What is Science?

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Linusthe2nd

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What is science? It is scientia. It is the knowledge of the goodness, truth, and beauty of the divine cosmos in which we find ourselves. It is the science of the physicist and the science of the poet; it is the knowledge of nature and the knowledge of the eternity to which nature points. Science is good; science is true; science is beautiful. Science is divine!

But more than that science has historically been viewed as an inseparable trinity of physics ( hard sciences in general ), mathematics, and metaphysics ( which was called theology by Aristotle and should include theology to day.). But the trend since the seventeenth century is to segragte metaphysics and theology out of the fields of science and relegate them to status of esoteric and useless knowledge. You even see that view reflected on this forum, even by some Christians.

Any way that is the burden of a discussion by Joseph Pierce at The Imaginative Conservative and worth reading.

theimaginativeconservative.org/2015/02/science.html

Linus2nd
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What would bringing metaphysics and theology “back into science” look like? How would that change the pursuit of knowledge as we conduct it?

I ask not rhetorically or to be flippant - There are plenty of people working in metaphysics and theology at the same levels as the hard science - and plenty of research being done in metaphysics. (I assume theology too? I don’t know what counts as theological research) It’s the work of all disciplines that compose the body of human knowledge so I don’t see how anything is really ‘separate’ except in focus of research for individuals.
 
The Vatican Observatory maintains the exploration if science and religion. Here is a link that may serve you well:
vaticanobservatory.va/content/specolavaticana/it/research/research-highlights.html

Here is a quote from JPII :
“The scientist’s condition as a sentinel in the modern world, as one who is the first to glimpse the enormous complexity together with the marvellous harmony of reality, makes him a privileged witness of the plausibility of religion, a man capable of showing how the admission of transcendence, far from harming the autonomy and the ends of research, rather stimulates it to continually surpass itself in an experience of self-transcendence which reveals the human mystery”.
  • Pope John Paul II, 7/17/85.
 
What would bringing metaphysics and theology “back into science” look like? How would that change the pursuit of knowledge as we conduct it?

I ask not rhetorically or to be flippant - There are plenty of people working in metaphysics and theology at the same levels as the hard science - and plenty of research being done in metaphysics. (I assume theology too? I don’t know what counts as theological research) It’s the work of all disciplines that compose the body of human knowledge so I don’t see how anything is really ‘separate’ except in focus of research for individuals.
Did you read the article? The problem today is that most scientists have no philosophical education unless they did it on their own. But more importantly, ignoring the Perinnial Philosophies of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, as most Philosophy of Science or Philosophy of Nature courses do today leave the student the impression that science is the only source of objective truth about reality. Thus cutting them off from seeing that by the very nature of things one is lead to the existence of God. But this requires a philosophical interpretation of reality parallel to a scientific explanation of reality.

Linus2nd
 
The Vatican Observatory maintains the exploration if science and religion. Here is a link that may serve you well:
vaticanobservatory.va/content/specolavaticana/it/research/research-highlights.html

Here is a quote from JPII :
Yes, that is good. But I think what Pierce is getting at is that there needs to be a parallel philosophical explanation of the science being done and taught, especially at the accademic levels. Out reach projects, such as that engaged in by the Vatican Observatory are good, but much more is needed.

Linus2nd
 
Did you read the article? The problem today is that most scientists have no philosophical education unless they did it on their own. But more importantly, ignoring the Perinnial Philosophies of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, as most Philosophy of Science or Philosophy of Nature courses do today leave the student the impression that science is the only source of objective truth about reality. Thus cutting them off from seeing that by the very nature of things one is lead to the existence of God. But this requires a philosophical interpretation of reality parallel to a scientific explanation of reality.

Linus2nd
I did read it. I wanted to hear your words about it. And I do agree that science is held on too high a pedestal by some.
 
I did read it. I wanted to hear your words about it. And I do agree that science is held on too high a pedestal by some.
Did I say enough? Needless to say there has been an ongoing debate for the last hundred years or so ( and I have witnessed about 55 years of it :eek: ).

Linus2nd
 
The use of abstraction applied to the derivation of hypotheses in the centuries following Newton has produced a magnificent edifice of intellectual thought called science. The great scientists of the 18th and 19th centuries explained the nature of heat, light, electricity, magnetism and most other phenomena observed at the experiential level to such an extent that many scientists were convinced that their work was done, that there was nothing more to explain, that the foundation of science had been completed. In spite of this paradigmatic mindset, in a burst of intellectual energy in the first half of the twentieth century, modern science was created, a new paradigm was developed, and scientific knowledge was extended from the depths of the sub-atomic to the limits of the cosmos. Yet in spite of the success that modern physics has had in describing the nature of reality, it has not completed its goals.

Physical science is incomplete because: (1) it hasn’t found the Lagrangian, an equation that unifies all the forces and particles; (2) it hasn’t found an explanation for several troubling observations known collectively as quantum weirdness; (3) it hasn’t found the ground of reality, i.e., the base explanation of energy, gravity, mass, inertia, dark energy, dark matter, and all the rest of their abstractions. There is some evidence that the modern paradigm has run its course; the study of matter and energy is ensnarled in the mathematical morass of the super-string theory and the speculative multi-verse theories.

Biological science is incomplete because Darwinism has explained all that it can by skipping over the critical mysteries of the three main creation events: (1) abiogenesis - the creation of life, (2) *somagenesis *- the of creation multicellular life, and (3) psychogenesis - the creation of man with an associated mind and soul. The attitude of the best scientific minds as they defend Darwinism and grope for speculate theories that merely address parts of the three creation events is symptomatic of science constrained by its own paradigm that excludes God.

Because the philosophical principles to which science adheres were codified as logical positivism that (1) rejects the idea that reality has some purpose, (2) rejects any attempt to explain natural phenomena by attributing reality to an essence or a secret cause of things, (3) advocates the study of constant relationship among things without delving into the underlying causes, and (4) rejects any explanation not verifiable through the senses as meaningless, science self-restricts itself to a partial truth.

Having traveled down the path of positivism, scientists have found themselves in a cul-de-sac in which the truth about creation, life, mind, and soul are not to be found. In dedicating itself to that which can be observed and/or measured, science merely describes and doesn’t explain reality, it is time to rethink the philosophical principles by which science operates.

The wonder of reality is how intrinsically rational it is. The patterns of matter interacting with matter are so rhythmic and precise that mathematical equations are written to describe them. The equations of physics are so useful that there is a tendency to think of them as the reason that reality exists. One should never be fooled that equations cause the patterns of reality that we observe, they merely describe the patterns. Newton’s law of gravity does not cause gravity. The explanation of the patterns of reality must exist at a deeper level than the laws of physics. There are scientists that suspect that something inexplicable creates that which the laws of physics describe, but most, adhering to the positivist philosophy, are satisfied with the success of the laws of physics and feel there is no need to delve deeper.

Science is locked in to a partial truth of reality because it has proceeded as though there was no God and have ended up in the cul-de-sac. Isn’t it time for science to proceed as though there is a God? If they do, I contend they will find the complete truth about reality. They will find that God creates and sustains at the ground of reality, an implicate level, and we experience and science observes and describes at an *explicate *level.

The whole truth can only be found when philosophy replaces the current restrictive principles with which science operates with a new set that allows for a broader investigation of reality. When that happens we will realize that: (1) the foundation of reality is a hylomorphic duality of material and spiritual; (2) space is discrete not continuous; (3) reality is driven by information not energy; and (4) reality is modeled by algorithms not mathematical equations.

Yppop
 
Some yes do not include philosophy and theology as science…

But they have been and yes are sciences.

Theology is the queen of the sciences.

Oh and let us remember where Universities came from…(hint the Church…Christians).

Those who have often taken Universities away from truth, beauty and goodness…away from their very nature …or who have taken partial ideas of the University …do not retain knowledge of what the “University” fully is (though they still use the name…)… and thus have lost a full understanding of the sciences.

And other universities unfortunately have carried on this misunderstanding of the University and of the sciences.
 
Aristotle was wrong in dividing knowledge into three branches. Knowledge is constructed as a result of experience of external reality and creativity both happening in consciousness. Everything is outside toward consciousness hence there is one knowledge.
 
The use of abstraction applied to the derivation of hypotheses in the centuries following Newton has produced a magnificent edifice of intellectual thought called science. The great scientists of the 18th and 19th centuries explained the nature of heat, light, electricity, magnetism and most other phenomena observed at the experiential level to such an extent that many scientists were convinced that their work was done, that there was nothing more to explain, that the foundation of science had been completed. In spite of this paradigmatic mindset, in a burst of intellectual energy in the first half of the twentieth century, modern science was created, a new paradigm was developed, and scientific knowledge was extended from the depths of the sub-atomic to the limits of the cosmos. Yet in spite of the success that modern physics has had in describing the nature of reality, it has not completed its goals.

Physical science is incomplete because: (1) it hasn’t found the Lagrangian, an equation that unifies all the forces and particles; (2) it hasn’t found an explanation for several troubling observations known collectively as quantum weirdness; (3) it hasn’t found the ground of reality, i.e., the base explanation of energy, gravity, mass, inertia, dark energy, dark matter, and all the rest of their abstractions. There is some evidence that the modern paradigm has run its course; the study of matter and energy is ensnarled in the mathematical morass of the super-string theory and the speculative multi-verse theories.

Biological science is incomplete because Darwinism has explained all that it can by skipping over the critical mysteries of the three main creation events: (1) abiogenesis - the creation of life, (2) *somagenesis *- the of creation multicellular life, and (3) psychogenesis - the creation of man with an associated mind and soul. The attitude of the best scientific minds as they defend Darwinism and grope for speculate theories that merely address parts of the three creation events is symptomatic of science constrained by its own paradigm that excludes God.

Because the philosophical principles to which science adheres were codified as logical positivism that (1) rejects the idea that reality has some purpose, (2) rejects any attempt to explain natural phenomena by attributing reality to an essence or a secret cause of things, (3) advocates the study of constant relationship among things without delving into the underlying causes, and (4) rejects any explanation not verifiable through the senses as meaningless, science self-restricts itself to a partial truth.

Having traveled down the path of positivism, scientists have found themselves in a cul-de-sac in which the truth about creation, life, mind, and soul are not to be found. In dedicating itself to that which can be observed and/or measured, science merely describes and doesn’t explain reality, it is time to rethink the philosophical principles by which science operates.

The wonder of reality is how intrinsically rational it is. The patterns of matter interacting with matter are so rhythmic and precise that mathematical equations are written to describe them. The equations of physics are so useful that there is a tendency to think of them as the reason that reality exists. One should never be fooled that equations cause the patterns of reality that we observe, they merely describe the patterns. Newton’s law of gravity does not cause gravity. The explanation of the patterns of reality must exist at a deeper level than the laws of physics. There are scientists that suspect that something inexplicable creates that which the laws of physics describe, but most, adhering to the positivist philosophy, are satisfied with the success of the laws of physics and feel there is no need to delve deeper.

Science is locked in to a partial truth of reality because it has proceeded as though there was no God and have ended up in the cul-de-sac. Isn’t it time for science to proceed as though there is a God? If they do, I contend they will find the complete truth about reality. They will find that God creates and sustains at the ground of reality, an implicate level, and we experience and science observes and describes at an *explicate *level.

The whole truth can only be found when philosophy replaces the current restrictive principles with which science operates with a new set that allows for a broader investigation of reality. When that happens we will realize that: (1) the foundation of reality is a hylomorphic duality of material and spiritual; (2) space is discrete not continuous; (3) reality is driven by information not energy; and (4) reality is modeled by algorithms not mathematical equations.

Yppop
Well said but you lost me on # 4.

Linus2nd
 
Isn’t it time for science to proceed as though there is a God?
I’m pretty sure that every scientist who believes in a deity (and not just Christians) proceeds in precisely that manner. But I don’t believe that any genuine scientist reaches a point where he says: ‘well, no need to investigate any further - I’ll just note this down as Goddidit’.

I’m sure some of them might consider teleological claims for any given system, or even existence itself, but that would be a personal contemplation and not connected with scientific investigations.

Science deals with the How. Philosophy (and theology) deal with the Why.
 
I’m pretty sure that every scientist who believes in a deity (and not just Christians) proceeds in precisely that manner. But I don’t believe that any genuine scientist reaches a point where he says: ‘well, no need to investigate any further - I’ll just note this down as Goddidit’.

I’m sure some of them might consider teleological claims for any given system, or even existence itself, but that would be a personal contemplation and not connected with scientific investigations.

Science deals with the How. Philosophy (and theology) deal with the Why.
Hasn’t the Christian development and pursuit of science largely been -
'…well i note that God did it, now let’s find out how He does it." ?

Hasn’t this been how science proceeded in Christendom, accepting that there is a God.

Why do you infer that the Christian scientst somehow stops investigation. I don’t think this has been the practise, thank God.

archive.org/details/popesscience00wals

I think science is philosophically neutral although the scientist cannot be neutral.

An atheist scientist will proceed as if God does not exist and a Christian scientist will proceed as if He does.

One will find scientific laws and believe he is discovering processes without regard to Divine intelligence and the other will believe he has thought God’s thoughts after Him.
 
Any way that is the burden of a discussion by Joseph Pierce at The Imaginative Conservative and worth reading.

theimaginativeconservative.org/2015/02/science.html
Señor Pierce seems confused. For instance he writes:
The problem is that the modern world has sought to violate this unity through the attempt to separate the inseparable. In the same way as modernity has sought to separate the good (virtue) from the true (reason), with disastrous consequences, it has also sought to excise or exorcise metaphysics from the sciences, thereby distorting and ultimately contorting our knowledge of the cosmos.
But the separation is the very reason why modern science is so successful. Newton derived his law of gravity using induction from empirical evidence. In order to do that he rejected any need to state why gravity exists, because he couldn’t do that using induction from empirical evidence but only by speculation. When this ethic scandalized the conservatives of his day, he replied hypotheses non fingo (I contrive no hypotheses).

Whereas Pierce wants the scientists trying to discover a cure for Ebola to get bogged down worrying about the metaphysics of why there are infection diseases.
Nature (physics) is a life-study, but it is also a study for eternity for those so gifted. The geologist looks at Mont Blanc in the Alps and sees its physical attributes; a poet looks at the same mountain and sees in its majesty and beauty a manifestation of the majesty and beauty of God. The botanist looks at a pastoral landscape and sees the different types of trees and plants; the painter or the composer looks at the same landscape and sees a pastoral symphony of colour, shining forth the goodness, truth, and beauty of the cosmos.
Pierce is exhorting ignorance here, as if knowledge somehow stops the geologist and botanist from also seeing the beauty.

He is also naive, as if an appreciation of “the majesty and beauty of God” within an Ebola virus, and the shining forth of “the goodness, truth, and beauty of the cosmos” in an Ebola virus, are relevant to the job of finding a cure.
 
He is also naive, as if an appreciation of “the majesty and beauty of God” within an Ebola virus, and the shining forth of “the goodness, truth, and beauty of the cosmos” in an Ebola virus, are relevant to the job of finding a cure.
Yeah, it’s always the glorious night sky or the soaring flight of an eagle or warm puppies and raindrops and kittens that represent the majesty of God’s cosmos. Why not watch this:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHB_CM86rgk

It’a few Komodo dragons savaging a buffalo and then waiting for it to weaken so that they can eat it. And they don’t wait for a few minutes or a a few hours. Not even a few days. They wait weeks until it can’t protect itself, then they eat it. Alive.

Luckily the video doesn’t show that bit. They simply say ‘the buffalo died during the night’. I read recently that the cameraman who filmed it was thinking of giving up his chosen profession because he couldn’t cope with the unrelenting savagery that he was forced to watch in close up.

So if you were a scientist studying the eating habits of Komodo dragons, do you think you would spend any time wondering about the meaning of it all? If you were a poet, could you was lyrical about the buffalo’s sacrifice? If you were a painter, could you capture the essence of the agony in oils?

Where’s the majesty in it? Where is the Truth and Beauty of the cosmos in a sequence like that? The Botanist may look at a pastoral scene and recognise the various fauna and flora. The poet may appreciate the light and colour. What actually goes on in that scene is a continuous struggle by countless creatures to survive being eaten alive.
 
'It is the consensus among contemporary historians, philosophers, and sociologists of science that real science arose only once: in Europe. It is instructive that China, Islam, India, ancient Greece, and Rome all had a highly developed alchemy. But only in Europe did alchemy develop into chemistry. By the same token, many societies developed elaborate systems of astrology, but only in Europe did astrology lead to astronomy. And these transformations took place at a time when folklore has it that a fanatical Christianity was imposing a general ignorance on Europe – the so-called Dark Ages.

'The progress achieved during the “Dark Ages” was not merely technological. Medieval Europe excelled in philosophy and science. The term “Scientific Revolution” is in many ways as misleading as “Dark Ages.” Both were coined to discredit the medieval Church. The notion of a “Scientific Revolution” has been used to claim that science suddenly burst forth when a weakened Christianity could no longer prevent it, and as the recovery of classical learning made it possible. Both claims are as false as those concerning Columbus and the flat earth.

This piece is excerpted from a longer piece, False Conflict: Christianity Is Not Only Compatible with Science – It Created It, which appeared in the October-November 2003 issue of The American Enterprise.
 
Señor Pierce seems confused. For instance he writes:

But the separation is the very reason why modern science is so successful. Newton derived his law of gravity using induction from empirical evidence. In order to do that he rejected any need to state why gravity exists, because he couldn’t do that using induction from empirical evidence but only by speculation. When this ethic scandalized the conservatives of his day, he replied hypotheses non fingo (I contrive no hypotheses).
I don’t think he had any thought process. We do know that Newton disliked philosophy but I doubt that had anything to do with his success. And I think you have no proof that he was merely reacting to public pressure when he said " non fingo. "
Whereas Pierce wants the scientists trying to discover a cure for Ebola to get bogged down worrying about the metaphysics of why there are infection diseases.
I don’t think that is what he is implying. He is reacting to scientism, the invalid philosophical conclusion that only science can tell us the truth about reality, thus cutting God and philosophy our of the picture…
Pierce is exhorting ignorance here, as if knowledge somehow stops the geologist and botanist from also seeing the beauty.
I don’t think he is implying that.
He is also naive, as if an appreciation of “the majesty and beauty of God” within an Ebola virus, and the shining forth of “the goodness, truth, and beauty of the cosmos” in an Ebola virus, are relevant to the job of finding a cure.
He isn’t saying anything like that. You are reading in your own views. He didn’t mention Ebola at all.

This is what he is getting at: " One disastrous consequence of this reductionist view of science is the separation of cleverness from wisdom. Once physics is divorced from metaphysics it is no longer able to make moral or ethical judgments. Liberated from theology and philosophy, which are no longer considered sciences, the new truncated “science,” more properly called scientism, can be put to the service of damnable endeavours. The list of such endeavours, clever but lacking in wisdom, includes the guillotine, the gas chamber, the atomic bomb, nerve gas, biological weapons, and abortion technology. "

Linus2nd
 
Yeah, it’s always the glorious night sky or the soaring flight of an eagle or warm puppies and raindrops and kittens that represent the majesty of God’s cosmos. Why not watch this:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHB_CM86rgk

It’a few Komodo dragons savaging a buffalo and then waiting for it to weaken so that they can eat it. And they don’t wait for a few minutes or a a few hours. Not even a few days. They wait weeks until it can’t protect itself, then they eat it. Alive.

Luckily the video doesn’t show that bit. They simply say ‘the buffalo died during the night’. I read recently that the cameraman who filmed it was thinking of giving up his chosen profession because he couldn’t cope with the unrelenting savagery that he was forced to watch in close up.

So if you were a scientist studying the eating habits of Komodo dragons, do you think you would spend any time wondering about the meaning of it all? If you were a poet, could you was lyrical about the buffalo’s sacrifice? If you were a painter, could you capture the essence of the agony in oils?

Where’s the majesty in it? Where is the Truth and Beauty of the cosmos in a sequence like that? The Botanist may look at a pastoral scene and recognise the various fauna and flora. The poet may appreciate the light and colour. What actually goes on in that scene is a continuous struggle by countless creatures to survive being eaten alive.
I think you need to reread the article, you are inserting your prejudices. This is basically the whole point: " One disastrous consequence of this reductionist view of science is the separation of cleverness from wisdom. Once physics is divorced from metaphysics it is no longer able to make moral or ethical judgments. Liberated from theology and philosophy, which are no longer considered sciences, the new truncated “science,” more properly called scientism, can be put to the service of damnable endeavours. The list of such endeavours, clever but lacking in wisdom, includes the guillotine, the gas chamber, the atomic bomb, nerve gas, biological weapons, and abortion technology. "

By throwing out metaphysics/theology, those devoted to scientism, which is the ideology of the modern science classroom, texts, books, one is lead to the conclusion that nothing matters but " progress " and utility and profit, that all the bars are off.

He is not implying that the scientist has to be thinking philosophically or theologically when actually involved in looking at a petri dish or through an electron microscope, but that he should be aware of the philosophical/theological/moral implications of his research and his statements about conclusions.

Linus2nd
 
Yeah, it’s always the glorious night sky or the soaring flight of an eagle or warm puppies and raindrops and kittens that represent the majesty of God’s cosmos. Why not watch this:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHB_CM86rgk

It’a few Komodo dragons savaging a buffalo and then waiting for it to weaken so that they can eat it. And they don’t wait for a few minutes or a a few hours. Not even a few days. They wait weeks until it can’t protect itself, then they eat it. Alive.

Luckily the video doesn’t show that bit. They simply say ‘the buffalo died during the night’. I read recently that the cameraman who filmed it was thinking of giving up his chosen profession because he couldn’t cope with the unrelenting savagery that he was forced to watch in close up.

So if you were a scientist studying the eating habits of Komodo dragons, do you think you would spend any time wondering about the meaning of it all? If you were a poet, could you was lyrical about the buffalo’s sacrifice? If you were a painter, could you capture the essence of the agony in oils?

Where’s the majesty in it? Where is the Truth and Beauty of the cosmos in a sequence like that? The Botanist may look at a pastoral scene and recognise the various fauna and flora. The poet may appreciate the light and colour. What actually goes on in that scene is a continuous struggle by countless creatures to survive being eaten alive.
I think scientists studying the dragons probably do wonder about the meaning of it all, after all it would be difficult not to. It’s not evidential though, it doesn’t change their findings.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and the scientists may well see beauty in the dragons, their notion of beauty is perhaps more subtle than the poet’s. The poet will give money to save the snow leopard from extinction because it looks great on magazine covers, but he may have no concern for the thousands of less atheistically pleasing species we are making extinct. He probably doesn’t care if the dragons go extinct. All things bright and beautiful.

It’s not scientists who need metaphysics. It’s poets. 😃
 
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