> [Krimel] > Ah, back to flatland. This is patently absurd. If I were to grant that > science is ultimately and finally reductionistic, this charge still would > not stick. If it where true, we would have biologist explaining biology in > terms of protons and leptons. Hell, historians would describe the Battle > of > Waterloo in terms of quantum mechanics. Nothing in science says or > suggests > that the world is flat. In fact as I remember history they were the first > to > claim it isn't. Butchering of Abbott aside this claim is just offensively > inaccurate. It is a ludicrous statement made by pretentious romantics. >
Hi Krim This is the sad thing, as you say there is little reduction in the sciences (the full suite, John Dupre carefully argues this in his Disorder of Things). Yet some still talk as if achieving a flat theory of everything is possible. Also, secularism is still pushed as a faith, as if there is some way to rule out a discussion of values including religious ones, from research and education. Which is why religion gets dumbly pulled in to trying to argue with science as if it needs to justify its scientific credentials. We need a non scientistic science so that we can get on and debate what our values and goods truly are. Of course, where secularism is the idea that religion has no special pleading or authority, and that all religions and non-religious values/ideas have a legitimate voice in the democratic debate, it is entirely to be supported as a way to manage social conflict. David M moq_discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
