I'm afraid you're right about that, Coyoteman.
Yet culture is the center that must hold if society is not to disintegrate.
You evidently do not appreciate that problems of human existence are what inspire the philosophical questions that are still "open questions" after 2,500 years. 2,500 years hence, they will probably still be "open questions" -- assuming the human race hasn't destroyed itself first.
In short, these are questions that it seems eternally persist, which science has no method to address. Man has always been asking them, and probably always will. The sheer persistency of the questions is evidence in favor of the persistency of human nature as a given thing (i.e., something that doesn't "evolve").
There is a reason why these questions persist and it is nothing spiritual. These things are vital to survival. We choose on the basis of virtue and virtue means 'strength.' The science or philosophy of choosing is called ethics or morals. Choose well. Choose strongly.
With the advent of Christ and spiritual regeneration for the individual human spirit within the human soul (behavior mechanism = soul; humankind have the added instructor of spirit complimenting our animal soul), an evolving of spiritual consciousness is happening, but, like evolution of species, this change is so minor when placed against the backdrop of the history and 'aliveness' of the entire species, we fail to see it for what it is, change, growth on a spirit level.
The left is seeking to bring change/evolution also, but the increments appear to be counter to the over-all welfare of the species and certainly inhibiting to the individual ... spiritually of course, when/if compared to the teaching and example of Our Lord.
In deference to Coyoteman, it may well be that the anchoring effect of scientific inquiry will tend to hold culture together as the left seeks to divide and segment and obliterate that which speaks of competition, growth, superior results-oriented behaviors. Science is not the enemy of philosophy, being but one brilliant child of same. Science may turn out to be the stronger child, the one which offers the protections and environment under which individuation can continue despite the leftists tendency to obliterate competition and individuation.
If it is the case that we as a species are evolving on a level not readily sensed in our familiar spacetime, then it will go on regardless of the piddling efforts of humans to direct or thwart it in paroxysms of pride.
Thank you betty . . . for the ping . . . and for stating the obvious. It seems from time to time that we have to be reminded of the obvious, even if it is obvious. In this instance, we need a little perspective restored; we need to be reminded that science is the handmaiden of philosophy. Specifically, Western Civilization science and Western Civilization philosophy. Science didn’t invent Western Civilization; Western Civilization invented science and, on the whole, it has turned out to be one of its happier inspirations.
We are told that the ‘education establishment’ has determined Western Culture to be unworthy of passing on to the next generation. If that be true, as we must think it is, then the education establishment condemns itself, for it is a product of Western Civilization. In the some five thousand odd years of the cultural development of Western Civilization, it has been only in the last two centuries that we have witnessed the denial of that civilization by those who should be its staunchest defenders: the intellectual community. I find this to be utterly astonishing, but undeniably true, and confirmed beyond question by the failure of the intellectuals to defend Western Civilization against the stark evil of Islamic terrorism.
As you point out, to undermine a culture is to undermine the foundation of that culture's civilization, leading ultimately to its collapse. Indeed, that seems to be their intent. Do these intellectuals not understand that its collapse will bring to an end their splendid little academic and intellectual environment? It would seem not. They apparently labor under the illusion that they can bring about the destruction of the culture and civilization which supports them, and that their cozy, protected lives will go on, unaffected by the event.
It had been our custom, until of late, that each succeeding generation learned from those who had gone before (verily, even to the times of the Greeks and Romans, upon whose backs we have constructed our marvelous little civilization), rejecting the false, building upon the true (or at least the more true). Thus, Galileo, an example often cited in this forum, may have received more than his share of grief from the political correctness of his time, but mankind was advanced nonetheless, and along the way, from his experience and that of others, we learned the value of free inquiry and free speech (A lesson, it seems, requiring endless reminders).
In an attempt to explain this truly bizarre thirst for self-annihilation, many have sought to lay the blame at the feet of Marxist/socialism, to which all the bloody little state tyrants of the socialist persuasion have lent their enthusiastic assent, proclaiming that it is, indeed, their intent to destroy Western Civilization. To whatever extent there is validity to this interplay between the protagonist and antagonist, to that degree both betray a profound lack of awareness that the theories and ideas of socialism arise directly from the mainstream of that very civilization the one seeks to preserve and the other seeks to destroy.
Since the latter has seized control of the intellectual community, that side seems to presently be getting the better of the struggle, but that is not to say that significant progress was not made in the Twentieth Century. Progress has been made, but it occurs under the ideas and philosophies of the Seventeenth, Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. It is these centuries that the modern intellectual community most specifically seeks to deny and destroy. And in the midst of all this, the ‘Science Community’ muddles along, apparently oblivious to its peril.