Carl Sagan quote - Science is much more than a body of knowledge

[Charlemagne_III]

I think that you knew that Sagan wasn’t talking about wisdom per se but knowledge that has been generally accepted as fact to the point where it has become become ‘established wisdom’.

I’m sure you could think of lots of examples.

One aspect of “established wisdom” is religious wisdom. I don’t see in any of his writings Sagan advancing the idea that there is any real wisdom in the “established wisdom” of religion, and to the extent that he was a “pitchman for scientism” (to borrow a phrase from buffalo) I think that showed he had little or no respect for “established wisdom.” I believe Sagan was an atheist and that he could not see the God even Einstein (no friend of organized religions) could see.

Sagan has never struck me as a philosophical type at all, but rather as a popularizer of science. I think he is a type of the scientist that Einstein was referring to when he said “they cannot see the forest for the trees.”

 

[mikekle]

If that were possible do you really think it would be made available to the average man or even the average American? If immortality were possible from a human technological approach it would be given to a select few. The idea of overpopulation of earth would be pushed far more, and the likes of you and me would never receive access to the technology. There would then be a real class system.

Like I said, it wont be available to most people initially, but eventually, after 10, 20+ yrs, it probably will become the norm for everyone.

Overpopulation is a concern, but what do societies look like in many futuristic shows and movies? there are usually 100 billion people living on the planet, and cities have grown out, and UP, to accommodate all these people, also its possible within 100 or so years, we will likely colonize the moon.

You are right, there would be class system like nothing seen before, but I do think these things will happen.My only question is, what God will do about it and whether he will intervene or allow such things…I tend to think if humans ever discover a method to literally beat physical death, God would definitely step in and make sure it doesnt happen, this would also be a bad thing for Satan too, since his goal is to have as many souls in hell as possible, so if humans found a way to avoid dying, this would throw a wrench into his plan as well!!

But then again, such an intervention may infringe upon our free will…?? tough one to figure out.

Maybe this is what God meant when he said men will become like gods? problem is though if this happens, the TRUE God looses out, but in his loosing out, he would also be sacrificing himself for our happiness. well maybe not happiness, but letting us take our free will wherever it leads us…NO MATTER WHAT EXTREME IT REACHES.

 

[jerome_ky]

However I did see on the national news yesterday, some university did an experiment using telepathy to send information to someone in another country and it was successful and I believe they said it was 100 times faster than a text message or email, so that is promising!!

Since we’re discussing science, can you give the relevant facts:

Which university?
Which national news organization?
Which planet?

 

[Bradski]

[BIBLEDRB][/BIBLEDRB]

Sagan was a pitchman for scientism.

Whodda thought, eh? A scientist being a proponent of science. You’ll be telling us that the pope is a pitchman for Catholicism next.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

[BIBLEDRB][/BIBLEDRB]

Whodda thought, eh? A scientist being a proponent of science. You’ll be telling us that the pope is a pitchman for Catholicism next.

Well, no, he said Sagan was a pitchman for scientism, not science.

And actually the pope is a pitchman for both Catholicism and science, but not for scientism.

 

[inocente]

From Sagan’s quote:

“It [science] urges on us a fine balance between no-holds-barred openness to new ideas, however heretical, and the most rigorous skeptical scrutiny of everything — new ideas and established wisdom.”

This passage in particular betrays Sagan’s own lack of wisdom. Science has nothing to do with wisdom. Science is concerned with acquiring a special type of knowledge achieved by certain special means appropriate to the particular science.

I think you’re missing that Sagan says “a fine balance”. He’s saying that science involves a way of thinking in which we neither accept every new idea just because it is fashionable, nor stick with every old idea just because others did, but instead we consider only the merit of the idea itself.

I’ve not read much Sagan so don’t have any axe to grind, but surely what he says in that quote is a reasonable philosophy.

 

[SecretCatholic]

Not sure about your comment on scientism. I’ve met far fewer of that kind of religionista than the god-of-the-gaps anti-science types who maintain that science will destroy civilization (but carry on using all the technological fruits, including scientific medicine, as apparently that’s totally different).

I’m not sure that the characterization of Sagan here is accurate or not. The old Cosmos was not full of Scientism, like the new one is. He did knock on the church a bit- but Father Barron has a good video on that. It seems like he was ill-informed about what he said, so I’d give him the benefit of the doubt there. In any case, whether it was the times or the man, Sagan certainly did not come out as aggressively anti-religion as the new Scientistic promoters of atheism.

As for the fundamentalists- Yes, they’re on the wrong track. But one can hardly blame those who are reacting to the super-fast, culture and technologically-changing world. That said, I like science, and I like technology.

BUT- I am also of the opinion that it will ultimately destroy us. It’s not so much the science of the technology, as the power it will give us, combined with our fallen nature. I see far too much immaturity and lack of respect for human dignity today. As for using the technological fruits- What are we to do? We don’t have much of a choice to carry on in post-modern society.

 

[inocente]

I’m not sure that the characterization of Sagan here is accurate or not. The old Cosmos was not full of Scientism, like the new one is. He did knock on the church a bit- but Father Barron has a good video on that. It seems like he was ill-informed about what he said, so I’d give him the benefit of the doubt there. In any case, whether it was the times or the man, Sagan certainly did not come out as aggressively anti-religion as the new Scientistic promoters of atheism.

As for the fundamentalists- Yes, they’re on the wrong track. But one can hardly blame those who are reacting to the super-fast, culture and technologically-changing world. That said, I like science, and I like technology.

BUT- I am also of the opinion that it will ultimately destroy us. It’s not so much the science of the technology, as the power it will give us, combined with our fallen nature. I see far too much immaturity and lack of respect for human dignity today. As for using the technological fruits- What are we to do? We don’t have much of a choice to carry on in post-modern society.

We could do the flower-power back-to-nature thing. Or join the Amish. But I think very few people would willingly walk away from having an automobile, a flushing toilet, and antibiotics. There would definitely be far fewer people on the planet without scientific medicine, and those people would have shorter lives.

Some folk probably got upset about the invention of the wheel. Certainly gun powder. Knowledge is power, and power can be used for good or evil. Yes, curiosity may kill the cat but we can’t change who we are, and we are curious.

But surely that’s the way God planned it, that’s the way God wants it to be.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

We could do the flower-power back-to-nature thing. Or join the Amish. But I think very few people would willingly walk away from having an automobile, a flushing toilet, and antibiotics. There would definitely be far fewer people on the planet without scientific medicine, and those people would have shorter lives.

But surely that’s the way God planned it, that’s the way God wants it to be.

Ah, but you forgot nuclear weapons. Is that also the way God wants it to be?

 

[NewEnglandPriest]

Since we’re discussing science, can you give the relevant facts:

Which university?
Which national news organization?
Which planet?

Apparently it was Harvard. Several news outlets carried the story. And it was planet earth.

However, the actual story is much less impressive…

Scientists reportedly conduct world’s first successful telepathy experiment

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Maybe this is what God meant when he said men will become like gods?

I never saw that in the Bible.

Book, chapter, and verse?

 

[buffalo]

Whodda thought, eh? A scientist being a proponent of science. You’ll be telling us that the pope is a pitchman for Catholicism next.

Not science, scientism.

 

[inocente]

Ah, but you forgot nuclear weapons. Is that also the way God wants it to be?

Some probably thought the same about the invention of fire, the longbow, gunpowder, the Zeppelin, carpet bombing, …

But I don’t believe God has left the building, whatever Einstein and other deists may say.

I never saw that in the Bible.

Book, chapter, and verse?

I think it would be “Then the Lord God said, ‘See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil;’” - Gen 3

 

[mikekle]

I never saw that in the Bible.

Book, chapter, and verse?

Psalms 82:6…"I said, ‘You are “gods”; you are all sons of the Most High.’

I thought there was also some verse that says something along the lines of man now becoming like gods themselves…maybe this was in one of the books that didnt make it into the bible…I know Ive heard it somewhere though.

 

[clem456]

I’m not afraid of the scientific method, I don’t believe there’s anything wrong with taking a logical and rational look at one’s beliefs, as good apologists do. But I don’t believe that’s the only way. Some things (beauty, morality) must be looked at philosophically. The problem is that some atheists don’t agree and who claim (as Stephen Hawking does) that philosophy is dead.

Philosophy IS science. It is a seeking of answers using reason, hopefully illuminated by the light of faith.
I don’t see any reason for alarm in what Carl Sagan SAID in your quote, however the conclusions he reaches about God in his life as a whole are not compatible with Catholicism.
vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_15101998_fides-et-ratio_en.html

1. Men and women have at their disposal an array of resources for generating greater knowledge of truth so that their lives may be ever more human. Among these is philosophy, which is directly concerned with asking the question of life’s meaning and sketching an answer to it. Philosophy emerges, then, as one of noblest of human tasks. According to its Greek etymology, the term philosophy means “love of wisdom”. Born and nurtured when the human being first asked questions about the reason for things and their purpose, philosophy shows in different modes and forms that the desire for truth is part of human nature itself. It is an innate property of human reason to ask why things are as they are,

You can’t help but feel sorry for those who are stuck in the prison of their own minds. To say that philosophy is dead is insanity, absolutely insane. Human beings are always searching for the meaning of existence.

Philosophy always buries its undertakers (Etienne Gilson)

 

[Fr_of_Jazz]

Philosophy always buries its undertakers.

Incidentally if you want the exact citation for this quote–one of my favorites too–here it is.

“Philosophy always buries its undertakers.”
[Etienne Gilson, *The Unity of Philosophical Experience. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1937, p. 306]

 

[ThinkingSapien]

Philosophy IS science.

…I could see it being argued that Science has philosophical elements. But in contemporary science it seems a bit strange to say that “Philosophy is science” unless you are talking about one of the more archaic usages of the the word “science” (knowledge). But I don’t think that is what is being discussed.

 

[clem456]

…I could see it being argued that Science has philosophical elements. But in contemporary science it seems a bit strange to say that “Philosophy is science” unless you are talking about one of the more archaic usages of the the word “science” (knowledge). But I don’t think that is what is being discussed.

Yes probably an overstatement. The point I tried to make is that philosophy uses reason to find truth (hopefully in the light of faith). It is of course, not physical science.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Philosophy IS science.

Philosophy and science share the common habit of using reason to uncover the truth.

Modern science is to be distinguished from philosophy only in that it develops what used to be called natural philosophy, or the philosophy of nature. Even so, the principles of all science are arrived at using the logical methods of induction and deduction. Logic is certainly a branch of philosophy. Ergo, all science is the product of philosophical reasoning. Science is to be distinguished from philosophy in general only in the sense that it has its own special criteria: Empirical Observation, Testing, Verification, Predictability, etc.

 

[modofac]

People who cringe over this sort of thing are reading too much fundamentalist nonsense.

Truly living out the kind of critical investigation Sagan describes leads many to Christ. I myself held the alternative possibilities of atheism, deism, and ethical theism in my head for years and weighed them against the observable world. I came to the conclusion that only original sin could account for the characteristics of humanity, and only God could offer salvation from it. As Chesterton said, the only explanation that ultimately fits the facts of the world is a war between heaven and hell.

Ergo, I am Catholic.

Don’t fear science.