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Geremia
Guest
What is a good book that criticizes modern science and considers it a futile attempt at seeking knowledge?
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penury
Guest
Practical science doesn’t really seek wisdom, but just how things work and how to make more gadgets to “help” us. (If you want a critique of that, which I call “technolatry,” just google “critique of technology”—or google “Neil Postman”; his slim little volume TECHNOPOLY is dynamite!) It sounds like maybe what you’re looking for is books critiquing the whole philosophy of materialism (which is the basis of nonsense like Darwinism). Those should be easy to find at your local library.
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bkayw
Guest
There are many scientists who are Christian. Modern science has opened up more windows into the proof of God than in any other generation.
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Tuno
Guest
The only books I’ve seen that fulfill your criterion of criticize modern, or any science, as a futile attempt at seeking knowledge have science in the same category as religion. In other words both religion and science deal with relative or discursive thought. That is necessary for getting along in the world. So perhaps you need to ask if figuring out how to get to a destination, how to fix something, or how to save someone’s life or ease their suffering is futile, then great. You are a rare individual if you can’t see benefits coming from science. If you are trying to contrast scientific knowledge with religious knowledge, they are dealing with observable phenomenon and “spiritual” explanations for our existence, respectively. Neither one has to do with God, except one claims to, and offers some ethical standards that may be used by scientists as well as anyone else, if they wish to or subscribe by birth or conversion to a particular faith.
But faith is not knowledge. So are you someone who feels faith is sufficient for everything and are trying to make yourself right by association? I’m not sure what you are trying to accomplish with this question.
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AntiTheist
Guest
Posting a message that suggests that modern science is “a futile attempt at seeking knowledge” on messageboard on the internet, by means of a computer, is something that would almost certainly cause an irony meter to break…should an irony meter ever be designed by a scientist.
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The_Exodus
Guest
I’d say it’s nearly as ironic as an atheist who has over 1000 posts on a forum dedicated to theism.
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OrdinaryMelkite
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Moonstruck888
Guest
To use a computer connected to the Net to denigrate science is utter hypocrisy.
What about medicine? If you were to develope diabetes mellitus would you be willing to use the Banting method to keep yourself alive? Do you use electrical apparatus to heat and light your house in winter? What about an automobile? Do you use one of them to get to work?
Hypocrisy.
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inocente
Guest
Alice in Wonderland, or I guess any book about the occult and magik.
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Anselm33
Guest
If you want books that show how science is limited, i.e.that show that science can explore some spheres of knowledge, but not all (which is what your question should have asked), then books by Fr. Stanley Jaki would be very good, particularly the collection of his essays, “The Limits of a Limitless Science”. There is also an interesting book by Bas C. Van Fraassen, “Laws and Symmetry”, which purports to show there are no such things as scientific laws, only models (mostly mathematical) constructed to make sense of the world around us–i.e. science doesn’t show us what the underlying reality is. Van Fraassen is an “anti-realist”, an empiricist as far as science goes. There are also books by Nancy Cartwright, a philosopher at the London School of Economics, which purport to show that science is all wet. I haven’t read any of them.
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Geremia
Guest
Haha… I think you have misunderstood what I mean by “knowledge.” Sorry if I didn’t clarify. By knowledge I mean an understanding of absolute, unchanging truths, an understanding of objective reality.
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Geremia
Guest
Yes, materialists would likely say modern science is all one needs to obtain wisdom. You have understood my question better than some other posters here.
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Geremia
Guest
I do not doubt that science has lead to technology. What I am asking is: Is this its only purpose or can it lead us to knowledge of objective, unchanging truths?
So you are saying that science has only a utilitarian purpose? Would you deny modern science can help one understand God better? If so, then wouldn’t you have to deny that modern science cannot lead one to at least some absolute truths?
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Geremia
Guest
Well, by knowledge I meant something more akin to wisdom.
Thanks for the resources
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buffalo
Guest
The baloney detector goes sky high every time this bs is posted. Whoever is feeding you this nonsense should stop.
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Touchstone
Guest
As a materialist, I not only deny that science is all one needs for wisdom, I don’t even see it as a primary resource. Facts and practical knowledge are important, and science does have a profound lesson to heed in the value of skepticism and falsifiability, but wisdom is “judging well”, and is a function of one’s goals and objectives in life.
If anything, I would say one relies on wisdom as the basis for engaging science – I have goals I want to obtain, and knowledge I’d like to acquire as part of my plan to be productive, happy, charitable and loving in my life. Given those goals, and any wisdom that obtains in them, I’m wise to consult and use science, for it has practical tools and knowledge toward those goals.
Rather than science building wisdom, I would say that wisdom develops a love and appreciate for science, at least for those whose goals line up with the benefits of practical and technical knowledge.
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Tuno
Guest
Absolute unchanging Truth is not in the realm of objective reality, though it contains it.Maybe some of your confusion is because you think they exist in the same place?
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Geremia
Guest
I don’t understand you; please elaborate. Thanks
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Geremia
Guest
By the way, just because I ask this question does not mean I believe science is futile. Far from it. I ask because I want to know what its opponents think of it.
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reggieM
Guest
Great question. I wish more responses would stay on topic instead of seeking to debate something.
I’d recommend this book:
Why Us? by James Le Fanu.
The author offers a subtle and devastating critique of the dehumanizing and arrogant attempt by science to over-reach its authority (science is actually the study of the superficial aspects of reality, not the deeper questions).
I will vote that book as one of the best of the 21st century so far.
There are several others – of course, they will be hated and ridiculed from the usual sources. But that only proves how important this topic really is.
Anyone who thinks that science is the primary, or worse only, means of valid knowledge has truly lost sight of the value and mystery (and meaning) of life. It’s a blindness to the philosophical assumptions which are necessary before even knowing what science is.
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