Hi
On Sat, 12 Jun 1999, Louis_Schmier wrote:
> Jim, too neat. You're giving scientists too much divine, objective
> infallibilty and stripping them too much of their human frailities and
> foibles.
I didn't know that being neat was a flaw. I'll have to tell my
mother. Seriously, being neat does not make something wrong. I
also find it strange that Louis thinks I am giving scientists
_divine_ infallibility. As a cognitive psychologist, I am all
too aware of the frailties of human cognition. But what Louis
seems to forget is that those frailties exist irrespective of
whether or not one operates in a scientific mode and that much of
scientific methodology is concerned with identifying and finding
ways around our frailties. Those people who think there is an
easy way to truth other than the slow methodical approach of
science must demonstrate some evidence for their position. There
is much evidence that following the tenets of science leads to
more correct interpretations of the world..
I'm not sure I can agree on the inference that to be a scientist
> you almost have to be an atheist. That is a prevailing myth, personal
> experience and studies I've seen would seem to contradict. But, that is
> an irrelvant sidebar.
I am not so sure that it is irrelevant. As to the negative
relationship between being scientific and being religious, it is
very well documented. Academics in the humanities are most
religious (notable exceptions being people like Bertrand
Russell), people in the natural sciences are next (about 50% or
so), and academics in psychology (and perhaps other social
sciences, I don't have my source here right now) are least
religious. There is a hypothesis for this trend based on the
ease with which one can segregate one's religious and
professional beliefs. Not a perfect negative relationship being
science and religion, to be sure, but still strong.
I would hasten to issue a few warnings. First,
> when people talk of religion, they too often confine themselves to a
> Western Judao-Christian context and the conflict with science rooting in
> the discoveries of the 16th century.
My position would be that science is in tension with any
religious view (i.e., a worldview that admits of immaterial,
spiritual "entities").
Second, we have this thing thinking
> that science--and technology--is a new kid on the block when in fact it is
> not. It is the various scientific disciplines--geology, chemistry,
> biology, botany, political science, sociology, physics, psychology, some
> aspects of mathematics such as calculus, etc which date their beginnings
> to the 18th and 19th centuries as people go out to apply and find proof of
> their faith in what I'll call "The Creed of the Enlightenment." (Calculus
> dates back to DeCartes in the 17th century as does Bacon's dictums of
> scientific method). Namely, that all things in the universe are governed
> by intelligible laws which man is capable of discovering. Anyway,
> astronomy and mathematics have been around a tad longer and were the
> anchors for this search.
The beginnings of science go back as far as Louis states, but
from the beginnings to mature science took much time. Indeed, I
would say the cultural evolution toward a scientific worldview is
not nearly complete, and might even be experiencing some
devolution.
> Anyway, I have a question for you (for which I have my own answer, but I
> won't tell it). It is the same question addressed by such ancient Greek
...
> question addressed by Russell, Einstein, Heisenberg, and Hawkins. Once
> having discovered these universal laws, then what? That is, can science,
> does science--human discovered knowledge--offer an immutable and
> incontrovertible value, moral, and ethical individiual and social
> system--or at least a guide for living for which people can aspire--for
> human behavior and human association? Isn't this still the crucial
> question? Isn't that at the core of the supposed conflict?
Are you saying that religion does offer an "immutable and
incontrovertible value, moral, and ethical individual and social
system?" I would be very curious to hear what that system
consists of. And yes I do believe that a commitment to
scientific truth and knowledge does offer as reasonable a basis
for a moral system as an arbitrary belief in any one of the
myriads of religions that exist.
> Conflict of science and religion. Shades of Socrates and the Stoics.
> This discussion, argument, fight has been going on in our culture for at
> least 2500 years ever since Thales. Ah, the more things change the less
> they change.
I agree, although there has been considerable progress during the
interim in our understanding of the physical world. I predict
similar progress in coming centuries in our materialistic
understanding of human behavior and experience.
Best wishes
Jim
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James M. Clark (204) 786-9313
Department of Psychology (204) 774-4134 Fax
University of Winnipeg 4L02A
Winnipeg, Manitoba R3B 2E9 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
CANADA http://www.uwinnipeg.ca/~clark
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