Science cannot replace philosophy because the scientific method is limited to what can be studied and repeated consistently in the laboratory. Those who try to make it universal are misusing it.
the idea that one can dispute a scientific conclusion because there are dissenting opinions out there is the most dangerous one to science in society. Science doesn't get politicized to manufacture consent or to obtain continued funding; the scientific process itself safeguards against that. When science gets politicized, it isn't about tipping the scales on a particular issue for those manufacturing doubt; it's about what comes next.I guess bad priests don't tell their secrets.It's about selling "alternative" cures and supplements, with casting doubts on vaccines and modern medicine as the ruse.
It's about shaming and blaming the victims of a deadly disease to create a society with a specific morality, rather than treating patients afflicted with AIDS.
It's about promoting alternative medicines, health foods, bottled water and a few religious and political perspectives, rather than the public good of better dental health.
It's about deregulating corporate and industry emissions and removing environmental protections, rather than acting to keep the climate stable.
Science will not put up with living in a post-truth era; science is true whether you accept it or not. What we need to be vigilant about -- now more than ever -- is making sure that even as we disagree about policy, that the science isn't influenced by such pressures.
That science is a place that's welcoming and open to everyone who's capable and qualified, that the science that's done is open and scrutable, and that we remain vigilant against normalizing blatant falsehoods.
Why Pantheism Stifles Science (and Christianity Does Not)
Stacy Trasancos
Central to the claim that science was born of Christianity is the flip side of the coin that modern science did not emerge in any other culture. Why? The short answer is that all the other cultures were influenced by pantheism. The explanation takes more ink though.
Definition first. The word pantheism is borrowed from Latin. Pan refers to the whole universe and mankind. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, pantheism is a belief that God is immanent in (existing within) or identical with the universe. It is the doctrine that God is everything and everything is God. Pantheism is essentially nature worship.
http://www.ncregister.com/blog/trasancos/why-pantheism-stifles-science-and-christianity-does-not
A truly important subject about which there was no confusion until recent times.
Our Founding Fathers understood the term "natural philosophy" or "natural science" to be just what the words implied: the study of nature, it's processes & mechanics.
There was nothing metaphysical, philosophical or theological about it, except in the sense that some scientists (i.e., Einstein) saw themselves as studying the "mind of God" in nature.
For centuries scientists understood science did not deny God's existence, it only drew a sharp line between the natural & supernatural realms and left the study of God to philosophy, theology or metaphysics, etc.
The technical term for classical science is "methodological naturalism".
By contrast, today's scientists, many if not most, claim there is, in fact, no supernatural realm, no metaphysics or theological reality worth studying.
Therefore they attempt to concoct fanciful explanations for creation and life which supposedly replace the need for a God of nature.
Technical terms for this include, "philosophical naturalism", "metaphysical naturalism" and "ontological naturalism".
All are simply fancy ways of saying "Atheism".
But the key point to grasp is that none of that, not single word of it, is actual natural science.
It's just philosophical atheistic speculations by scientists -- in other words, their opinions.
Finally, the clear distinction between natural science and not-science is not whether you can study it in the lab.
Consider: you'll never get a star into anybody's laboratory, but we can still study it scientifically.
Rather, the distinction comes from natural explanations for natural processes versus something different.
It also should matter whether we have any data to support the alleged theory, and in the cases of, for examples, "multi-verse" and "string theory" so far as I know, we don't.