TURTLES ALL THE WAY DOWN:

Wake-up call for science: Is science inherently illogical, because it relies in part on assumed theories that reach beyond what we can ever observe? (Andrew Baker, 7/30/09, Cosmos)

Modern scientists proudly herald the enterprise of science as logical (reasoned), yet since science's earliest stirrings more than 2,000 years ago, various thinkers have maintained this logic is flawed.

Even so, it wasn't until 1739 that Scottish thinker David Hume drove the point home by specifying that modern science is inherently illogical, because it relies in part on assumed theories that must reach beyond what we can ever observe.

This has profound implications: the very foundations of science are infirm. Yet, understandably, in his day Hume's concern fell largely on deaf ears of those more interested in reaping rewards of practical science at the birth of the industrial revolution.

C'mon, don't spoil our fun. One of the things that makes the Brights tolerable is that even as they defend an ideological tower based solely on faith they insist on the primacy of Reason. It's enormously amusing.

Posted by Orrin Judd at August 6, 2009 2:34 PM