Although you ( exDemMom) seem quick enough to assert the superiority of scientific knowledge over all of human experience, you’ve yet to explain what peer-review process, published in what scientific journal, has lead Mankind to conclude all men are created equal, that they are then endowed by their Creator with unalienable rights, and that governments thereby derive their just power from the consent of the governed. These are questions that you seem unable to bring yourself to answer, while you continue to assert Science’s superiority and tout it as the only endeavour worthy of serious human pursuit.
Nor have you yet explained what part of the formula E=mc2 impelled the Truman Administration to go into an extensive internal ethical debate before the decision was made to drop the bomb that ended WWII. Further, you have been reminded that there was no scientific reason to not simply drop the bomb without a moment’s hesitation beyond the technical considerations involved in the bomb’s effective delivery. What, then, caused the Truman Administration to hesitate? Although you seem more than willing to preach the standard doctrine about what’s “testable” and what’s “falsifiable” you appear to have no reply to that elementary inquiry.
When reminded, you were quick to report that the Tuskegee Experiment had been terminated and that steps had been taken to assure that a repetition would not be allowed. Why? What breach of scientific process protocol or of scientific practice brought about the abrupt termination of that experiment? Again, no reply . . . just assurances that such mistakes will not be repeated. What mistakes? According to what peer-reviewed scientific publication?
Likewise, we might inquire what has been found “falsifiable” in any of the events described above that reduces them to mere “existentialist nonsense” or “thought meandering”? What of freedom of inquiry? What of freedom of association? Are they all to be simply dismissed as vain pursuits of no practical value?
0bama (and his many sycophants) would agree.
exDemMom cannot answer questions like this, because the scientific method cannot engage them. And thus as the reasoning goes, they really aren't valid questions at all, because the scientific method cannot engage them. These sorts of questions only refer to epiphenomena, ad hoc "penumbras" that arise purposelessly from physical/mechanical/chemical processes. As such, being intangible by-products of real processes in Nature, they are not to be regarded as "real" in themselves. They are only shadows of the real, having no inherent significance in themselves worthy of note by scientists and other enlightened folks.
Voilà! the "triumph" of post-modernist attitudes and thinking! Which seems to leave out a few important details about real human existence and its universal problems.
Ellis Sandoz has pointed out that
At the level of common sense, it is evident that human beings have experiences other than sensory perceptions, and it is equally evident that philosophers like Plato and Aristotle explored reality on the basis of experiences far removed from perception.... Moreover, it is evident that the primarily nonsensory modes of experience address dimensions of human existence superior in rank and worth to those sensory perception does: experiences of the good, beautiful, and just, of love, friendship, and truth [not to mention the profound insight undergirding our nation, that "all men are created equal, that they are ... endowed by their Creator with unalienable rights, and that governments thereby derive their just power from the consent of the governed"], of all human virtue and vice, and of divine reality.... Experience of "things" is modeled on the subject–object dichotomy of perception in which the consciousness intends the object of cognition. But such a model of experience and knowing is ultimately insufficient to explain the operations of consciousness with respect to the nonphenomenal reality men approach in moral, aesthetic, and religious experiences. Inasmuch as such nonsensory experiences are constitutive of what is distinctive about human existence itself—and of what is most precious to mankind — a purported science of man unable to take account of them is egregiously defective....Yet it seems the promotion of a vitiating reductionism is the entire post-modernist project. All nonphenomenal reality is either denied or reconstituted in terms of principles abstracted from Nature (i.e., the scientific method itself). In the end, it is at once a flight from reality, and the very inversion of reality itself, in which what we can "measure" (directly observe) becomes the reality itself.
...Since the human condition is preeminently existence in the In-Between of immanence and transcendence, morality and immorality, nature and the divine, and since it participates in all levels of reality, any account of man, society, or history that fails to take all the realms of being into account is defective by reason of a vitiating reductionism....
I am very sorry, but this is simply nutz to me. Talk about "flatlanders!" It's as if these people really do want to go live in a nice, safe cave somewhere, in preference to standing in the Light of what to them is evidently a "fearsome God" that they don't want to have anything to do with. [As if they really had a choice.]
Oh well, I'm ranting again....
Thank you ever so much, dear brother YHAOS, for your splendid essay/post!
I would ask, why do you expect science to function as a system of morality? How can describing a physical system (even in excruciating detail) inform one as to an ethical and moral way to live one's life? I have never said that science fulfils that role; why do you assume that I believe it does? On a larger scale, why do you assume that I believe that science is the "only endeavour worthy of serious human pursuit"? I do not recall ever saying or implying such a thing. In fact, much of my reason for engaging in these discussions is to try to get people to stop assuming that scientists hold such beliefs. I realize that most people don't know any scientists, and it is easy to dehumanize people one has never met--I'm here to say that we are just as human as anyone else; we don't form some dark conspiracy meant to devalue and discredit religion; our concerns in life are similar to the concerns of people in other professions. In short, I am trying to counter the outright lies that the charlatan promoters of young earth creationism (e.g. Gish, Bebe, Hovind) tell about members of my profession.
Nor have you yet explained what part of the formula E=mc2 impelled the Truman Administration to go into an extensive internal ethical debate before the decision was made to drop the bomb that ended WWII. Further, you have been reminded that there was no scientific reason to not simply drop the bomb without a moment’s hesitation beyond the technical considerations involved in the bomb’s effective delivery. What, then, caused the Truman Administration to hesitate? Although you seem more than willing to preach the standard doctrine about what’s “testable” and what’s “falsifiable” you appear to have no reply to that elementary inquiry.
As I have said above, and will continue to say, ethics and morality are not intrinsic to the scientific process. Science is a method used to measure and describe the physical world in as objective a manner as possible, no more and no less. What is to prevent someone like me from using scientific knowledge to create a killer disease capable of wiping out a large fraction of earth's population? Technically, it's not that difficult. I have a sense of morality that tells me it is wrong to try to kill millions of people, and it is that moral sense--not science--that keeps me from designing, even if merely as a thought experiment existing only on paper, a disease that could cause that kind of destruction. I would hope that the people being selected to enter PhD programs share my sense of values so that such a thing never occurs.
When reminded, you were quick to report that the Tuskegee Experiment had been terminated and that steps had been taken to assure that a repetition would not be allowed. Why? What breach of scientific process protocol or of scientific practice brought about the abrupt termination of that experiment? Again, no reply . . . just assurances that such mistakes will not be repeated. What mistakes? According to what peer-reviewed scientific publication?
Need I point out the history of Bad Things perpetrated by religious people? What about the Spanish Inquisition? The Crusades? The decades-long war in Ireland between Catholics and Protestants? Do I even need to mention Islam? Ethically questionable practices are not unique to science, and seem to be part of the "human condition." All we can do is try to develop and improve our sense of ethics and morality, and carry it with us no matter what activity we engage in.