Of course science leads you to killing people. It’s generally not scientists who do the killing, of course. As a group, scientists (being academics) are probably among the most physically cowardly of our species, and are therefore among the most gentle. While it’s true that politicians who start wars rarely themselves fire shots in anger in those wars, science doesn’t generally lead to killing in a direct manner, such as by proposing a theory that someone needs to die.
Science leads you to killing people because the scientific method is inherently amoral (note: amoral, not immoral). In itself, that’s fine. Many activities, if not most, are inherently amoral. The problem is that science is like candy. Candy doesn’t normally contain anything really bad for you, and certainly sugar is a necessary part of the human diet. Candy becomes bad for you when it pushes out all of the other foods that you might eat, and then it’s only bad for you because you’re not eating anything else.
Science is not an ethical system. Science is a method for discovering truths about the world we live in. When science is held above all else, though, it is necessarily held above ethical systems. You can see this mechanic clearly in the people who are exasperated at restrictions on killing embryos in order to perform embryonic stem cell research. They wail that religion shouldn’t get in the way of science.
Which is a fine position, but it’s pretty funny to hear the same people complain when we point out that they don’t want religion in the way of science. Because “thou shalt not kill” is a religious edict, not a scientific one. It’s true that there are non-religious arguments for why a person shouldn’t murder another person, but I’ve never met a man who’s gullible enough to believe them.
Non-religious people usually refrain from murder for the same reason that religious people usually do: murder is repugnant to human nature. But people can be trained into just about any sort of behavior you please, if they have no reasons for resisting. The nanotechnology researcher is never going to murder anyone. The danger is that when the nanotech researcher gives a lecture that religion shouldn’t get in the way of his research, a less gentle man might attend and conclude that the same principle means that religion shouldn’t get in the way of his being a murdering dictator.
The researcher who gave the lecture will complain that he never meant that, and that the dictator is abusing what he said. But the abuse is only in the trivial sense that the dictator is correctly applying the principles that the scientist expounded towards a goal which the scientist doesn’t want him to. At the end of the day, the biologist who says that he’s only doing research on clumps of cells has no consistent answer when the man in charge of the firing squad says that he’s only propelling little bits of metal at high speeds towards a clump of cells.
The biologist wouldn’t murder anyone. The biologists friends wouldn’t murder anyone. But they’re not the only people in the world. When you open Pandora’s box, the evils will still fly out even if you were only trying to satisfy your curiosity. No scientist will ever believe it, though. After all, he only meant good for the world.
UPDATE: There are two things that I should clarify about this post. The first thing is that I’m not talking about science as simply a system for investigating theories. I’m talking about science as it’s actually practiced in the world by human beings. The science which recommends that people avoid saturated fat (and later discovers that the trans fats they pushed people to are far worse) and pushes for treaties like the Kyoto protocol. The science which is a multi-billion dollar industry filled with very imperfect people.
The second is that I’m not trying to argue that science is itself responsible for the abuses of it, even for relatively mild cases. You can’t blame Newton for Richard Dawkins or for Adolf Hitler (the inclusion of both parties is meant to indicate a range, not an equivalence). You can’t blame the gun maker for the ways in which their guns are abused. But it’s perfectly reasonable to point out that guns do kill people. (I know, I know, guns don’t kill people, bullets kill people.) You can’t hold auto-manufacturers responsible for the tens of thousands of people killed in auto-accidents each year. But it would be absurd to deny that the auto industry leads people to kill each other. That’s not saying that the auto industry should be shut down, it’s only recognizing that there are costs as well as benefits.
{ 61 comments }
So….what? Not to sound unkind but I don’t exactly understand what’s being argued here.
I know what you’re saying but the proper verbiage is important. Science is not the method for discovering truths about the world. To quote Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade:
The problem arises that too many people take science’s silence on truth to mean there is no truth. Or, at least, the truth is whatever you want it to be.
Well, maybe not truths or facts, exactly. Science is a method (or set of methods?) for developing a more accurate intellectual model of the world.
Speaking of your hypothetical lecturer, I’m reminded of Hitchcock’s film Rope.
Elisha Feger’s last blog post..WereQu
It’s true that there are non-religious arguments for why a person shouldn’t murder another person, but I’ve never met a man who’s gullible enough to believe them.
And most of the non-religious arguments (such as: Self Ownership) aren’t scientific edicts either. They are assumed as axiomatic: Accepted without proof (and therefore are still "Faith Based").
Scientifically, you no more own yourself than a cow owns himself. You no more have rights than an ant does. If you think otherwise, please set up an empirically falsifiable test for your hypothesis to the contrary.
Society cannot function without a moral code of conduct. The moral code of conduct can be written into law, but everyone breaks the law in at least small ways when they think no one will notice.
Religion has been the answer that human societies all over the world have used. If you convince people that they will be punished in the after life for breaking the moral code, they will be more likely to follow the moral code even when no one will notice. Societies function better when most people believe that the moral code was handed down from god(s) and not made up by men.
Machiavellian Princes of course believe that religion is a tool to control the masses and that when it comes to preserving the security of the State, moral codes do not apply. Thus we have “thou shalt not kill†as the core of our moral code, but it does not apply to warfare between states or matters of state security.
All human societies believe that killing a human being is morally wrong, except under special circumstances, but what is the definition of a human being and who is responsible for making that definition?
Everyone understands that a man executed by a firing squad is a human being. The execution may or may not be justified by the circumstances and the moral code, but there can be no question that a human being was executed. It is not a grey area.
Is a collection of cells from a human embryo a human being? That is a grey area in many peoples mind.
Only an immoral person would use the existence of grey areas in the moral code to justify clearly immoral conduct.
Until the atomic bomb, people treated science like a moral force, a religion almost, and scientists like priests. It was an emotional thing. That ardor cooled after the bomb was dropped.  Science jargon and factioids are often used by athiests to "prove"there is no G-d ( Dawkins and his ilk).  University scientists teach about the awe inspiring wonders of nature with a ho hum attitude, totally ignoring G-d while doing so. In fact, G-d is not welcome anywhere in the halls of academia. Technology is what gives the athiests emotional credibility as wise men which they use to mock religion. Â
All this is having an impact. The morals and values that took thousands of years to build within society are being torn down in 50 years by "scholars" and "intellectuals" using the credibility gained from technological achievements. If this is what Ben Stein meant, and I haven’t read him, so I don’t know, then I couldn’t agree more. Science has been used as an amoral world view to challenge the religous/moral world view that the scientists were raised with. This world view is very similar to the ancient pagan views.  The current intelligencia of the western world is leading the society back to the jungles of paganism. One awful step at a time. Soon the universities (e.g. Peter "the monster" Singer at Princeton) will get their definition of life recognized by the government and  used for killing live bablies and old people. It’s not that far fetched.  In that sense, science does cause death.Â
 Â
Â
Â
KevinD, DanielH,
Properly speaking, science is a method for discrediting theories. And nothing else. To believe that science produces knowledge (whether facts or truth) you need to believe in the fallacy of affirming the consequent (p->q, q :. p).
(It should be noted that though experiment is a main staple of science, merely experimenting is not in itself science, even if the experiments are done well.)
Speaking of fallacies, your whole premise is a fallacy.
X promotes A. Y misuses A to accomplish B. Therefore X is responsible for B.
By that reasoning, every human being is responsible for every single ill (or good) in the world. Because for whatever A that someone promotes, there is someone out there who can misuse it to create some unexpected, unwanted B.
That negates the meaning of responsibility: if everyone is responsible for everything, then no one is responsible for anything.
As an example…
The pastor wouldn’t murder anyone. The pastor’s friends wouldn’t murder anyone. But they’re not the only people in the world. When you open Pandora’s box, the evils will still fly out even if you were only trying to counsel people in moral behavior. No pastor will ever believe it, though. After all, he only meant good for the world.
PS 1 > TT 1 > EE 1 > PS 2
Karl Popper
In response to a given problem situation (PS1), a number of competing conjectures, or tentative theories (TT1), are systematically subjected to the most rigorous attempts at falsification possible. This process, error elimination (EE1), performs a similar function for science that natural selection performs for biological evolution. Theories that better survive the process of refutation are not more true, but rather, more "fit"—in other words, more applicable to the problem situation at hand (PS1). Consequently, just as a species’ "biological fit" does not predict continued survival, neither does rigorous testing protect a scientific theory from refutation in the future. Yet, as it appears that the engine of biological evolution has produced, over time, adaptive traits equipped to deal with more and more complex problems of survival, likewise, the evolution of theories through the scientific method may, in Popper’s view, reflect a certain type of progress: toward more and more interesting problems (PS2)
You could easily replace the word "science" in this commentary with "weebles". It would read with identical flaws. You cannot say because science exists and that bad people use it for harm that science causes harm. The same arguements about religion are just as absurd. Sure Machevelli would use religion to control the masses; but others use religion as a guide for a better and more fulfilling existence. Should we also take away religion? If there is a G-d then there must be a reason he created man to puzzle out the universe and develop science.
Until the atomic bomb, people treated science like a moral force, a religion almost, and scientists like priests. It was an emotional thing. That ardor cooled after the bomb was dropped.
The 9/11 hijackers murdered thousands of innocent people in the name of God and their religion. People should have reacted to this outrage by questioning religious fervor and reliance on religious law, but instead most reacted by increasing their ‘faith’ and their religious team spirit.Â
Which proves that people are not logical animals, and our scientific knowledge about human behavior is still mired in the dark ages. Like Ben Stein’s brain.
Karl Popper
When you serve two Administrations in the White House, I think you might begin to be qualified to critique Ben Stein’s intellect. Shy of that you just seem pathetic.
Kevin,
Anyone with the skill to make a valid psychological judgement on the basis of twenty- six words must be omniscient. Have you thought of becoming a therapist ?
An interview 1995  with author  Gore Vidal and former California Governor Jerry Brown, currently Attorney General of California. They’re talking about the Unabomber, Theodore Kaczynski, Harvard mathematician and UC Berkeley professor, and student of the social sciences. Gore Vidal,  and former Governor Jerry Brown, currently the California Attorney General in 1995 in a far ranging interview on  Pacifica  Radio: Jerry Brown, Well, you know, the Unabomber had a very important point to make, in his treatise—which, of course, no one talked about. They just talked about him, and how he was caught, and how he lived, and the vegetables he grew, and his rabbit or something. He talked about the fact that people were becoming domestic animals. And he said that’s the most important issue in America today, the fact that the American people are being rendered into the status of domestic animals. And there is nobody who is even contesting that issue. That’s the Unabomber. Gore Vidal: Yes. And he’s quite right. … The government is on top of everybody. Their sex lives, their intake of  this or that, files on anybody who wants to be a janitor, at the Washington Monument. Why do we allow this?  We allow it—it really starts with Harry Truman, to go back to the National Security State. People got used to being—I like that phrase, “domestic animalsâ€, of the Unabomber. They are domestic animals. Animal Farm, we might call the United States now. I don’t know anybody that I come across, from one end of the country to the other, who likes the way the place is run. Whether they’re conservative, whether they’re liberal, bomb throwers, quiet old ladies. Nobody likes the people in politics. Nobody likes Congress. Nobody likes the press, which sometimes gives the bad news, but generally gives the news that the ownership wants you to know. Now, when you finally get people so fed up, something’s going to break. And I more and more, as I see all these prisons going up, and everybody being sent off to prison, with three strikes and so on, they are preparing, really, for a showdown with the American people. They’re already talking about using for minor drug offenders the old Army camps that are being shut down. To pen them in. More animal farming.  The animals are going to turn one day and bite. And even now, perhaps, as we are chatting, there is some young boy or girl who will grow up and overthrow this government. Because it has overthrown our old republic; it seems to be doing its best to overthrow our Bill of Rights and the Constitution …  So what do you think ? Does it ring any bells re: Timothy McVeigh, Columbine, Virginia Tech ?Â
An interview 1995  with author  Gore Vidal and former California Governor Jerry Brown, currently Attorney General of California. They’re talking about the Unabomber, Theodore Kaczynski, Harvard mathematician and UC Berkeley professor, and student of the social sciences. Gore Vidal,  and former Governor Jerry Brown, currently the California Attorney General in 1995 in a far ranging interview on  Pacifica  Radio.  Jerry Brown, Well, you know, the Unabomber had a very important point to make, in his treatise—which, of course, no one talked about. They just talked about him, and how he was caught, and how he lived, and the vegetables he grew, and his rabbit or something. He talked about the fact that people were becoming domestic animals. And he said that’s the most important issue in America today, the fact that the American people are being rendered into the status of domestic animals. And there is nobody who is even contesting that issue. That’s the Unabomber. Gore Vidal: Yes. And he’s quite right. … The government is on top of everybody. Their sex lives, their intake of  this or that, files on anybody who wants to be a janitor, at the Washington Monument. Why do we allow this?  We allow it—it really starts with Harry Truman, to go back to the National Security State. People got used to being—I like that phrase, “domestic animalsâ€, of the Unabomber. They are domestic animals. Animal Farm, we might call the United States now. I don’t know anybody that I come across, from one end of the country to the other, who likes the way the place is run. Whether they’re conservative, whether they’re liberal, bomb throwers, quiet old ladies. Nobody likes the people in politics. Nobody likes Congress. Nobody likes the press, which sometimes gives the bad news, but generally gives the news that the ownership wants you to know. Now, when you finally get people so fed up, something’s going to break. And I more and more, as I see all these prisons going up, and everybody being sent off to prison, with three strikes and so on, they are preparing, really, for a showdown with the American people. They’re already talking about using for minor drug offenders the old Army camps that are being shut down. To pen them in. More animal farming.  The animals are going to turn one day and bite. And even now, perhaps, as we are chatting, there is some young boy or girl who will grow up and overthrow this government. Because it has overthrown our old republic; it seems to be doing its best to overthrow our Bill of Rights and the Constitution …So what about Timothy McVey, Virginia Tech, Columbine ?
Stein says:Stein:  …Love of God and compassion and empathy leads you to a very glorious place, and science leads you to killing people.
Is he really wrong ?
An interview 1995  with author  Gore Vidal and former California Governor Jerry Brown, currently Attorney General of California. They’re talking about the Unabomber, Theodore Kaczynski, Harvard mathematician and UC Berkeley professor, and student of the social sciences. Jerry Brown, Well, you know, the Unabomber had a very important point to make, in his treatise—which, of course, no one talked about. They just talked about him, and how he was caught, and how he lived, and the vegetables he grew, and his rabbit or something. He talked about the fact that people were becoming domestic animals. And he said that’s the most important issue in America today, the fact that the American people are being rendered into the status of domestic animals. And there is nobody who is even contesting that issue. That’s the Unabomber. Gore Vidal: Yes. And he’s quite right. … The government is on top of everybody. Their sex lives, their intake of  this or that, files on anybody who wants to be a janitor, at the Washington Monument. Why do we allow this?  We allow it—it really starts with Harry Truman, to go back to the National Security State. People got used to being—I like that phrase, “domestic animalsâ€, of the Unabomber. They are domestic animals. Animal Farm, we might call the United States now. I don’t know anybody that I come across, from one end of the country to the other, who likes the way the place is run. Whether they’re conservative, whether they’re liberal, bomb throwers, quiet old ladies. Nobody likes the people in politics. Nobody likes Congress. Nobody likes the press, which sometimes gives the bad news, but generally gives the news that the ownership wants you to know. Now, when you finally get people so fed up, something’s going to break. And I more and more, as I see all these prisons going up, and everybody being sent off to prison, with three strikes and so on, they are preparing, really, for a showdown with the American people. They’re already talking about using for minor drug offenders the old Army camps that are being shut down. To pen them in. More animal farming.  The animals are going to turn one day and bite. And even now, perhaps, as we are chatting, there is some young boy or girl who will grow up and overthrow this government. Because it has overthrown our old republic; it seems to be doing its best to overthrow our Bill of Rights and the Constitution …
Back to the topic.
An interview 1995  with author  Gore Vidal and former California Governor Jerry Brown, currently Attorney General of California. They’re talking about the Unabomber, Theodore Kaczynski, Harvard mathematician and UC Berkeley professor, and student of the social sciences. Jerry Brown, Well, you know, the Unabomber had a very important point to make, in his treatise—which, of course, no one talked about. They just talked about him, and how he was caught, and how he lived, and the vegetables he grew, and his rabbit or something. He talked about the fact that people were becoming domestic animals. And he said that’s the most important issue in America today, the fact that the American people are being rendered into the status of domestic animals. And there is nobody who is even contesting that issue. That’s the Unabomber. Gore Vidal: Yes. And he’s quite right. … The government is on top of everybody. Their sex lives, their intake of  this or that, files on anybody who wants to be a janitor, at the Washington Monument. Why do we allow this?  We allow it—it really starts with Harry Truman, to go back to the National Security State. People got used to being—I like that phrase, “domestic animalsâ€, of the Unabomber. They are domestic animals. Animal Farm, we might call the United States now. I don’t know anybody that I come across, from one end of the country to the other, who likes the way the place is run. Whether they’re conservative, whether they’re liberal, bomb throwers, quiet old ladies. Nobody likes the people in politics. Nobody likes Congress. Nobody likes the press, which sometimes gives the bad news, but generally gives the news that the ownership wants you to know. Now, when you finally get people so fed up, something’s going to break. And I more and more, as I see all these prisons going up, and everybody being sent off to prison, with three strikes and so on, they are preparing, really, for a showdown with the American people. They’re already talking about using for minor drug offenders the old Army camps that are being shut down. To pen them in. More animal farming.  The animals are going to turn one day and bite. And even now, perhaps, as we are chatting, there is some young boy or girl who will grow up and overthrow this government. Because it has overthrown our old republic; it seems to be doing its best to overthrow our Bill of Rights and the Constitution …
uncheck
uncheck
uncheck,
I’ll figure it out eventually.
When you serve two Administrations in the White House, I think you might begin to be qualified to critique Ben Stein’s intellect. Shy of that you just seem pathetic.
Anybody want to list how many logical fallacy’s Kevin tripped over with just these two sentences?
When you serve two Administrations in the White House, I think you might begin to be qualified to critique Ben Stein’s intellect. Shy of that you just seem pathetic.
You prove my point.
Of course, it is pathetic to be commenting on a pathetic essay like this. People killed people after being exposed to scientific theory. People killed people before being exposed to scientific theory.
People killed people after being exposed to 7Up. People killed people before being exposed to 7Up. The scientific method is amoral. So is the light sugary taste of 7Up. What does this prove about religion and the law of God? Ask Ben Stein.
When you open Pandora’s box, the evils will still fly out even if you were only trying to satisfy your curiosity.
Japan and the Nordic countries have become the least-religious nations on earth, with more unbelievers than believers. Can you guess what the murder rate is? Hint: Much, much lower than in the US.
Your statement is mere speculation, and contradicted by real-world evidence.
The scientific method is amoral. So is the light sugary taste of 7Up.
Now THIS is a flat-out LIE!
Mary,
9/11 was an attack on America by Islamists. This should cool your ardor for multi culturalism, not airplanes and not G-d. And just a little bit of thought before reacting will make this discussion deeper and more constructive.
Like science, religion has many strengths, good and bad. Islamists have political goals, but they’re often recruited by religion. Anyone who knows history knows that religion and hatred of the ‘other’ has caused a lot of damage.
And unlike science, religion can’t cure cancer, build bridges or prevent disease.
Monsignor Lorenzo Albacete says it better:
From the first moment I looked into that horror on Sept. 11, into that fireball, into that explosion of horror, I knew it. I knew it before anything was said about those who did it or why. I recognized an old companion. I recognized religion. Look, I am a priest for over 30 years. Religion is my life, it’s my vocation, it’s my existence. I’d give my life for it; I hope to have the courage. Therefore, I know it.
And I know, and recognized that day, that the same force, energy, sense, instinct, whatever, passion — because religion can be a passion — the same passion that motivates religious people to do great things is the same one that that day brought all that destruction. When they said that the people who did it did it in the name of God, I wasn’t the slightest bit surprised. It only confirmed what I knew. I recognized it.
I recognized this thirst, this demand for the absolute. Because if you don’t hang on to the unchanging, to the absolute, to that which cannot disappear, you might disappear. I recognized that this thirst for the never-ending, the permanent, the wonders of all things, this intolerance or fear of diversity, that which is different — these are characteristics of religion. And I knew that that force could take you to do great things. But I knew that there was no greater and more destructive force on the surface of this earth than the religious passion.
My friends in the business, religious leaders, we all took to the streets to try to salvage something of it. Funny, suddenly every government official became a religious leader, reassuring us that all religions are for peace. I understand. It was embarrassing. And now I think we have a religious duty to face this ambivalence about religion, and to do something about it. To promote that which makes it a constructive force and to protect us from that which makes it a destructive force. …
Mary,
Unlike religion, science can’t motivate people to be good when no one is looking. And this is way more important than any benefit of science. Societies flourished without science, they must collapse without morality.
Science remains as frail as every other human endeavor, and has driven mass iatrogenic death just as it has murder. Rummel’s data make that clear. The history of Science includes far more that the wonderful things that comfort us. Note this excellent paper from 1988: <http://www.helsinki.fi/~pjojala/Stein2.htm>
I ran across this post on Dr. Pournelle’s blog a few days ago from a molecular biologist which I found both compelling and instructive. If I may quote, in part:
"… I would resist religion being taught in science classes. But I don’t think that science classes should attack religion, either.
The humility aspect of this debate is where my own prejudice lies. Neither side is humble, and neither can conceive of a Creator any wiser or stranger than a human being.
This all takes me back to Haldane: the universe is not stranger than we imagine. It is stranger than we *can* imagine…"Â
<http://www.jerrypournelle.com/mail/2008/Q2/mail514.html#Sunday>
Unlike religion, science can’t motivate people to be good when no one is looking. And this is way more important than any benefit of science. Societies flourished without science, they must collapse without morality.
So typeth detroit VB, as his words are spread worldwide across the internet. Since you think societies flourish with just religion and no science, why are you using this inherently amoral, potentially murderous tool?
And when you’re sick, do you call your spiritual advisor or your doctor?
Science shouldn’t attack religion, but religion shouldn’t attack science. If both stay in their separate spheres, we can avoid yet more pointless "us vs. them" conflicts. There are too many of them already.
But Mary, that is exactly the problem. Many people are substituting Science as their Religion.
Science is not an ideology, it is a tool. And it, just like gun, can be used by moral people to moral purposes, or by immoral people to immoral purposes.
You can no more say that Religion shouldn’t effect how you use Science anymore than you can say Religion shouldn’t effect how I use a gun.
Saying otherwise would be to argue that killing people in various different ways is OK so long as you learn about the limits the human body can withstand. Such things can be done scientifically to obtain a more accurate understanding of things. To say that because it is Science then it is OK, is exactly what ctl is arguing against
Kevin, moral values should influence how we use any tool, like science, but religion does not = moral values.
“Unlike religion, science can’t motivate people to be good when no one is looking. And this is way more important than any benefit of science. Societies flourished without science, they must collapse without morality.”
Aquaducts were not a religious vision, they were an invention. Society would collapse without sanitation, medicine, philosophy, art, and other things that science has brought to us.
Comparing Science to an ideal such as a religion is like comparing an apple to a brick. They are fudamentally different even at the microscopic level. One is a process for verifying observations and recording them for invention or further science; the other is a set of beliefs and standards that govern what is immoral and what is moral. Society would have a difficult time without religion to be sure, but science also allows man to grow and to be happier with their worldly trappings. If we are the caretakers of the garden, then how will we be able to take care of the garden without science. If a G-d wanted us to obey our nature and never exercise free will we would have been made beasts.
Mary,
Yes, so I doeth so sayeth. I am not against science. I and members of my family make our living in the tech sector, deveoping software and building satellites. But I don’t confuse a tool, like science/technology with a comprehensive worldview. I go to the doctor when I’m sick, but I pray that G-d guide the surgeon’s hands and the internest’s mind.   Â
My point is, science provides no basis whatsoever for moral values, but it is being treated as if it does. Only religion provides a basis for moral values. And the intelligencia of our society has replaced religon with science.
<i>Aquaducts were not a religious vision, they were an invention. Society would collapse without sanitation, medicine, philosophy, art, and other things that science has brought to us.</i>
It’s news to me to hear that there were no stable societies before science and the things it brought us.
While not Kevin, I would say that Science != Morals either. Although, technically, religion does equal moral values. Maybe not ones that you and I agree with, but they are statements of moral values nonetheless. I believe the correct statment is that religion doesn’t necessarily mean *good* morals.
The problem is that there have been and are (and probably always will be) people who say that morals should not interfer with science at all. You’ll often hear this phrased as "Religion shouldn’t interfere with the pursuit of science".
The problem is that Science isn’t a thing that can be pursued. It just can’t. You might as well say you are pursuing hammer. You could be pursuing *obtaining a* hammer. You could be pursuing building a chair by using a hammer. But you can’t pursue hammer. You certainly can’t defend smashing things by claiming you are only pursuing hammer.
Science is a thing that you pursue *with*. What you pursue, however, must be guided by your morals/religion.  When you make Science your end rather than your means, there is no limit to the horror you can unleash because Science has no morals with which to define "Horror". There is no "right" and "wrong", only "is". Murder isn’t wrong, it just "is". Theft isn’t wrong, it just "is". Kidnapping isn’t wrong, it just "is". Genocide isn’t wrong, it just "is".
I despair at the people, from both ends of the spectrum, who believe that there is any overlap between science and religion.
If one needs faith to believe a particular teaching of science, then it’s no longer science. Likewise, if one needs physical proof to believe a particular teaching of religion, it’s no longer religion.
Faith is the dominion of religion, evidence is the dominion of science. Science and religion are the yin and the yang. They are complementary. Neither one can address the existence or validity of the other.
I have to scratch my head over scientists who abuse science, and religious folks who abuse religion in this debate.
Boyd’s last blog post..More than just the same old thing
Boyd,
What is the abuse of religon in this discussion that you speak of?
I wasn’t addressing this particular discussion with my last sentence. I was talking about the meta debate of Science vs. Religion.
Sorry if I misled anyone on that.
Boyd’s last blog post..More than just the same old thing
Only religion provides a basis for moral values. And the intelligencia of our society has replaced religon with science.
Both of these statements are the kind of "absolute" ideas that Monsignor Lorenzo Albacete was criticizing. If you won’t listen to me, then listen to him.
And if you don’t listen to the Monsignor, you prove that "Only religion provides a basis for moral values" is wrong.
void
void
Mary,
"And if you don’t listen to the Monsignor, you prove that "Only religion provides a basis for moral values" is wrong."
I don’t understand this. Would you please explain. Â
Both of these statements are the kind of "absolute" ideas that Monsignor Lorenzo Albacete was criticizing.
Also, are your ideas not absolute, in the sense that you consider them to be objectively true and not a chemical reaction in your body? If so, we are all absolutists and therefore this is not a meaningful critisism.
I don’t understand this. Would you please explain.
The monsignor is a religious authority. According to your reasoning, only religion provides a basis for moral values. Therefore, only the monsignor (and not me, you or Ben Stein) provides a basis for moral values.
Mary,
I’m not endorsing any particular religion as being true in this discussion. I’m merely pointing out that the set of concepts properly addressed by science has no elements that refer in any way to absolute moral Good and Evil. I can and do disagree with all sorts of religious authorities but religion is the sphere of life that addresses these issue, science does not and cannot. e.g. Nothing in science can tell me that disassociating a group of molocules within a human being in any particular instance is Murder and Evil. Those are not scientific terms and can’t be.  I don’t see this as a hard idea to grasp.   Â
Let’s also remember, people who are disagreeing about what is Absolutely True all agree that there is such a thing as Absoulte Truth.Â
Now if the Monsignor is writing against fanaticism, religious or otherwise, I heartily agree. Fanatics rarely arrive at the truth and if they do stumble upon it are in no position to relate to other human beings with it.
"It’s news to me to hear that there were no stable societies before science and the things it brought us."
Man creating weapons, man creating the wheel, man learning how to harness fire. These things were all discovered before religion was concrete as we know it. Science has been there just as long as dog-faced gods and blood rituals. In fact there was no society as we know it until man became agrarian and began cultivating food. The nomadic existence of man prior to that did not allow for stable communities on a massive scale like we see today. Farming and knowing how to grow crops is a primitive science by the way.
Science, the act of discovery, experimentation, and reasoning out the world around us has been around just as long as the human desire to imagine or creat the metaphysical. No more no less it is part of who we are.
Picking up a club and beating something with it is not science.  Otherwise every toddler that bangs a toy on the counter because it makes a noise is performing science. Or perhaps a better analogy is a puppy using it’s teeth (a weapon) to establish dominance is using science.
But I don’t think you really want to claim that canine society would crumble without science.
"Picking up a club and beating something with it is not science.  Otherwise every toddler that bangs a toy on the counter because it makes a noise is performing science."
Yes, every toddler who bangs a toy for the first time to discover the noise is indeed a scientist. Kids at that age are natural scientists. They don’t know a thing about proper design of experiments, but they most definitely experiment. They’re looking for reproducible patterns that they can put to use.
And yes, at one time, picking up a club and beating something with it was science. The scientific method, with its emphasis on repeatability, reproducibility, and falsification, is a pretty recent invention, one which makes for much higher quality experimental results; but experimental science is as old as mankind.
The issue as I see it really are people who are so impressed with Science that they say: if it isn’t scientific it isn’t reality. As if the only things that are real are those that can be measured in a lab. And that is how we have gotten into the intellectual muddle that we are in today – science instead of religiion.
"Picking up a club and beating something with it is not science.  Otherwise every toddler that bangs a toy on the counter because it makes a noise is performing science. Or perhaps a better analogy is a puppy using it’s teeth (a weapon) to establish dominance is using science. But I don’t think you really want to claim that canine society would crumble without science." Harnessing fire is science. It took a lot of trial and error, and someone to notice friction causes heat to come up with that idea. Picking up a stick and beating something with it is quite the over-simplification. Making a weapon aero dynamic, for example takes a lot more work. The club was replaced by the javelin and the sling very early on. A canine society? Sure I’ll stretch reality that far with you because it makes sense in an esoteric way. We can’t say that a pack of beasts have religion either. We are referring to human society. If your point is that we can live like beasts with no ability to create and observe or believe in a set of morals then yes you can exist without either.
Now, if you want to go deeper and say the invention of scientific method is ‘true science’ then that is a different debate. Some might say that, it was a well thought out definition for what already existed and a refinement upon our existing capacity for logic; giving it a formula to emphasize the more productive aspects of experimentation. This carried science, which already existed, to a more orderly and logical level so more complicated processes could be performed. Writing helped science a lot as well. Imagine trying to explain to others how you accidentally made gunpowder without writing! So, as civilization advanced so too did our science. But in our dark days, something as simple as picking up a stick and beating something with it still separated us from the beasts. There never would have been a society as we know it if that person hadn’t realized that he could use a weapon and dominate the other beasts, or that friction causes heat and it can be used to make fire. In fact the desire to find out how the world works is exactly what spurs the creation of myth and gods. The belief in the creator in and of itself is a rationalization of how the world must have came about. Believing in that creator without physically seeing that creator is faith, but the desire to understand where we come from and the thought that a higher being could create us in the first place is also science. A canine society does not wonder where they came from, they only exist to feed their bellies and satiate their thirst. It is hardly comparable if it could be even called a society in the context of this conversation.
jrogge,
Believing that what you experience with your senses has any reality outside of yourself is just as much "faith" as recognizing the logical necessity for there to have been a Creator. Both insights are fundimentally derived from a person’s intuition, which is a power of his soul.
Nonsense. Science is provable at least in the sense that you can do the same thing over and over, and you’ll get the same results. My senses can perceive that, as well as your senses, as well as anyone else’s senses.
I say this as a man of deep and abiding faith: equating science and religion is either foolish or disingenuous. Take your pick.
Boyd’s last blog post..More than just the same old thing
Sorry, you guys are confusing learning with science. They are not the same things. A toddler doesn’t repeat the banging because they want to learn about how sound is made or which things make different sounds. He just likes the sound so he repeats his previous action.Â
I remember one study back in my college days of an experiment done on some bird (a chicken I think) where seed was dropped into the cage at standard intervals. The chicken latched on to some action it had taken just before the seed arrived and so started repeated it to make the seed appear. Now the seed didn’t always show up at the "command" but sometimes it did (and inconsistent reinforcement has the longest diminishing time for a behavior) The chicken had, by your definition, used science to create superstition!
But wait, I thought superstition and science were mutually exclusive?
Well, they are. Because what the chicked did wasn’t science, it was learning. And because it *wasn’t* using science, it learned the wrong thing.
So sorry, while both the chicken and the toddler have learned (or are learning) about their environment, Science it ain’t.
Boyd,
I’m not equating them except in one aspect – they only have any value to us as attempts to percieve reality. And all reality is percieved by the same faculties – the soul’s intuition. And yes, that includes the data of the senses.
"Sorry, you guys are confusing learning with science. They are not the same things. "
No, you’re the one who’s confused. Sorry. Learning by experiment is science. It’s just not very sophisticated science, until you add in rigorous scientific method.
If you can hang out with a toddler and not see a natural scientific curiosity at work, one of you is too dull to see the wonders of the world. I’m betting it’s not the toddler.
"Now the seed didn’t always show up at the "command" but sometimes it did (and inconsistent reinforcement has the longest diminishing time for a behavior) The chicken had, by your definition, used science to create superstition!"
Ah, so drawing incorrect conclusions means it’s not science? Then there’s no science whatsoever, because all science draws incorrect conclusions from time to time. Rigorous science tests its conclusions; but to hold early scientists to the standards of rigor we have built up over generations is a kind of arrogance.
dVB, you certainly have a different definition of reality from me. At any rate, blurring religion and science doesn’t help one to understand either of them, IMHO.
Boyd’s last blog post..More than just the same old thing
Hmmm… I did not attempt to equate science and religion, but after reading my own statement myself it appears I was unclear in stating what I intended to say. I am saying that the human drive to make sense of the numinous is where both spring from. From there, they separate into two different fields. In other words they come from the same source, but exemplify different aspects of humanity. They only share that common root. I was unclear in that statement.
Science requires learning. If you can’t understand that then I’m sorry. Figuring out a math formula that allows us to land a probe on Mars requires us to learn Mars’ orbit around the sun and the Earth’s orbit around the sun and calculate where the pod will end up when launched at a specific time and position relative to Mars. Man learned a lot of information before such a calculation could even be attempted. It took centuries of observation.
Your chicken is not going to remember the experiment in two weeks and will go back to it’s instinctive behavior. However the experiment in and of itself was science because they were able to get a chicken to behave a certain way with repeatable results. You keep equating man to animals, are you a strict Darwinist?
You have to learn, to be scientific. Scientific method is really just a very precise method of learning. You are figuring out the answer to a question by doing something, and if you get repeatable results you have learned that when this happens, it causes that.
Early science was as simple as beating an animal with a stick and figuring out that you could more easily kill it. But the difference here, what makes that part of the scientific process, is that man took that stick and made it better by using what they learned and adding to it. This is something animals have limited capacity in doing. Even chimps, one of the most intelligent mammals, do not continue to create ideas or try to improve upon the stick they use as a tool. They figure out a use for it and it stops there. Only in strict conditions in captivity do they even learn sign language and other habits, wild chimps would kill that chimp and take it’s food. Animals do not perform science because they do not ask questions and see what they can do once they make a discovery. Humans do and have always done so.
Science is taking what we have learned and building upon it or disproving it and building upon that new data. Animals do not do this. If you can only argue in chickens and canines then either you see all beings as sentient or you are forgetting that science is a human practice.
We interrupt this dialogue searching under the guise of finding some intelligible brain candy. So far the search has been clueless.
This may help.
Neither metaphysicians nor scientists need apply.
Into the Mystic
Why do people laugh at creationists ?
It’s true that there are non-religious arguments for why a person shouldn’t murder another person, but I’ve never met a man who’s gullible enough to believe them.
This is exactly why there are so many atheists in the US prison system. Atheists are somewhere around 8-10% of the US population, and when you look at the number of them in prison you find that they make up…
0.2% of the prison population
Oh, wait, that’s the exact opposite of what you’re arguing – it shows that despite not having a religious argument to remain moral, atheists are significantly underrepresented in prison.
Inconvenient for your argument, but please, don’t let the facts get in the way…
Comments on this entry are closed.