Sciencism may be less "true" than many believe.

But it beats heck out of the alternatives.

BTW "...discourages many talented and creative students, especially girls, from the study of science ..." is sheer whining.

The discouragement, such as it is, comes solely from the unwillingness of those same people to master mathematics.

It's identical to the alternatives, though as part of the generation that was brainwashed there's no reason you should be capable of acknowledging that.

Orrin, you're like the guy hammering a bongo in the corner of a saloon. The bartender says, 'What d'you think you're doin.?'

'I'm keeping the elephants away.'

'There aren't any elephants within 5,000 miles of here.'

'See?'

If science were a religion, we would not see scientists who believe in other religions.

Mr. Judd;

I must side with Mr. Eager in that it's very odd for someone hosting this weblog on the Internet to claim that science is no different than its alternatives.

AOG:

Technology isn't Science anymore than surgery is Medicine.

That's why the Left is so fierce in its opposition to school choice.

No, the Left is trying to protect the public schools/NEA monopoly, which they pretty much control.

The farce continues.

"Yet the predominant view in schools and among the general public is that science is completely rational, objective, procedural, authoritative and free of cultural influence - a prescribed and trusted means for finding 'the truth,'..."

Please note, that it's not enough that science has found ways to regularly, more-consistently PURSUE rationalism, objectivity, and so on - - that it has employed tools to SOMEWHAT REDUCE the tendency to function irrationally, nonobjectively, etc. No, we get to read this crapola about COMPLETE this and COMPLETE that.

"...free of cultural influence..." is a striking B.S. phrase -- as distinguished from science having noticably reduced(but definitely NOT broken free from) cultural influences.

We witness the incessant B.S. of the arts and humanities. We witness the B.S.'ers in our midst - - what a farce.

In engineering, the view is that the arts and humanities dudes pay such great attention to the pursuit of perpetual motion machines; after all, it's so "ideal." Someone comes along and makes the internal combustion engine 3% more efficient, he consequently makes a fortune, and the humainities dudes display resentment and envy.

That's life: the dog and pony show of the farcically unscientific.

Science is entirely determined by cultural influences.

If so, that has no effect on what happens.

Joseph's remark is profound. I'd never thought of it in that way, though I learned this week (in Larson's 'Evolution,' whose last chapter is excellent on this topic) that of the founders of the modern synthesis of darwinism, half were members of deeply conservative Christian sects.

Joseph:

Harry said what I was going to: your point is profound.

One might also observe that the results of any instance of "sciencism" are independent of the scientist's particular sect.

In no other endeavor is this true.

It's interesting, none of the great scientists (Heisenberg, Schrodinger, Mayr) is even much troubled by the notion that all they do is follow new metaphors, rather than have any basis is some truth. And Thomas Kuhn famously showed that all that new scientific ideas really are is temporary shifts in the way the herd thinks. Here's Mayr on Darwinism and how the desire to change theories preceded the theory they latched on to:

"There is indeed one belief that all true original Darwinians held in common, and that was their rejection of creationism, their rejection of special creation. This was the flag around which they assembled and under which they marched. When Hull claimed that "the Darwinians did not totally agree with each other, even over essentials", he overlooked one essential on which all these Darwinians agreed. Nothing was more essential for them than to decide whether evolution is a natural phenomenon or something controlled by God. The conviction that the diversity of the natural world was the result of natural processes and not the work of God was the idea that brought all the so-called Darwinians together in spite of their disagreements on other of Darwin's theories..."

(One Long Argument: Charles Darwin and the Genesis of Modern Evolutionary Thought)

OJ:

You postmodernist.

Your first paragraph is incoherent, unless you mean to imply there is either absolutely no actual answer to any material question, or that no human answer to any material question is closer to the actuality than any other.

Either the natural world is the result of stochastic material processess, or it isn't, regardless of whatever disagreement there may be between Darwinians themselves, or Darwinians and Creationists.

Our scientific answers are nothing more than reflections of our current philosophical mood--when the mood shifts the science shifts.

That is pure nonsense.

The mood up to Galileo was that heavy objects fell faster than light ones.

Galileo shifted the mood.

One of those two is closer to describing what objects do.

There was no shift in "mood" prior to Einstein.

Jeff:

Moral relativism preceded physical--folks just wanted scientific justification.

OJ:

Congratulations, you just anointed yourself as a postmodernist in your wholly incorrect conceptual use of Relativity.

The post-modernists are right, except that they think it leaves us unable to choose among metaphors. Faith suffices.

Yet the amulets do not stop the bullets.

OJ:

You didn't get it, so I'll explain. Relativity demonstrates how everything is measured with respect to an absolute standard.

Nothing relative about that.

Since faith apparently suffices, how does one choose between human sacrifice to propitiate God for the upcoming harvest, and Christianity? How does one choose between Islamic predestination and Christianity?

Faith suffices to confirm your pre-existing faith.

Sciencism challenges pre-existing faith of every sort, including its own.

Jeff:

There are no absolutes, all is relative.

You either believe human sacrifice is okay or you don't.

My word! OJ is trolling his own blog!

trolling?

You said "There are no absolutes, all is relative."

Surely you don't take that seriously.

Mike:

I have faith in absolutes, but there is no rational basis for them. I don't mind though, faith is superior to reason.

OJ - OK.

It follows then that while as US citizens we have freedom of religion, we only have it up to a point. We don't have the freedom to believe in a religion that practices human sacrifice, for intance. In fact we don't have the freedom to believe in a religion that repudiates the basics of our constitution. Separation of church and state, for instance. Which brings one face to face with Islam

Mike:

That's all a non sequitir. What do your rights as a citizen have to do with reason? What does murder have to do with reason? Precisely nothing.

Reason is not the same thing as experience. Our rights are based on our experiences.

We reason backward to try to understand how the good results came about, but it is more than notorious that the rationalist Christians (following Aquinas) completely failed to predict or advocate anything like the rights we enjoy.

Our rights were not given to us by a Big Spook or anybody else. We made 'em up as we went along.

It was Darwinian.

Experience suggests it was an excellent thing for whites to slaughter aboriginals and take their lands, but we don't allow it any more. Experience disproves the reasonableness of morality, though experience is, you're correct, Darwinian.

Jeff: if you are arguing for the existence of absolutes, you are arguing for faith -- faith that what somebody theorizes is the final word on the issue. Einstein's absolutes are now under dispute (speed of light, for instance).

Science knows NO ABSOLUTES...only the current layer of understanding (Kuhn, eh?). This continuous ambiguity is as hard for scientists as for everybody else -- hence, the development of science dogmatists (hard core "skeptics" like A.Randi), who are as stuck in their rigid viewpoints as medieval scholars were in theirs ('if she's a witch, she's made of wood and therefore floats like a duck'). THAT's when science becomes like a religion -- when the primary ambiguity of scientific enquiry is replaced by flat dogmatism.

Science isn't a single thing, anyway -- there are varied and conflicting viewpoints in every field, just as there are among religious denominations.

The argument that science couldn't be a religion because some scientists hold traditional religions is goofy. Science's primary goal is not "truth" but PREDICTION. Religion's arguable goal is union with and/or submission to God. Those two goals can easily coexist in the same person. However, when science becomes dogma, it replaces fundamentalist religion in that person's life. The psychological desperation to secure and control an absolute truth is the same in both situations.

Science can be profoundly creative, but the creativity must be carried out along very rigidly proscribed rules -- whatever is left of the scientific method. I think of science less as a religion and more as a social club of obsessive compulsives, people who are able to create within extremely tight guidelines.

I can say this cuz I'm a scientist, okay?

Evangelista:

I wasn't arguing for absolutes. I was arguing against abusing scientific concepts.

Within the Theory of Relativity, the speed of light in a vacuum is absolute.

Uh huh. In the THEORY of relativity, the speed of light in a vacuum is absolute....but that really doesn't say anything about the world of reality. We can construct a system of beliefs that are internally coherent (mathematics is one of these), but which are untested in the larger scheme of things.

Until a theory has been tested and demonstrated to be accurate in all circumstances, it's just an idea. Maybe even an intuitively appealing idea, like big objects falling faster than little ones -- but that doesn't make it accurate. When we can find a perfect vacuum in which to measure the speed of light, then relativity can be tested. Until then, any confidence we might hold in the absolute of the speed of light....is a religious faith. It's not based on observation, not based on testing, not based in science. It's just guesswork.

Ambiguity is hard.

Jeff:

No one buys that one anymore.

OJ - I reject your canard. You're arguing both sides - again.

Mike:

Of course you do, you have to. When the Rationalist is forced to reckon with Reason being a mere faith his whole world collapses.

Evangelista:

Please read "The Postmodernists Abuse of Science."

My point had nothing to do with reality, but rather abusing the theories themselves. OJ abuses uncertainty theory and quantum mechanics because his misconceptions about them, willful or otherwise, conform to his desired worldview.

You put scientific theories in the position of having to prove a negative. What's more, I'll just bet that the speed of light is based on something more than guess work.

It is based on observation and testing, and conforms to all the procedural requirements of rational inquiry.

Contrary to OJ, my world does not collapse when faced with the fact that Reason relies on taking things on faith--I doubt you would find a Rationalist who thinks otherwise.

OJ is uncommonly fond of strawmen.