Science
Perhaps we need to make some distinctions.
The Scientific Method is not relgious. It is a ritual that requires the premise to be defined and the outcome to be hypothesized when variables change, and then proven correct or incorrect based on experimentation. No faith required.
Scientists, however, are required to possess esoteric knowledge. My mathematics stops at High Algebra: Anything else looks like magic. I know as much about the inner workings of a star as I do about summoning a demon (layman's knowledge, probably incorrect). This certainly qualifies them as some sort of gnostic.
I could learn about the insides of a star, just as I could learn about summoning a demon, but without the background knowledge (chemistry, physics, mathematics) I'm lost, and I have to take the scientists word ON FAITH.
That's where scientism comes in. I think many of the people claiming "a scientific worldview" and writing articles don't actually know that much about how science works. I've tried to wrap my head around calculus, quantum mechanics, and certain other terribly difficult scientific topics, and I just don't get it. But I understand that my computer processes electrical charges in such a way, due to the properties of materials that make up the computer, to allow me to talk to you. However, I couldn't DO it, and if it breaks, I have to go to a specialist. I take it on faith that they know what they are doing.
The Scientific Method is great for hard, material, physical, mathametically modeled things. It gets less good at the extremes (Beginning, end) and when dealing with, for lack of a better term, 'squishy sciences' like economics, psychology, or sociology.
That said: To a true scientist, science is not religious, and science will lead them where the scientific method leads them. To the layperson, science might as well be magic, beyond a certain point. And many people who aren't scientists cling to it with a relgious fevor I rarely see except in Fundamentalists. Dawkins may be a scientist and understand the 'fact' of evolution, but I have to take it on faith.
The Scientific Method is not relgious. It is a ritual that requires the premise to be defined and the outcome to be hypothesized when variables change, and then proven correct or incorrect based on experimentation. No faith required.
Scientists, however, are required to possess esoteric knowledge. My mathematics stops at High Algebra: Anything else looks like magic. I know as much about the inner workings of a star as I do about summoning a demon (layman's knowledge, probably incorrect). This certainly qualifies them as some sort of gnostic.
I could learn about the insides of a star, just as I could learn about summoning a demon, but without the background knowledge (chemistry, physics, mathematics) I'm lost, and I have to take the scientists word ON FAITH.
That's where scientism comes in. I think many of the people claiming "a scientific worldview" and writing articles don't actually know that much about how science works. I've tried to wrap my head around calculus, quantum mechanics, and certain other terribly difficult scientific topics, and I just don't get it. But I understand that my computer processes electrical charges in such a way, due to the properties of materials that make up the computer, to allow me to talk to you. However, I couldn't DO it, and if it breaks, I have to go to a specialist. I take it on faith that they know what they are doing.
The Scientific Method is great for hard, material, physical, mathametically modeled things. It gets less good at the extremes (Beginning, end) and when dealing with, for lack of a better term, 'squishy sciences' like economics, psychology, or sociology.
That said: To a true scientist, science is not religious, and science will lead them where the scientific method leads them. To the layperson, science might as well be magic, beyond a certain point. And many people who aren't scientists cling to it with a relgious fevor I rarely see except in Fundamentalists. Dawkins may be a scientist and understand the 'fact' of evolution, but I have to take it on faith.
posted by Reverend Father Scott Rassbach at 11:32 AM
1 Comments:
the "squishy" sciences! I like that. You could include in this the Paranormal/Supernatural, which are quite like that famous "Dancing Frog" cartoon - if you aren't familiar with it, in the cartoon this guy finds a frog that sings and dances and he sets up a show to display the frogs amazing abilities and then it once the curtains are raised, it just sits there croaking. Where "Scientism" (the perversion of the True Spirit of Science) fails is in this realm of paranormal, or as I like to think of it "The Hidden normal". They lose their patience and assume the dancing frog isnt real
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