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.
There are certainly some open questions, of course, but the actual amount of "hand waving" in evolutionary biology is far less than the amount alleged by creationists/anti-evolutionists.
And while there may be some gaps in the "explaining", the issue of whether the evolution of complex lifeforms via common descent has *occurred* or not is an issue which is all but closed -- the evidence for it is overwhelming (again, contrary to what the creationists/anti-evolutionists would have one believe).
Uh, I don't think his point was to present this woman as an disciple of the science god.
I suppose learning to fear, worship and glorify God is not easy for some folks. They just don't want to admit that someone else is in charge.
No, my friend, it's been closely examined since the beginning of science; the problem is none of it works. Whether you are referring to faith or Phlogiston Physics, it doesn't result in quantifiable results. Yet.
But people will still continue to look for shortcuts that don't require mathematics or complete honesty.
The flaws in this gent's argument:
"As David Hume famously concluded in his Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding, all knowledge and all reason are based upon experience and induction."
This was Hume's opinion, but as such it should not be confused with verifiable fact. Its veracity cannot be established by the same scientific method it purports to champion.
"Anything that runs contrary to observations, then, has no right to the title of truth."
Again, this is an opinion -- or, more correctly, a statement of religious faith. "I believe that only those things I can observe with my physical senses are real" is a statement of belief, not of science. Arch-skeptic Rene Descartes recognized this early on, pointing out that "objective" observations are based upon sensory impressions, which are subjective phenomena within the human mind, and as such are prone to error. We all "see" and "hear" things in dreams, he notes, yet the things we "observe" while dreaming are not objectively real. However, from the point of view of the dreamer, it is not possible to determine this. In fact, it is not possible to demonstrate that any of us (including the reader of this post, or even I myself) are not dreaming at this very instant. Obviously, then, since the senses can be fooled, all things that we observe are not necessarily real things.
In fact, as Descrates points out, the only things that one can be certain of are things that one experiences directly, without use of the unreliable and subjective senses. Foremost among these is the experience of one's own existence. One needs no eye to "see" one's own mental images; one needs no ear to "hear" oneself think. The mere fact that one can think at all is proof that a thinker exists - this the Cartesian dictum "cogito, ergo sum" - "I think, therefore I am."
In addition to one's own existence, the human mind can also apprehend the existence of God, without recourse to observation. (God's existence may also be demostrated logically, by any of several methods.)
In short: science is based upon observation by means of the senses, but since these sensory observations are inherently subjective, they cannot be relied upon as being prima facie objectively true. Anything perceived by the physical senses, from fossils to gravity to the stars themselves, is subject to doubt by the true Cartesian skeptic. Only that which we cannot doubt -- e.g. our own existence -- can be known to a certainty.
Materialism is a system of belief, and "If ah cain't poke et with a stick, et ain't real" is its catechism. However, as a faith-based worldview, it leaves much to be desired -- humanity, for one thing, and hope. No thanks, Perfesser!
I didn't see anything in there about nanotechnology.
Da*n, Now you've done it! I just don't know how I'm gonna react the first person who tells me he's been entruthened.
I think a better way to say this is that Science is the best tool we have for analyzing the Physical Universe. But not all questions lie in the physical realm. There are many legitimate metaphysical questions which Science is not equiped to answer. For instance, questions about right, wrong, good, evil, love, beauty, faith. Things don't have to be supernatural be outside the realm of Science.
It has caused a host of people to reject the possibility of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The most impacting event in history, and the reason the "Passion of the Christ" was not nominated for best picture, best director or best actor. Secular humanists run Hollywood and our Universities.
The Materialism of Secular Humanism has "jumped the proverbial shark" in the United States. Hence the overwhelming attention being focused on the Theory of Evolution.
Nor is science a religion, and precisely for the same reasons.
This is a common error among even some scientists: The confounding of epistemology with ontology.
If fact in history the seminal scientists and their "prescientific" forebears rarely make this broader metaphysical claim.
In the last century we have seen the rise on a notion of science as a quasi-religion. One might call this phenomena "Scientism" or "Sciencism
Though it coincides and commingles with humanist and collectivist movements, it is not strictly limited to these world view.
Many of the Great minds of science were in fact religious or at least acknowledge religiosity as a valid part of the life of man and thus a source of knowledge.
I often find this "scientism" occurs in mediocre "scientist" of the sort I term :scientific careerist. There work often reflect this narrowness of thought, education and reflection.
Certainly it is true that science can not replace Ethics in even the simplest sense, nor can it supplant that higher expression of Ethics that we term "Morality," though it may inform both Ethics and Morality.
I would also assert that science is incomplete as a philosophy as it also eschews Values, Poetics, and Aesthetics and a Physiological dimension. Or to put it another way it has no Axiology.
Curiously, one can make the same criticism of the Marxist form of materialism and libertarianism.
Often I find that many libertarians are believers in "scientism."
As Bill O'Reilly asked the scientist opposed to evolutionary disclaimers and including ID theory in classrooms, "What if God really did create the world?" he asked. "Wouldn't that be science?"
Science, by it's own restrictions" ignores data which is relevant to formulating accurate hypothesis'. Unfortunately this truth is ignored by the Materialistic Secular Humanists.
Well said.
>>Only science can give us the real truth>>
Of course, this title wreaks of ignorant and pompous pride, unearned. Science is the pursuit of any explanation for life other than God.
My favorite part:
"...differential topology has traditionally privileged the study of what are known technically as ``manifolds without boundary''. However, in the past decade, under the impetus of the feminist critique, some mathematicians have given renewed attention to the theory of ``manifolds with boundary'' [Fr. variétés à bord].70 Perhaps not coincidentally, it is precisely these manifolds that arise in the new physics of conformal field theory, superstring theory and quantum gravity."
How did he not die of laughter when wrote "under the impetus of the feminist critique?"
Yeah I can never get enough of it.
I have never been to Alaska. I have seen pictures of what people claim is Alaska, but I would have no way of knowing whether they were actually photos of Antarctica, Greenland -- or Libya for that matter, since I've never been there either. Everything I know about Alaska is information that has been passed on by other people, most of whom have never actually been to Alaska either. A few of them claim to seen it themselves, but how would *they* know they were not being deceived?
In any case, lacking direct personal observation, I must either accept the existence of Alaska based on the testimony of witnesses, or I must reject it as being insufficiently proven. Which is more rational?
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