AW! Epistles
Science is not an Unified Entity. From Vic
Abstract
Abstract
I have looked at some of it and find it unconvincing. It uses the same style as religionists. Even including prophetic pronouncements. Science is not an unified entity, but a multiplicity of sometimes contradictory ideas. “Science is mightier than the Word. Science, in contrast, is steadily and strenuously working toward a comprehensible explanation.” That is faith for you! On ward science soldiers. “Witness the extraordinary progress that has been made since the development of general relativity at the beginning of the twentieth century. Though difficult, and still incomplete, the great problem of how the universe came into being, and what it is, will be solved, and the solution ought to be comprehensible to human minds.
Mike, I have the following comments on: Introduction—AskWhy! Publications. You have written a lot of valid criticisms of an “evangelical” who is tied to traditions. What is sad is that you have not provided any help to these poor souls who follow these people.
You plainly wrote from the first page of the set of pages called Godstruth but you must have noticed there are a lot more pages, and once you look at them you will see that you are not right in what you say. I have a long section called Truth to contrast with Godstruth. Take a look.
Yes, I have looked at some of it and find it unconvincing. It uses the same style as religionists. Even including prophetic pronouncements. Science is not an unified entity, but a multiplicity of sometimes contradictory ideas. “Science is mightier than the Word. Science, in contrast, is steadily and strenuously working toward a comprehensible explanation.” That is faith for you! On ward science soldiers. “Witness the extraordinary progress that has been made since the development of general relativity at the beginning of the twentieth century. Though difficult, and still incomplete, the great problem of how the universe came into being, and what it is, will be solved, and the solution ought to be comprehensible to human minds. Moreover, that understanding will be achieved this side of the grave.” You better hurry this prophecy up, I am already getting old. “Whereas religion scorns the power of human comprehension, science, the nobler pursuit, respects it.” I do not believe in religion science or “christianity” so called.
You say “I do not believe in religion science or ‘christianity’ so called.” I also do not believe in ‘religion science’, because science is not a religion as conventionally defined. Arguably science is religion as it arose historically because religion arose to explain the mysteries of life to primitive people trying to scratch a living from the soil. The mysteries religion explained receded into the fantastic as proper science explained the natural mysteries, and now religion is left with fantasy. Unfortunately, despite 150 years of public education, too many people still believe fantasy. That is too bad for the world, because we seem to be heading into a new dark age brought about just like the previous one by Christian dogma. You can shout “a plague on all their houses” if it makes you feel good, but it will not stop creeping dogmatism.
The Jews follow the rabbis, the catholics, the priests, Muslims the mullahs, and the scientifics for the latest Theorist whether Greeks pythagorus, or Newton or Darwin or Einstein or the latest new theorist. Just as the so called “christians” are ruled by tradition, scientifics are ruled by the latest theorist, String theory, quantams, dark matter and so it goes on. It becomes their tradition.
You sound as if you do not really understand science. Scientists do not follow anyone in the sense that religions do.
You have got to be joking. You mean they never strive to be the first to split the atom or make a light bulb—as Edison and Swan. Or the thousands of other competitions.
Science is not based on anyone’s authority but on whether the theories they propose work in reality or not.
Thousands of theories never work at all. Some scientists spend all their life striving for a theory that never works—like Einstein and die without ever achieving success.
Let me say that again, more slowly. Science is not based on the authority of any scientist. It is based on results. Whether what they do works. Edison and Swan got a reputation because their light bulbs worked. If anyone else had a light bulb, we do not hear of them, and the most likely reason is that their bulbs did not work, or did not work as well. Now what authority has to do with striving, I do not know. It is plain that successful scientists strive to do their jobs well. Unsuccessful ones like me, are too idle to do well. We do not strive enough. Scientists are no different for human beings. After all, that is what they are. They want to be admired, and when they are successful, but not otherwise, they are.
A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena.
Now we come to your next point that thousands of theories do not work. There is a bit of semantic confusion here. All scientific explanations begin as ideas in someone’s head, and this seems to be what you mean by a theory. Obviously, most of these ideas do not stand up to testing, if they get that far. Many are seen to be faulty before they get that far, on careful examination. So, in that sense you are right, but such discarded ideas are not scientific. The process of testing them is the scientific method, but the corpus of scientific knowledge is only what passes the tests. These are properly what a theory is. So a theory that does not work is nonsensical. If an idea is accepted as a theory, then it must work in some range of validity, or it could never be accepted at all. Science progresses by refining its theories to improve them, or discarding them for another that works better. All the time scientists are testing theories, and so all the time theories are being shown not to work under some circumstances or another. Science is corrigible. It can be corrected. Religions are fixed as creeds and the mores of ancient tomes. They evolve, admittedly, but rarely are they corrected because they are not corrigible but are dogmatic. The fact that science is corrigible is something that Christians have a lot of trouble with, and so, evidently, do you. Science is a job. Most of them die just like plumbers and journalists without making any impression to talk of on posterity. Does that mean their lives have been worthless? We are social beings. That is science not religion, and anyone who helps us live happily and more comfortably in society has been successful.
To resume. Religious theories do not, and that is why the person becomes so much more important. They have to convince you of what is not true. Scientists have new ideas but they or others must show that they work.
Says who? You mean the academics have no input?
I admit that I sometimes do not grasp your point. What do you mean about academics having no input? Academics can be scientists or theologians, engineers or ecstatic dancers for all I know these days, but naturally they have an input into their own subjects. And “says who?” about what? These are the sort of puzzling remarks you make that show me you do not understand what I am telling you. “Says me”, if you like because I am trying to explain to you what science is and how it differs from religion, but you do not get it. I am not giving you some idiosyncratic theory but telling you about science as it is. It is evidently not what you think it is. That is what you need to get.
To resume. And no scientist, especially these days, can know all of science, so none of them claim to. One, like Einstein, might propose a new hypothesis and others will do the experiments that show the hypothesis works unders specified circumstances. Newton and even Darwin lived when it was possible to do both, but it is getting harder as science expands in its volume and complexity.
Newton is an interesting case. He had a very strong, non-religious, non-evangelical non-Christian belief. He seems to have no problem in reconciling the two, but not any of the evangelical christian stuff. The establishment would have tossed him out had they known.
As far as the establishment were concerned, he was a Christian, and you are right that he would have been thrown out if he had not been one. Christians were in control three hundred years ago still, as they had been for 1400 years before that, most of which were dark ages. Newton professed Christianity because he had no choice, and the USA is getting like it again. Many scientists until the last century were Christians because they were brought up as Christians in countries in which the Christian tradition was still strong. People were being burned at the stake into Newton’s time. It is a good reason for saying Christianity is terrific.
What you seem to mean is that when the science is novel and challenging, as in cosmology, various ideas are bandied about until some get a measure of acceptance, but these ideas, the ones like some of those you mention, are not really science until they have been shown to be so.
Yes it is amazing how they fight among themselves. Do you mean there no social class structure among scientists? Do scientists have to qualify and be recognized by the hierarchy of academia—a religion, a religious hierarchy?
You will only be amazed because you do not understand science. Your natural inclination must be to be dogmatic because you seem to expect agreement. Scientists agree on the vast bulk of the scientific corpus but they fight like cat and dog about what is not yet in it. They are trying to discover how the fringes work, and so they have competing theories as you call them. The best ones, the ones that actually work, are the ones that eventually get adopted. They are not adopted because this or that great man has formulated them, rather the opposite. Scientists become great men because their theories work. We live in class ridden societies, whatever politicians and journalists like to tell us, and so some scientists will have advantages over others in getting tenure, say, but if they do not produce good science they will not progress.
To resume. Quantum theory is well established and accepted, but not string theory and dark matter. The whole of cosmology could be changed by some new idea that was better than the ones currently tentatively accepted. As the whole situation is in flux, it is the opposite of a tradition, which is a fixed custom. What you seem to mean is that they are generally accepted on flimsy evidence, and they are, but only because as yet there is nothing better.
Are you admitting then that science then still does not have the answers? That is what the religionists do too. Always looking for some new theory of everything!
Again you are beyond me. Religionists might today be obliged to admit they are not scientists, but they still think they have the answers. They know we shall live after death because an old book says so, and thay have long ago decided that these words are sacred and so true. I repeat that the point about science is that it does not have all the answers but it has a method of finding out. Religion has no method of finding out except, according to them, death by which time it is too late to be sorry. Science addresses questions and as long as there are questions, science will try to answer them using the scientific method. If you can find a new theory of everything, then you will be famous. The old theory of everything, God, is a theory of nothing.
The scientifics are just as much irrational in their belief that science has all the answers. Each new thing the science boffins discover leads to another puzzle. As knowledge increases so do the theories and many conflict take the current global warning debacle. If science has all the answers why does not it solve the problems you say the evangelicals have.
Where do you get these ideas? Are you being indoctrinated by Christians?
No, I have argued and debated with them for years and a few science believers too.
What do your science believers believe in? I take belief to be the same as faith, something held with no evidence for it.
No scientists have the idea that science has all the answers. If it had, then science would stop. There would be nothing left for them to do. It is pretty obvious that science has not stopped and that proves they do not have all the answers. Isn’t that plain? You are right that science leads on to new puzzles and new discoveries, and that is why scientists do not think they have all the answers. You seem to think that scientists are God, or should be God if you want to accept them. Science has discovered in three hundred years vastly more than Christianity did in 2000, and, if God can create life, but science cannot, God had eternity to work it out, science has only had that 300 years so far.
That is the statement of a true believer. So given enough time can science create life? Perhaps you have heard the joke. The emminent group of scientists finally pronounced they could produce life. The media and all the important academics, scientists and politicians were there. A special science table was set up with a pile of red mud on it. After due fanfare the experiment was about to begin. Suddenly after huge thunder, a voice proclaimed -Get your own mud.
There must be a better joke, surely. Depending on how you define "create life", it might already have been done. I have a note on it on my pages. What the scientists did was break up a virus like TMV into its component molecules thereby killing it. Then they put the molecules back together and they were restored to life as a TMV. I expect that no Christian will count that as creating life, but nevertheless molecules that had no signs of life in them were made into a living virus. Molecules that can reproduce have been made too. How many years do you think science will need to make life from bare molecules? Who knows, but probably less than eternity.
There in lies the gaping hole in science. They all start with a product. They have no idea, not even a theory where any of it came from, yes they say there is entrophy, it is running down. It all started with a singularity and a big bang so they theorize. Now I am not promoting any view but just consider:
“In the beginning God created”
“In the beginning the big bang created”
“In the begining science created the big bang.”
You now seem to want scientists to go a lot further than creating life, you want them to be God and create the universe. It is this sort of goalpost moving that is typical of Christians, and makes you sound like one whatever you say. Yes, we have to accept the universe as a given, however it might have come about, but to say that an entity bigger than the universe invented it is again not an explanation. I can claim that my God made your God, and you cannot prove otherwise, and on ad infinitum. Infinite regressions in science as opposed to being a mathematical tool, are often if not usually a sign of something being wrong. Here the simple resolution is that the universe itself serves adequately as God. Why invent another?
To resume. As for conflict, scientists offer up ideas, and they are then tested. Before one or another has been shown to be better, the different proponents of the ideas argue about it. They do experiments, collect data and try to show who has the best evidence for their idea. They are not killing each other like Christians and Moslems. They are discussing things in seminars and journals. Always one idea proves better and is accepted until more data shows it does not always apply, then a new theory has to be found for those instances where the old one fails. That is called progress. Sciences progresses. Religion is stuck where it started, usually several thousand years ago.
There is no conflict or debacles over global warming. Only politicians and newspapermen deny it. The globe is warming, but a lot of people do not want to accept it.
Science shows the world has been hotter and colder before man started making fires, or burning oil. The land now clear of ice in Greenland was growing crops about 9-1200 ears ago. The sun is the biggest source of earth energy and most of it is electro-magnetic, light and heat are a very, very small part of the radiation that encapsulates the world. If you study the energy from the sun it has increased about 25% in the last 10—50 thousand year period, yet world temperatures have not gone up 25%.
I see you are quite willing to accept scientific discoveries when it suits you, but not otherwise. That is not science, it is religion. I take it you do not dispute that the earth is actually warming. You seem to be arguing that it is the sun that is causing global warming, but there are different possible causes. What we want to know is what is causing the present rise in temperature. There is a simple correlation here. Correlation does not necessitate causation but you have to look carefully and find out why not if it is not so though otherwise it is just what is expected. Rising CO2 and other greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere are closely associated with rising temperature, and there is no other likely cause that has at present been found. If you are cautious and sensible, you will accept what the indicators suggest. If not, we shall die anyway, and the world will suffer a terrible crisis, as climate varies, and sea levels rise. Ok, Mr Bush, it is not your concern, but some of us are concerned that we are storing up disaster for our kids. You stick with Bush, if you like. I’ll stay human.
To resume. They can get away with ignoring it, because they know they will be dead when its consequences really begin to be felt, but our children will have to cope with disaster on a mega scale.
Do you believe Al Gore is a scientist? Or is he a clever politician?
To resume. Maybe you do not believe it, but then you are one of those who will be dead when whole countries with millions of people in them like Bangladesh get swamped.
Please, a few answers. Purpose of life? Why disease? Why death? Just for a start.
Interesting questions. Can you tell me what the evangelical answer is?
I am not interested in evangelicals explanations.
I’ll tell you. It is God’s will. It might as well be Santa Clause’s will or Mother Goose’s. God is in the same category of imagined beings. He is just imagined to be the biggest. God is no answer, but science can answer these questions. It is just that many people, and maybe you are one, believe in God and prefer Him as an answer, though He answers nothing. Christians, even Jesus, thought disease was caused by demons. Science showed it was caused by tiny organisms, not supernatural and therefore treatable.
So is mental illness caused by tiny orgisms.
Does VCJD count as a mental illness?
To resume. That is probably why you are alive today. Without science most of us would not be alive because many of our grandparents and parents will have died of diseases like cholera and TB.
What is the purpose of life? It is to make the world a better place to live in for our children.
While I do agee with the intent. But is that belief and faith answer not a science answer? Does science tell you to make the world a better place?
It is an answer that follows the direction pointed out by science. We do not have to bother, like Bush, but we are social animals, and to be properly social we should be concerned about future society as well as present society. If we have left human society struggling for survival when we could have done otherwise we are effectively committing mass murder. We are not biologically fit to survive, and will not. As a species, we benefit from an intelligence that religions will not let us use. If we use it, we might survive.
To resume. Why death? Christians have no answer except that it is God’s will that we should all die for the sin of one man and his wife at the beginning of time. Well science has shown that we die because our cells get worn out, in some ways like an engine part. Cells can only divide for a limited number of divisions before errors accumulate and kill them. But science can give us new hearts, livers, faces even, and so people are alive today who would have been dead.
All re-cylced parts or mechanical devices that wear out. As well why are our cells worn out can’t science make replacement cells?
What do you object to about reusing parts? Science is now trying to make cells to do various jobs by harvesting stem cells by various means. Then cells can be bred to order.
You ought to know all this, and if you do not, you should sue your teachers, or maybe your clerics, if that is where you got all this bad thinking from.
Read some of my pages, where you can find all this in more detail. Of course, detail is what Christians do not like, so perhaps you will not want to bother.
I have read a number of your pages and find the theme is religous, the god science: “Different Criteria. Science, in contrast, is steadily and strenuously working toward a comprehensible explanation. Witness the extraordinary progress that has been made since the development of general relativity at the beginning of the twentieth century. Though difficult, and still incomplete, the great problem of how the universe came into being, and what it is, will be solved, and the solution ought to be comprehensible to human minds. Moreover, that understanding will be achieved this side of the grave. Whereas religion scorns the power of human comprehension, science, the nobler pursuit, respects it.” Just how long do I have to wait? “working towards” just does not seem to conclusive to me.
I have answered this at the beginning. If you find my themes religious, it is because they are criticizing Christianity and advocating science as a better world view. A world view is not a religion because it has no supernatural trappings. But, if you consider any world view to be a religion, then maybe science is, or can be. It remains science, however, and must remain true to the scientific method for it to be science. Some Christians claim they can formulate Christian science, Christian psychology, Christian physics and so on, but that would be the end of science. So science and Christianity are incompatible, based on incompatible premises. The Christian believes gullibility is a virtue, but the scientist believes skepticism is a virtue. You cannot be both.
Would you be so kind as to consider a definition of religion as being appropriate to understanding your position.
religion (australian Macquarie dictionary) /n. the quest for the values of an ideal life, involving three phases, the ideal, the practices of the ideal, the practices for attaining the ideal, and the theology or world view the relating the quest to the environing universe.
a point or matter of conscience, esp. when zealously or obsessively observed: to make a religion of doing something.
Could it be for instance practicing christianity or practicing science?
- Does science quest for the ideal values of life?
- Does science practice these phases?
- Are you offering science as an ideal instead of traditional christianity as a way of life or ideal?
- Is science a point or matter of conscience?
Well you have two definitions here, and there are many others as you can find by looking in the OED. The question is by what definition religion is commonly understood, by what definition of religion are religions classified? Neither of these ones you offer are what most people would call religion. If they are what you call religion, then I can understand why you think science is one.
Anyway, take a look at the shorter one first. Religion is something done conscientiously or zealously. Anything could be a religion by this definition. A serial murderer could be called religious, if this is all a religion is. Certainly, I agree that good scientists, though not all, including yours truly, are conscientious and perhaps zealous, but that does not, in my opinion, make them religious.
The longer definition is more difficult because it has several elements, and I am not sure they fit together all that well, so a lexicographer ought to inspect it for consistency. I mean that it is defined as a quest but none of the phases involve seeking. Practises can only be done if they are known, and theology is trying to fill the holes in religious practises already performed. More important is that it omits several other important aspects most people would want explicitly included in a definition of religion, though you might say they are or can be implicit in the practises or the theology. Thus, most religious people in western society want a God, but perhaps your definition includes that in its theology section. They would want it openly said.
Anyway, let’s answer your questions. 1. Does science quest for the ideal values of life? Well, though science is a quest, most scientists would deny that science has anything to do with values, which are matters of opinion, and most religious people would be keen to keep scientists out of the field of values, because they consider it their own. So the answer is no, but science can certainly illuminate the quest for values by asking those searching to use the scientific approach inasmuch as they can, and then using scientific discoveries to illuminate whatever it is they are seeking. So, one animal kills another for food. Science has no moral stance on the question, other than that it is natural. Men kill cows for food. The same, as long as there is enough space and fodder to feed cows and other humans. If not? Sociology is a science, albeit not yet precise, and human beings are social animals. Biology shows, we are what we are because we live together. Whatever tends to destroy harmonious living is therefore contrary to science and to society, and if some members of our society have to die to feed cows to others, then science can make a moral judgement. It is anti-social and therefore wrong. In this science agrees with most religious morality, and science actually explains why it is religiously immoral. As science learns more, it will be able to make more such judgements.
2. Phases. Science has stages but whether they are these particular ones, is doubtful. Science does not begin with any ideal, it begins with observation, and then formulates an hypothesis (what you called a theory) to explain them, and then tests the hypothesis. If it passes the tests so that scientists can have confidence in the hypothesis giving the right answer any time it is tested, then it will be called a theory. Maybe you will say the hypothesis is the ideal you refer to, but it is not ideal, because a better theory might and often does eventually present itself. Any individual scientist might have a personal ideal of some sort or another that motivates them, but it is not science until it is studied by psychologists, and some rules about it discovered.
3. Science or Christianity. I agree with your definition in that people need a world outlook, and religion offers it to many. Science can do the same, or can be accepted as part of someone’s worldview, like Adelphiasophism. A point I made earlier was that religions began having explanation as an important part of the worldview they offered, but ancient explanations ought now to be dropped, not perpetuated as some intangible, invisible, unsmellable God’s will. Most Christians accept science in practice, so why deny it in their churches and sermons? I say to them, Find a religion that encompasses science, and gets rid of fantasies like gods, if you must call your worldview a religion. Any worldview that does it cannot be ideal, because science is corrigible, so nothing ideal, if it means perfect, can come from it. But what is plainly wrong can be corrected. What we need is a science-based, social world view that helps people get on with living among other human beings. If it can do that then it is ideal enough, and certainly more ideal than anything patriarchal religions have offered.
4. Conscience. In the sense you cover of doing it conscientiously, yes. It certainly has to be done honestly, and as long as most scientists are honest, the dishonest ones will get exposed. But scientists need not always be dedicated, though usually they will also not be successful.
Anyway, to summarize, I am sure you could find a definition of religion that would encompass a worldview that includes science, but most current religious people would not be willing to accept it because it would contradict all that they hold dear, even though they drive cars and use computers, take medicine and communicate and receive their entertainment by microwave links. As long as you have a definition of religion that requires belief in what is not true, then it must be incompatible with science. Otherwise, fine, call science a religion. Just make sure you keep your religion scientific and do not allow your science to become religious!
“Certainly, I agree that good scientists, though not all, including yours truly, are conscientious and perhaps zealous, but that does not, in my opinion, make them religious.”
“conscientious” is a word that you cannot apply to good “science”. Conscience = “con”—against or in opposition to “science”. Conscience is an internal family, social and moral standard. Not subject to scientific standards.
Have you shot yourself in the foot? You admit there are good and bad scientists. I know the “british” are self effacing but to include yours truly with the “though not all” seems beyond the pale. The corollary of this is that there is good and bad science and those who practice good and bad science. Hypocrisy is a problem with both those practicing religion or science.
You seem to be trying to be a sophist, but not doing it too well. Your explanation of conscientious is laughable. I suggest you get yourself a good dictionary to save you from such idiocy. Neither “con” means “against” nor does “science” mean what “science” now does in “conscience”. Suffice it to say that science can be conscientiously done or not, and good science comes from that that is. Francis Crick, by all accounts, was a bit of a dilettante before he concentrated with Watson on the stucture of DNA and worked it out. He was a clever man but had to take his work seriously to get anywhere. A conscientious person is punctilious or scrupulous about doing their work well, and the same is true if the person is a scientist. There are good and bad scientists in the sense that I am plainly talking about, scientists who are conscientious and those who are not. I was not a good scientist because I was not conscientious enough, and so only had minor success. There is also good and bad science in the sense that the scientific method is well or not well applied, and so the results are good or bad. Bad science is revealed when the experiments are repeated by others, and so bad science cannot enter the corpus of science for long. All of this is different from religion which has no such criteria.
Really it is human nature that is the problem. Wars at all levels of human endeavor. From where do wars and strivings come among people? Now traditional christianity, just like traditional science institutionalizes their "laws" and makes all others comply through war and fear . How many times have budding scientists discovered new theories and ideas to have them quashed by the science authorities for in some cases ten or hundreds of years.
You had better tell me how often. I would say it is rare, and even rarer today than it ever was because there are so many ways of publishing. Anyone, in any field is wise to build a reputation before they unilaterally try to destroy the reputations of others. Otherwise they are likely to be accepted more easily being backed by someone with a reputation. That is a sensible method of stopping faddishness in science. As for human nature, that is the purpose of all laws and morals. Our nature is to be social, and laws and morals are mainly to stop anti-social behaviour. That is why religions now fail. The world is now one community, just as at one time any society was one community or culture under its god. So, now religions are more widely disruptive than they ever were. Each claim their own set of arbitrary prescriptions are correct, and that is why they fight. Scientific laws are not human laws and they are testable, important differences.
Even more apparent peoples beliefs become trodden down. The “institutions” set up by corrupt men, hypocrites, have enslaved the people by war and fear. The same principles are brought to bear on scientists. Science has become institutionalized. Research projects are allottted according to money and power and in some cases religion of the scientiists. I gave you the example of Isaac Newton.
You seem fond of Isaac Newton. Is he a failed scientist or something? Science is always subject to powers greater than itself. That is largely your error. Science has never been in any power position as you seem to think. It is subject to the whims and greed of governments and corporations or even religions. Where does science get its money from otherwise? And who always owns the discoveries they have financed? Science has nothing to do with money, and mainly scientists do not own their own discoveries. Try to learn something before you spout on.
The very same principles “religion” uses.
And what are those same principles? I have explained to you that the principles of science are quite different but you are obviously not listening.
But true “religion” is to bridle your tongue, not let your heart or your emotions rule you and become vain. Pure religion is to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unspotted from the world's institutions, whether they be scientific, political, religious or any other tradition.
Now I see that you have some prescriptions about religion all of a sudden. You are the hypocritie, pretending to attack religions but secretly having your own to defend. Try putting honesty among your prescriptions.
So science is not the solution. Can there a solution until their is change in the heart of Man? When Eisenhower called back MacArthur from Korea in disgrace, he have gave an interesting speech talking about war. I do not have the text but from memory the salient point was talking about until there is spirit of recrudescence in man, we will have always have the crucible of war in the world.
Well anyone who is expecting it will have to wait until mankind is a different species, changed its spots, you might say. Mankind has to stop crackpots who always claim to have the prescription to cure the world of its ills, and simply start off a new round of hatred. That includes yours. We shall have to stick to very old solutions in the meantime, the law, and education. The law reforms and then punishes those who persist in anti-social acts, and education teaches them why they should be social, teaches them morals and social duties! Ignorance of the law is supposed to be no defence because we are supposed to be taught morality, and that needs no religion.
Quote M. “Just make sure you keep your religion scientific and do not allow your science to become religious!” Conscience = “con”—against or in opposition to science. Science then by definition is against “conscience”. True religion embodies conscience, care for family and other people and the enviroment. Science teaches survival of the fittest, direct competition and conflict. Destruction of the incapacitated.
Well I recommended you get a dictionary, but you are revealing that nothing can help you because you are another religious nut.
Science can lead to seared consciences, with no family, social or moral values just like big business where the almiighty dollar becomes the standard, and consciences are completely seared. My plea to you is to consider the problem from ones own responsibility. It is our own free will choice to live by a way of life it needs to involve a right conscience—a balance between science, religion, politics, history and tradition. That is what I want to live and experience in my life. Despite science there seems to be a basic drive in man to seek a meaning and a purpose in life and an expectation of a future after this life.
There you are. You finally come out with a load of pseudo-Christian drivel, after pretending to be a critic of Christianity and science. You are like every Christian fundamentalist that writes to this page. They think they know the TRUTH, but prove they are too ignorant to know anything. Try reading, especially science, and you might find relief from your religion bogies, but I doubt it. After all you seem to have read little of what I said to you, or maybe you just cannot understand words (conscience = against science!! Say it again)
You are persistent enough but, despite your sense of humour, you do not seem to get any wiser. At least you have come out into the open as a sort of Christian, despite your own earlier pratling.
I do apologize, I am really sorry, I had expected you would have been a good conscientious scientist. Would it be appropriate to think you did not live up to the ideal? So let us consider the points on science you made. Can science be the solution if there is good and bad science? Can scientists provide the solution if there are good and bad scientists? I would say that scientists just like everyone else can only judge this by being conscientious, which involves character and moral judgments, which science of it self cannot by definition establish. Is the exercise of good conscience, the only way left open to establish, which is good and which is bad science by anyone including scientists?
You keep conducting this discussion with your false notion that science is a religion uppermost in your head. What is science, in your question, supposed to be the answer to? Similarly with scientists in your next? You seem to be saying science does not answer your disappointment with religions, but, listen carefully, science is not a religion. Your next point seems to imply that scientists need a religious position to give them moral standards before they can decide anything. But no religion is necessary for people to live moral lives, and science, again listen carefully because I am finding all this repetition tedious, can illuminate moral decisions made by people in society. Morality is a social construct to guide people in living communally, though some of its roots are undoubtedly in nature, our genes. As I have said, religions once were the glue that bound societies together, but now they serve no such function, and instead have become horribly divisive with people murdering each other, none so efficiently as Christians, to show their particular delusion is morally superior!
Quote M. “Neither ‘con’ means ‘against’. I suggest you get yourself a good dictionary to save you from such idiocy.” V. Perhaps it is you who should read the OED your claimed. I will help by copying it here for you. Then please reconsider who is in need of saving from idiocy. Here from on line Compact OED. “con noun (usu. in phrase ‘pros and cons’) a disadvantage or argument against something. ORIGIN from Latin /contra/ ‘against’.” V. Are you not plain wrong? Or maybe you are trying to con me?
No! I am not plain wrong. You remain wrong, and go on to prove that you do not indeed understand words or how to use a dictionary.
“con informal verb (‘conned’, ‘conning’) deceive (someone) into doing or believing something by lying. noun a deception of this kind. ORIGIN abbreviation of CONFIDENCE (http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/confidence), as in /confidence trick/.”
You seem to have included this to explain your own joke. Perhaps you did not understand it before.
“conscience noun a person’s moral sense of right and wrong, chiefly as it affects their own behavior. PHRASES ‘in (all) conscience’, in fairness. DERIVATIVES ‘conscienceless’ adjective. ORIGIN Latin /conscientia/ ‘knowledge within oneself’, from /scire/ ‘to know’. conscientious /konshi*en*shss/ adjective, diligent and thorough in carrying out one’s work or duty. relating to a person’s conscience. DERIVATIVES conscientiously adverb conscientiousness noun.” V. You may not like to admit it but the very references you refer me to, show you are wrong on both counts.
You began to get close in finding the Latin origin of the the words under discussion, ‘conscience’ and ‘conscientious’, but you only included the ‘scire’, omitting the ‘con’, doubtless because it refuted you! The ‘con’ is plainly given as meaning ‘together’ and not from ‘contra’ meaning ‘against’. ‘Together’ is almost the opposite of ‘against’, and that is why your cod etymology is disastrously wrong.
Science is about collecting knowledge. It does not include any conscientious standards at all.
Science is not only about collecting knowledge, that is the scientific method, it is also the knowledge it has collected, knowledge that has been tried and tested among qualified people until they agree it is true enough to be reliably useful. Why should standards of any kind be left out of scientific scrutiny?
“science noun 1 the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment. a systematically organized body of knowledge on any subject. ORIGIN Latin /scientia/, from /scire/ ‘know’.” V. As to being unwell sophist, I had better try harder to live upto your jibe.
Well at least try to do it properly.
Mike I notice your initial is M. Are you sure it is for Mike? Are you just using Mike Magee to cover your real christened name Maginnis Magee? [Pome copied here]
Thanks for the pome, you entered here. There is a funny one called the Ballad of Sam Magee, you might look up. As for Maginnis, I am certain sure that is not who I am, but my father, when I was a boy, used to call me Micky Maginty. Will that do? You seem to need a suitable world view, but sadly you seem to want religion despite its odious history, and you, like everybody else intrinsically religious, bring out the same failed nostrums whenever there is war and dissent. It is religions that cause them only too often, just as they do today! If you’ve got your bees out of your bonnet, maybe you’ll be willing to learn something rather than spouting.
