I hope this clears things up for you.

But CZ, you are wearing your smug zealotry on your sleeve.

I've played with prisms since I was a kid, I could teach the very same lesson you just brought up. That's not the point.

Let's see you take this exact same lesson, absolutely no changes in format or anything, to a primitive tribe in the Brazilian Jungle with no electricity (among other "civilized" comforts) and no cultural pre-disposition, and most likely no mastery of the English language...and tell them this exact same *smug* lesson. How much enlightenment do you expect to bring to them with your superior intellect after, oh, let's say 30 days?

How long do the batteries last in your laptop? And since you didn't provide a prism here, you can't use one there either. Hmmm, I am speculating that you will be received as a genius just short of being a god. Either that, or a blithering idiot. I would hold my bet which one until I saw how well you dealt with your batteries draining and your computer becoming inoperable, the malaria, the dysentary, the pirahna, the flesh eating maggots, and your hosts' generous offer of monkey brains for supper.

I think this scenario pretty well sums up what VC was trying to get across to you, and it serves so well what I have been trying to show.

[citizenzen]

Originally Posted by juantoo3

But CZ, you are wearing your smug zealotry on your sleeve...

I have no idea what point you're trying to make in your post. Could you please clarify?

[juantoo3]

Nice dodge. I don't buy it.

[citizenzen]

Originally Posted by juantoo3

Nice dodge. I don't buy it.

You don't buy that sometimes your message isn't clear?

I'll ask again...

I'm sorry Juan, but I didn't understand your previous post well enough to attempt a response to it. Could you please clarify for me the point you were trying to make, because unfortunately, I wasn't able to discern it.

Thank you.

[citizenzen]

... and Juan declines...

Cool. That means I win!

I think that makes the current score

Science – 1,994,663,885,373,209,011,957,144,299,656,444,843, 084,189,909,263,353,731,190,090,343,222,841,189,25 2,409,131,234,173,879,157,967,145,980,145,853

vs.

Religion – 4

But don't dispair. There's still time on the clock.

[Tao_Equus]

Originally Posted by juantoo3

But CZ, you are wearing your smug zealotry on your sleeve.

I've played with prisms since I was a kid, I could teach the very same lesson you just brought up. That's not the point.

Let's see you take this exact same lesson, absolutely no changes in format or anything, to a primitive tribe in the Brazilian Jungle with no electricity (among other "civilized" comforts) and no cultural pre-disposition, and most likely no mastery of the English language...and tell them this exact same *smug* lesson. How much enlightenment do you expect to bring to them with your superior intellect after, oh, let's say 30 days?

How long do the batteries last in your laptop? And since you didn't provide a prism here, you can't use one there either. Hmmm, I am speculating that you will be received as a genius just short of being a god. Either that, or a blithering idiot. I would hold my bet which one until I saw how well you dealt with your batteries draining and your computer becoming inoperable, the malaria, the dysentary, the pirahna, the flesh eating maggots, and your hosts' generous offer of monkey brains for supper.

I think this scenario pretty well sums up what VC was trying to get across to you, and it serves so well what I have been trying to show.

I'm with CZ Juantoo....what the hell are you on about? Try turning your argument round...bring the tribes most respected and wisest elder to Stanford or Harvard, lets see what enlightenment he can demonstrate. Time and time again I see straw man arguments when you build fallacies to knock em down and you do so not with a logical narrative but an emotional one. This is a personal chagrin you have, and its not rational or valid. What exactly is it you resent?

[Virtual_Cliff]

Juantoo3 has understood this perfectly. It's possibly a subtle point but an important one.

What we know as science is a facet of the Graeco-Roman-derived urban civilisation which we take for granted, because we live in it. It serves a purpose within this civilisation. Without the civilisation not only would it become redundant, but it would no longer describe the world in which we lived, in a way that had any meaning to us.

This science therefore is subservient to our culture and does not exist outside of our culture. It is an artifice.
VC

[citizenzen]

Originally Posted by Virtual_Cliff

This science therefore is subservient to our culture and does not exist outside of our culture. It is an artifice.
VC

Said the man typing away on his computer. Take any medicines VC? Drive a car? Live in a home that's more than a lean-to of sticks? Use electricity? Radio? TV? Buy your foods the market? Wear clothes?

If science is an artifice, it is a very successful one, and one that affords you a lifestyle that you take for granted. How do you reconcile the fact that you call science an artifice and yet enjoy so many of its benefits?

One other note: you claim science is a product "Graeco-Roman-derived urban civilisation," but I would say that scientific inquiry is cross cultural and found throughout history. There was the harnessing of fire, ancient tools, math, language, agriculture, ceramics, fermentation, astronomy. These sciences were developed all over the globe and independent of the Greeks and Romans.

Scientific inquiry really transcends culture. Could you explain this?

[Virtual_Cliff]

I was at least trying not to succumb to the old science v religion debate. My point being to remark that our science is a cultural artifact. That doesn't make it useless within its context. On the contrary, it serves us well.

But to answer the second point, it all depends on what you mean by science. I would not include weapons manufacture or accounting or agriculture. I was referring to pure science - ie knowledge for the sake of knowing.

But this could lead on to a whole new debate about what we mean by science, the philosphy of science, and so on. There is an interesting extract here: http://thefourprecepts.com/propublish/art.php?artid=138 where Kant is saying he can't accept the existence of space as a fact.

Best wishes
VC

[citizenzen]

Originally Posted by Virtual_Cliff

I was at least trying not to succumb to the old science v religion debate. My point being to remark that our science is a cultural artifact. That doesn't make it useless within its context. On the contrary, it serves us well.

But to answer the second point, it all depends on what you mean by science. I would not include weapons manufacture or accounting or agriculture. I was referring to pure science - ie knowledge for the sake of knowing.

Well I'm a trifle confused here. First you seemed concerned that science is no longer about empirical evidence, but is instead all about theories that have no real world application.

Then when I provide evidence for the wide scope of applications science is involved in, you say you're really only talking about "knowledge for the sake of knowledge." If that were the case, why were you originally concerned with empirical evidence? Shouldn't you be an advocate for arcane theories?

Secondly, you still haven't addressed the notion that science is not merely an artifact of the "Graeco-Roman-derived urban civilisation," but has been practiced well before that in every corner of the world. Scientific inquiry does not belong to any single culture, but is a facet of our intelligence and our desire to understand the world we live in.

[Virtual_Cliff]

CZ I do believe you're playing games with me

You know the difference between technology and science, the difference between how to do something and what makes it work. Newtonian physics for example was all about e.g. why an object falls, why does it fall the way it does. It was based on empirical observation. Multiple universes are not. But people had been dropping things for millennia without wondering why they fell. That's technology.

All your examples of science from other cultures were technologies. Only our civilisation has made a fetish out of knowledge.

[citizenzen]

Originally Posted by Virtual_Cliff

Newtonian physics for example was all about e.g. why an object falls, why does it fall the way it does. It was based on empirical observation.

Actually, I'd argue that Newtonian physics had very little to do with "why" an object falls and more to do with "how" it falls. Even today we still don't know what gravity is. We've never detected directly what it is. All we can do is experience and exploit it's effect.

And no... I'm not playing with you, just trying to understand your point.

As for other civilizations only dabbling in technology and not science, I'm sure the Chinese would be dismayed that you devalue their discoveries and inquisitiveness. Likewise the Mayans who didn't just invent a calendar out of thin air, but must have devoted a great deal of study in astronomy.

What leads you to assert that their inquiry, study and application is somehow different from our own? Do humans really differ so much? Haven't we discovered by now that humans are the same beings no matter what part of the globe we're from?

[Avi]

Originally Posted by citizenzen

Actually, I'd argue that Newtonian physics had very little to do with "why" an object falls and more to do with "how" it falls. Even today we still don't know what gravity is. We've never detected directly what it is. All we can do is experience and exploit it's effect.

Newton knew how and why. The object falls because of gravity (remember the apple). Newton was a pretty smart guy, not everyone could invent the field of calculus because he needed new tools to describe rates of change.

Eintstein had just as brilliant technical achievements but also considered issues in philosophy, politics and religion.

Hawkings had brilliant achievements but stuck to physics. It seems like this is the current paradigm.

[Postmaster]

Einstein was extraordinary, It's ashame he too took much interest in politics though. But the guy was out of balance he may have suffered from Aspergers syndrome a mild form autism, he had very poor people skills. Usually people with this condition excel in other fields like art for instance.

[citizenzen]

Originally Posted by Avi

Newton knew how and why.

Newton did not know the why. His calculus describes the how.

Perhaps this can help with the confusion...

[from wikipedia] The terms gravitation and gravity are mostly interchangeable in everyday use, but a distinction is made in scientific usage. "Gravitation" is a general term describing the phenomenon by which bodies with mass are attracted to one another, while "gravity" refers specifically to the net force exerted by the Earth on objects in its vicinity as well as by other factors, such as the Earth's rotation.

In this article, Newton's law is referred to as Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation. In other words, the law involves the effect of gravity and does not explain what the force is.

Here is an excerpt on Gravitational Waves...

In physics, a gravitational wave is a fluctuation in the curvature of spacetime which propagates as a wave, traveling outward from the source. Predicted by Einstein's theory of general relativity, the waves transport energy known as gravitational radiation. Sources of gravitational waves include binary star systems composed of white dwarfs, neutron stars, or black holes.

Although gravitational radiation has not yet been directly detected, it has been indirectly shown to exist. This was the basis for the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physics, awarded for measurements of the Hulse-Taylor binary system. Various gravitational wave detectors exist.

Now that begins to touch on the why, but it is still unproven and currently being tested.

I hope this clears things up a little.