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To: cornelis
And the attempt to preserve for science a privileged domain or monopoly on "fact" and "cause" is no different that the presumption of truth claimed by enlightened theological dogmatists.

We give science something akin to a monopoly on "fact" and "cause" here in the material world, because, empirically speaking, it works - it's been earned, not simply given. Scientific investigations of the material causes of disease have been rather more successful at curing disease than investigations which rely on the immaterial as an integral part of the explanation. Extending that monopoly to other sorts of truths, such as statements on the immaterial, would be a mistake, however.

247 posted on 12/11/2004 12:53:16 PM PST by general_re ("What's plausible to you is unimportant." - D'man)
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To: general_re; Askel5
empirically speaking, it works

It's true that success has some persuasion. But what is it? (I'd hate for it to sound like just another clonish variation of "A is A and that is all there is to say.") From what I gather, your thesis is supposed to have strengh enough to determine what part of A counts as success. Health of the body, without a doubt, will continue to rank high as a political end in years to come. Am I to presume that success likewise determines what are legimitate failures? And if we follow old-time Herodotus, our success in the Iraq is proof that the gods are with us.

248 posted on 12/11/2004 1:26:03 PM PST by cornelis (A is A and the rest are all fossicking.)
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To: general_re
We give science something akin to a monopoly on "fact" and "cause" here in the material world, because, empirically speaking, it works - it's been earned, not simply given. Scientific investigations of the material causes of disease have been rather more successful at curing disease than investigations which rely on the immaterial as an integral part of the explanation. Extending that monopoly to other sorts of truths, such as statements on the immaterial, would be a mistake, however.

True.

Einstein said something similar:

I believe, indeed, that overemphasis on the purely intellectual attitude, often directed sorely to the practical and factual, in our education, has led directly to the impairment of ethical values. I am not thinking so much of the dangers with which technical progress has directly confronted mankind, as of the stifling of mutual human considerations by a "matter of fact" habit of thought which has come to lie like a killing frost upon human relations.

Fulfillment on the moral and esthetic side is a goal which lies closer to the preoccupations of art than it does to those of science. Of course, understanding of our fellow-beings is important. But this understanding becomes fruitful only when it sustained by sympathetic feelings of joy and in sorrow. The cultivation of this most important spring of moral action is that which is left of religion when it has been purified of the elements of superstition. In this sense, religion forms an important part of education, where it receives far too little consideration, and that little not sufficiently systematic.

The frightful dilemma of the political world situation has much to do with this sin of omission on the part of our civilization. Without "ethical culture" there is no salvation for humanity.--Albert Einstein, Published in Mein Weltbild, Zurich: Europa Verlag 1953

254 posted on 12/11/2004 9:39:08 PM PST by I got the rope
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