Posted on 01/25/2005 7:03:50 PM PST by beavus
The other day I heard a woman talking to a group of people around her about the failures of science and the need to accept “other ways of knowing” as legitimate sources of truth. I was bothered not so much by the fact that she was saying it—lunacy and ignorance abound, after all, often densely concentrated in individuals—but because others around her were nodding their heads in agreement. I wondered to myself what these people—indeed what most people—understand of science, and what precisely was meant by an “other way of knowing.” The likely answer to both questions was very little.
I say this not out of arrogance, but because science is the only meaningful and reliable method of determining what is true that has or will ever exist.
To understand this, it must first be understood that science is nothing more than systematized observation and common sense. “Science,” according to George Henry Lewes, “is the systematic classification of experience.” While many people attach much more emotional or mental baggage to the word, science is nothing more than a means of organizing observations and drawing logical conclusions based upon them. It must also be understood and accepted that without having observed or experienced a phenomenon in some way, it is meaningless to claim that it exists.
As David Hume famously concluded in his Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding, all knowledge and all reason are based upon experience and induction. It follows then that nothing can be known without first being observed or experienced, and that that which we say is true is merely that which most closely coincides with our observations. Anything that runs contrary to observations, then, has no right to the title of truth.
Therefore, by its very definition, any idea or belief which is supported by science is supported by observation and experience—themselves the only justifiable criteria for determining truth. These are points that should be understood by everyone. They should forever colour our thoughts and influence our actions. No one should accept propositions that are not grounded in fact and experience, yet the vast majority of people do exactly that. Why is this so?
The answer is that most people think their own beliefs are, in fact, supported by fact and experience. I suspect that what the advocate of “other ways of knowing” really meant was that she had knowledge rooted in experience which was dismissed by the men and women of science, and that therefore science itself was a failure, as it did not really recognize the truth.
Had her quarrel been with the scientific establishment, with scientists’ individual failings and experimental inadequacies, her thoughts might have merited some consideration. But by naïvely flailing against science itself, she exposed herself as a feeble and imprecise thinker, bitter that the scientific community had passed judgment on some issue or idea important to her.
It is for this reason that such people advocate “other ways of knowing.” Lacking a skeptical disposition, they will be unduly swayed by situations or experiences which would not survive the rigour of scientific scrutiny. Over time, they will develop a deep emotional attachment to the conclusions that are drawn from their faulty experiences.
Thus, when they learn that experiments, studies, or scientists have denied the validity of their experiences and the lifestyles drawn from them, they become understandably resentful and conclude—wrongly—that science itself must be based upon faulty principles. In an effort to justify their beliefs, they will then begin to attach great significance to meaningless or banal phenomena. Dreams, premonitions, voices, omens, prophecies, palm reading, astrology: these are the children of the scientifically disenfranchised. These are all “other ways of knowing,” and fly blithely in the face of our collected observations. They have nothing to support them but the desire to do so.
Does it follow then that whatever scientists claim is true must be so, or that science can divine all the answers of life? Emphatically, no. Scientists are human, experiments may be faulty and imprecise, and some very meaningful questions do not lend themselves to scientific inquiry. Yet for any question that has observable phenomena as a component, science is the only place—the only way—to seek an answer.
It cannot be otherwise.
His disbelief in the other 97.32% is truly remarkable, and definitely anti-science.
I didn't get that from his essay. Rather than what "counts", I thought he was talking about what can be known.
The biggest problem with only accepting science as the source for all answers is that man will never know everything or even a half or a quarter of everything. This eliminates accepting anything on faith, which is a grave mistake.
Science is limited in it's truth seeking apparatus, for it chooses to disregard the Supernatural.
"The teaching of science and mathematics must be purged of its authoritarian and elitist characteristics95, and the content of these subjects enriched by incorporating the insights of the feminist96, queer97, multiculturalist98 and ecological99 critiques."
I didn't realize that the first paper on the matter was published in the mid 1990s, but there's really no reason it couldn't be.
Then there's the "dimension thing". St. Paul covered that, in part, with his "body, mind, soul, heart" statement. Some Orthodox Jewish groups extend that to 11 or more different elements, or "dimensions" of existence. The Buddhist version is much less complex, and Hindu approach involves only 3 levels of existence, albeit every element is cubed one way or the toher.
If the human mind actually "exists", dimensionally, in and amongst the unseen, unfelt parts of existence, it's entirely possible that those parts could be intuited by even the Ancients.
No doubt it is an error of some sort to relegate such insights strictly to religion.
Read it carefully. As you will see, it explains everything. For context, this was published in the most prestigous journal of sociology.
This is a quite famous hoax:
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/sokal.html
That may be true.
This eliminates accepting anything on faith, which is a grave mistake.
He was talking about knowing, not "accepting".
Only if "supernatural" is defined as something which cannot be observed. And if it can't be observed, how is knowledge of it attained?
I disagree, the author was also talking about beliefs. He is anti-Religous in my reading of this article.
Junk scientists survive by writing more junk.
Aww you gave it away...
Well, now that the beans are spilled... beavus, the thing that paper proved is that those "other ways of knowing" are pure BS, and the entire academic industry devoted to it is a fraud.
No solid evidence exists for it, no testable and repeatable experiments can be devised for it, and it cannot be measured.
How would it be fit into a theory or equation?
Most importantly, when it is, how do you go on to determine answers? You seem to believe that scientists, encountering a conundrum, should simply say "It's a miracle!" and be done with it. If they did that, we'd have very few of the discoveries that we now use.
=)
You appear to be responding to the wrong post... But don't fix it and spoil the fun.
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