Why do some people think that Science is the only source of knowledge?

[inocente]

Learn some science history and stop supposing that science never really became science until Darwin and the agnostic revolution.

Hmmm, as I’ve never said anything of the kind, how about you learn the forum rules and stop supposing you know what others think?

*Not so fast!

The existence of the bomb was first conceived and promoted by scientists, who in the infinite wisdom could bare contain themselves from announcing this wonderful new methods of destruction. You would think scientists, whom you seem to idolize as the best of thinkers, could have thought themselves out of what they had discovered. Einstein finally did, too late, after the first detonations of the A-bomb.

The logic of wisdom, which was around long before the logic of science, is a logic of head and heart combined. How does the decision to promote the bomb with politicians strike you as wisdom?*

The logic of wisdom is usually being wise after the event.

Do you really think it would have been wiser for Einstein not to warn his President that Hitler could be developing the Bomb, and wiser for Roosevelt not to develop a deterrent? You would instead have taken the chance of Hitler getting there first and bombing the US into submission (as the US did to Japan remember) and us all living under Nazi rule right now?

“Pope Pius XII likewise …]

My security program barked at the site you linked there, so I looked it up: anti-Semitic, holocaust denial, racism, white supremacist, connection to neo-Nazi organizations and middle east extremists.

Please could you check sites out a bit more scientifically before linking them.

 

[inocente]

There can be just as much contention and division in science as well. For example, whether or not certain things should be classified as mental illnesses or not. And there is a lot of politics in the area of peer review, which is why some advocate different methods of scientific dissemination (e.g. conferences).

Sure but these things get sorted while in philosophy the debate never ends. To use my example of the philosophy of mind again the possible options never reduce, they only increase - substance dualism, property dualism, predicate dualism, occasionalism, behaviorism, functionalism, emergentism, idealism, neutral monism, supervenience physcialism, reductive physicalism, epiphenomenalism, …

 

[inocente]

That is because your first rendering of an argument requires so much emendation in order to resemble an actual argument.

No one else has said they have a problem.

*To answer your point, perhaps philosophers laid much of the groundwork for science before the practical sciences usurped the knowledge and applied it towards practical benefit. Just because scientists have had the final practical success, does not mean that success was not grounded in the conceptual framework laid down by philosophers. *

Sure, modern science used to be called natural philosophy, but they up and robbed us so they did, we was right on the verge of working out quantum mechanics, plate tectonics and the big bang when honest them there science types jumped in and usurped us so they did, take my word for it, well you’ll have to as we don’t do empirical evidence in the philosophy dept. Oh the injustice! Lackaday for we are undone! [exits stage left]

As to consciousness, neither have any of the practical sciences explained what it is, nor do they agree on how it arises. Your argument is a non sequitur because the subject of consciousness may be incredibly more complex and far beyond the explanatory power of science to deal with, so the fact that philosophers have made little headway understanding consciousness does not argue an iota for the superiority of science. Perhaps a dose of philosophy would help you sort through some of your misconceptions,

You chose to make yet another ad hominem while ignoring what I said about scientists being able to test hypotheses and build on them while philosophers can’t.

Another factor is that philosophers have never been able to agree on the properties of consciousness, which indicates that perhaps it is too ill-defined a concept in the first place, while scientists won’t get bogged down since they can look at psychological and neural correlates without worrying over definitions.

But science isn’t magic - neuroscience depends on technologies such as MRI, for which a Nobel prize was only awarded in 2003. After philosophers making no headway in hundreds of years you can’t just wave a wand expecting science to crack it in a decade or so.

 

[inocente]

Should I invoke Godwin’s law and claim victory.

Rats, was I the first?

Seriously, the fact that Hitler was born into a Catholic family is meaningless. He abandoned any adherence to the Catholic faith long before his rise to power. Should we impeach all Germans based on the fact that he was German? Should we condemn all the French because of Napoleon?

I anticipated that, which is why I said " birth-Catholic who made Nazism his religion", meaning his adult religion was Nazism not Catholic.

But, please tell me - using a purely scientific argument, why should we not use atomic weapons or practice eugenics (among other questionable scientific developments)?

As I understand it your nation has a constitution which requires that everyone can own automatic assault weapons, for which there is the stunningly unscientific argument that it’s people not automatic assault weapons that kill. So I could argue that it’s people not scientific developments that kill, but that would be unscientific.

Eugenics is unscientific as there’s no objective way to know which genes are ultimately desirable or undesirable. Its use would reduce genetic diversity which could be disastrous to future generations. Even a limited nuclear war would have disastrous effects on the climate (wunderground.com/resources/climate/nuke.asp).

Scientifically automatic weapons etc. give us powers well beyond our evolutionary capacity to manage, so using them is highly immoral except, arguably, as a last resort.

 

[Peter_Plato]

The logic of wisdom is usually being wise after the event.

Do you really think it would have been wiser for Einstein not to warn his President that Hitler could be developing the Bomb, and wiser for Roosevelt not to develop a deterrent? You would instead have taken the chance of Hitler getting there first and bombing the US into submission (as the US did to Japan remember) and us all living under Nazi rule right now?

Obviously, there is no “scientific epistemology” that could have been used to establish whether the actions of Einstein or Roosevelt were the verifiably “correct” ones. If you are arguing that there was a right choice to be made, then the implication is that there must be some ethical epistemology possible to determine the correctness of such choices and actions. I guess it is left to you to answer Rossum’s search for an alternative epistemology or you might have to back away from this claim that some kind of “wisdom” in these matters is indeed possible. Science cannot provide any decisive voice in the matter.

 

[inocente]

Obviously, there is no “scientific epistemology” that could have been used to establish whether the actions of Einstein or Roosevelt were the verifiably “correct” ones. If you are arguing that there was a right choice to be made, then the implication is that there must be some ethical epistemology possible to determine the correctness of such choices and actions. I guess it is left to you to answer Rossum’s search for an alternative epistemology or you might have to back away from this claim that some kind of “wisdom” in these matters is indeed possible. Science cannot provide any decisive voice in the matter.

As I said, I think wisdom is usually no more than being wise after the event.

It is extraordinarily unrealistic to expect a leader to be able to verify whether he is making the absolute correct decision in such situations, just as with a policeman or soldier in a firefight, or a medic in triage, he doesn’t have the luxury.

The logic used in such cases is often to minimize the risk of the worst potential outcome occurring, which in this case would have been having no deterrent to Hitler making a first strike. See for instance game theory.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Sure but these things get sorted while in philosophy the debate never ends. To use my example of the philosophy of mind again the possible options never reduce, they only increase - substance dualism, property dualism, predicate dualism, occasionalism, behaviorism, functionalism, emergentism, idealism, neutral monism, supervenience physcialism, reductive physicalism, epiphenomenalism, …

So what is your point? The mind could just be a very difficult reality to characterize using language that is almost entirely sensory image based. Most of science uses comparative or analogical terms to describe all physical phenomena. Your issue with philosophy of mind is simply the result of language limitations. We do not have anything in our language to adequately describe mind, therefore there are many alternative ways of doing so, the Seven Wise Men and the Elephant story does not mean the wise men were all wrong in their limited views, just that they were all inadequate. It would seem a good thing to know that much, no?

 

[Charlemagne_II]

inocente

Do you really think it would have been wiser for Einstein not to warn his President that Hitler could be developing the Bomb, and wiser for Roosevelt not to develop a deterrent? You would instead have taken the chance of Hitler getting there first and bombing the US into submission (as the US did to Japan remember) and us all living under Nazi rule right now?

Einstein publicly stated his regret. Yes, that was wisdom after the fact, but it was not wisdom before the fact. Today we are saddled with wisdom arrived at too late, thanks to the anxiety of nuclear physicists.

 

[tonyrey]

Sure but these things get sorted while in philosophy the debate never ends. To use my example of the philosophy of mind again the possible options never reduce, they only increase - substance dualism, property dualism, predicate dualism, occasionalism, behaviorism, functionalism, emergentism, idealism, neutral monism, supervenience physcialism, reductive physicalism, epiphenomenalism, …

That’s where science is far superior to philosophy because it assumes:

1. The mind doesn’t exist

or

1. It doesn’t matter what is the mind is because it is not a scientific subject - and there is so much irritating (and pointless) disagreement among philosophers.

Nor does it matter that Karl Marx’s dialectical materialism has changed the history of the world because, after all, it’s just another of those philosophical theories.

Science will, of course, sort out all our problems - not immediately but when neuroscientists have had more time to investigate our behaviour and work out how the brains of trouble-makers can be suitably modified to transform them into peace-makers…

 

[tonyrey]

Black and white science is just plots on a graph. You can’t know anything from it until it gets interpreted. That interpretation not only varies between scientists, but it is interpreted through rational thought. On the other hand rational thought is irrational in a perfect vacuum of observational data.

They both kind of need each other to work.

The steps of the scientific method are to:

Ask a Question
Do Background Research
Construct a Hypothesis
Test Your Hypothesis by Doing an Experiment
Analyze Your Data and Draw a Conclusion
Communicate Your Results

So you see here “knowledge” is a cooperation between empiricism and rationalism.

If rational thought is “irrational in a perfect vacuum of observational data” on what observational data are your conclusions based?

 

[tonyrey]

I think we can all agree that scientific inquiry does not exhaust all of life, as it is experienced…

But apart from questions of knowledge, I don’t think anyone would disagree that there is more to the experience of life than scientific inquiry, and that neither science – nor knowledge – is capable of exhausting the experience of life.

Judging from some of the responses on this thread I don’t think everyone would agree with you!

 

[Semangelof]

If rational thought is “irrational in a perfect vacuum of observational data” on what observational data are your conclusions based?

I’m not using a single epistemological source, I’m using dual epistemological sources. Rationalism and Empiricism. I don’t subscribe to the single valid source ideology so I would have no reason to limit myself to only using observational data.

 

[Tyrion]

I’m not using a single epistemological source, I’m using dual epistemological sources. Rationalism and Empiricism. I don’t subscribe to the single valid source ideology so I would have no reason to limit myself to only using observational data.

You just described the materialistic epistemology.

 

[tonyrey]

That’s where science is far superior to philosophy because** it **assumes:

"it " is shorthand for “science as interpreted by those who regard it as the sole source of knowledge”.

 

[tonyrey]

I’m not using a single epistemological source, I’m using dual epistemological sources. Rationalism and Empiricism. I don’t subscribe to the single valid source ideology so I would have no reason to limit myself to only using observational data.

On what is rationalism based?

 

[Semangelof]

On what is rationalism based?

Rational thought is a product of the brain. If successful it is a mental attempt at knowing based on knowledge.

You just described the materialistic epistemology.

While I think those two are very powerful I don’t just limit myself to those two. Since we generally don’t get to 100% satisfaction on knowing something I think it’s best to consider all possible epistemological sources. The materialistic epistemology seems more persuasive but were looking for full satisfaction.

 

[tonyrey]

Rational thought is a product of the brain. If successful it is a mental attempt at knowing based on knowledge.

How would you prove rational thought is a product of the brain? Is the mind a myth?

 

[Peter_Plato]

You just described the materialistic epistemology.

Since epistemology is concerned with “justified” beliefs, what he described is not materialistic epistemology but some form of evidentialism conflated with reliabilism. To actually characterize and defend it properly - which you haven’t done - you would have to demonstrate

1. Why we can judge the apparent physical world to be a reliable source of information.
2. Why we can rely on our internal rational processes to draw conclusions concerning external reality and truth.

In the first instance, the physical world provides a somewhat consistent source of data to draw conclusions about, but consistency does not demonstrate truth, except about the data itself. As an epistemology (naturalism) it runs into the issue of facade. We cannot “know” by looking at the facade of the natural world what lies beyond or beneath it with anything approaching certainty.

In the second instance, the “Matrix” problem exists. Our own consciousness is a kind of internal facade that prevents us from knowing beyond what we think we “know” in order to verify that we do in fact really know.

At this point it is necessary to delve into epistemology as an endeavor and not merely conscript it in the service of science. Epistemology ought to serve to check science itself by offering constructive ways of questioning its practice in order to submit its claims of providing “knowledge” to independent analysis.

Epistemological approaches such as coherentism or reliabilism can be used in this way. It would be a grave error to claim that science is epistemology and it alone has the capacity to judge true “knowledge” from false.

Contrary to Innocente’s assertions, philosophy and epistemology are important “checks” on science.

Science tells us in more or less reliable ways how the natural world functions, science does not tell us anything about what we should do with that knowledge once acquired. For certain, a moral epistemology is necessary. The fact that there is wide disagreement in this area does not demonstrate anything except that we have been negligent in pursuing it. Equally certain, some form of internal epistemological method is necessary to ensure we are not making rash judgements or missing important and relevant considerations in making those judgements.

Skepticism, is a virtue where our own beliefs are concerned, even to the point of being skeptical of one’s own skepticism, when it becomes dogmatic and fruitless.

 

[Semangelof]

How would you prove rational thought is a product of the brain? Is the mind a myth?

We can observe the activity of the brain during rational thought. We can destroy parts of the brain and watch those rationales change. It can be shown more so to exist in the brain than it can be shown to exist outside of the brain.

Now is there an end to these ridiculous questions or are you just trolling? If you have a point, make it, don’t troll.

Epistemology ought to serve to check science itself by offering constructive ways of questioning its practice in order to submit its claims of providing “knowledge” to independent analysis.

Thats how I feel. We need those checks and balances, the more the better.

Say 19/20 scientists with avg vision see a plane in the far distance. 1 of those scientist has better than avg vision and says “that is not a plane it’s a bird”. Eventually those scientist may develop binoculars but they can’t yet say it’s a plane, they can only say well it’s probably a plane, but it could also be a bird.

Somehow scientist have gone astray in thinking that it’s impossible to have a different faculty of understanding, such as this one scientist with better vision. They currently lack the ability to test the one scientist, but that lack of ability doesn’t prove him right or wrong. We should obviously be prudent about things, but I think it would be just as imprudent to entirely dismiss that one scientist.

 

[Semangelof]

I should also mention that these days that one scientist just gets fired and they call it a plane. Thats a big problem.