Is science scientific?!

[tonyrey]

“By their fruits you will know them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?” – Matthew 7:16

Personally I like my antibiotics and semiconductors.

Your antibiotics and semiconductors are a great help but they cannot solve all your problems!

 

[tonyrey]

Do you acknowledge or do you not that someone made that same comment in the year 1400? Well, they got owned. You will too in a couple hundred years from now.

It’s quite obvious that your comment is portraying that science cannot answer before the big bang, therefore god. In other words, what we do not yet understand, therefore god is the answer. Unfortunately, this answer gets owned more and more every year since all recorded history.

Your answer amounts to blind faith in the power of science to explain everything simply because it has explained many things!

 

[tonyrey]

I agree if you mean science as most people understand it, e.g., physics, chemistry, biology, etc . What these sciences cannot explain is “truth” itself.

One materialist on this forum explained the correspondence of belief to reality as an “isomorphism” of atomic particles!

 

[DianaCC]

One materialist on this forum explained the correspondence of belief to reality as an “isomorphism” of atomic particles!

Classic sophomorism. To a man with a hammer…

 

[Filippo_Bruno]

Originally Posted by warpspeedpetey
I agree. Questions of science are preceded in the logical order by questions of being.

It’s not relevant to their work. Whether all matter is water, whether there are synthetic a priori propositions, or whether there is a world of Forms has no bearing on the outcome of an experiment. That’s rather the point.

 

[warpspeedpetey]

Which many scientists ignore!

They just don’t know. They are concerned with the mechanics of mere physical objects, what amounts to clumps of dirt. They were never taught how to think as mathematicians are. Their experience with logic is no greater than what is necessary to explain certain mathematical functions. Its just not on their epistemic radar.

 

[Soldier_Of_God]

If science remains within it’s domain, then it can remain scientific. Science is the methodical process of understanding the physical or material world gleaned via experimentation and empirical observation. Unfortunately, many use science to answer the questions that it was never intended to answer, such as “What is our purpose?” or “Why is there evil?”

 

[reggieM]

It seems obvious that science cannot justify or explain itself. Do you agree or disagree?

An amazingly large number of people disagree with that.

Validity, analogy, truth, rules of logic, principle of contradiction, inference, assumptions … much, much more is needed from outside the world of science for science to have any value or meaning at all.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

reggie

**much, much more is needed from outside the world of science for science to have any value or meaning at all. **

Ain’t it the truth! As for wisdom … science doesn’t have a clue how to get there using the scientific method.

 

[tonyrey]

Classic sophomorism. To a man with a hammer…

Or a programmer!

 

[reggieM]

Ain’t it the truth! As for wisdom … science doesn’t have a clue how to get there using the scientific method.

Some might actually try to reduce wisdom to scientific experimentation – and science could not tell them how much they’d be lacking widsom to try that.

Ok, now why is it so difficult for us to convince those who disagree – on something that seems so blatantly obvious? Could we get one believer in scientism here on CAF to change his or her mind?

 

[meltzerboy]

Science has, or should have, no pretensions to explaining the “why” of life processes. It is based on a description of “what” the processes are and an explanation of “how” the processes work. Why the processes work that way is beyond the scope of science and fits into the realm of metaphysics and spirituality. Within its own domain, science is scientific, just as metaphysics is metaphysical and spirituality is spiritual.

 

[tonyrey]

Science has, or should have, no pretensions to explaining the “why” of life processes. It is based on a description of “what” the processes are and an explanation of “how” the processes work. Why the processes work that way is beyond the scope of science and fits into the realm of metaphysics and spirituality. Within its own domain, science is scientific, just as metaphysics is metaphysical and spirituality is spiritual.

The difference being that metaphysics encompasses science. Metaphysics can be scientific - in the sense that it **includes **scientific truths - whereas genuine science cannot be metaphysical.

 

[lemondiesel]

It seems obvious that science cannot justify or explain itself. Do you agree or disagree?

Science discovered itself, but it fails to explain complete randomness which may possibly even be the fundamental pillar of science.

 

[Geremia]

science is a sham

I think you mean science exploited by materialistic ideologies and societies “is a sham.” Science exploited to make idols indeed “is a sham.” Science, from the Latin scientia, means knowledge. Theology is a science, too, and certainly you don’t consider theology “a sham,” do you? Read the 1st Question of St. Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologiæ.

Ecclesiastes 1:2-11: Vanity of vanities! All is vanity. What advantage does man have in all his work which he does under the sun? . . . That which has been is that which will be, and that which has been done is that which will be done. So there is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which one might say, “See this, it is new”? Already it has existed for ages which were before us. There is no remembrance of earlier things, and also of the later things which will occur; there will be for them no remembrance among those who will come later still.

Sure/y, the things of the world used only for their own our own sakes are vain, but used in order to know God they are not. In this life we can only know God through his creatures. We are not heretical Manicheans who the human body and creatures are evil. After God made His creation in Genesis, He said it was good.[bibledrb]1 Timothy 4:4[/bibledrb]

 

[Filthy_Tugboat]

When people say they believe science over religion they usually have no idea what they’re talking about. They usually mean something like “Religion says there’s a God, but unless you show me God in a test tube I won’t believe he exists”. But what they don’t realize is that there is no “scientific experiment” that proves that “scientific experiments” are a way to know anything.

Indeed, often science and religion are completely separate issues, it’s only when they conflict that issues arise, I personally am inclined to side with science on any conflicting issue I have currently come across but that is probably because I’ve come across nothing credible that suggests that religion is correct.

It’s just an excuse to disbelieve what is morally inconvenient.

This I disagree with, whether or not it is convenient has no bearing on whether someone believes it or not. Beliefs are not subjected to choice, they are the result of experience.

 

[Filthy_Tugboat]

The final conclusion that I have come to is that science and religion can never be in conflict for two reasons. 1) They generally address completely separate issues and rarely intersect.

Agreed.

1. On the rare occassion that they intersect, there can be no conflict because both Faith and Reason are both gifts from God. (If they appear to conflict, then someone is wrong. )

This just seems to dismiss the conflict and suggest that religion is correct, not really a very good response given the in depth post prior to this point, could you explain in any kind of verifiable sense how Faith and reason are a ‘gift from God’? Could you elaborate as to why Faith and reason being ‘gifts from God’ removes the potential for conflict? Is this true of all religions and ‘Gods’ or just yours?

 

[Filthy_Tugboat]

The difference being that metaphysics encompasses science.Metaphysics can be scientific

How?

in the sense that it **includes **scientific truths

That doesn’t make it scientific. Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy, philosophy is not science.

whereas genuine science cannot be metaphysical.

This I agree with because metaphysics does not use a scientific approach, it asks questions that may have no answer and certainly no method to verify the answers’ truth.

 

[thomasf]

For the most part, science as it is practiced is not scientific.

 

[Filthy_Tugboat]

For the most part, science as it is practiced is not scientific.

How so?