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Author | Topic: The definition of science: What should it be? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
crashfrog Member (Idle past 1498 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
To take the single line of science in the search for truth, would be to block out other necessary angles. If you say so, but honestly I'm not aware of any area where the basic idea of consensus observation wouldn't work. Maybe you have something in mind?
I think it is those who admit they have a bias and agenda that are the most trustworthy. And I put my trust in those who get results. The results of science are manifest. The results of wooly, spiritual thinking? Bupkis.
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Rob  Suspended Member (Idle past 5879 days) Posts: 2297 Joined: |
Rob writes:
To take the single line of science in the search for truth, would be to block out other necessary angles. Frog Crashes:If you say so, but honestly I'm not aware of any area where the basic idea of consensus observation wouldn't work. Maybe you have something in mind? Yes! Nazi Germany? Joseph Mengala? Frog Crashes:And I put my trust in those who get results. The results of science are manifest. The results of wooly, spiritual thinking? Bupkis. Adolf Hitler and Joseph Mengala got results... And as to the results of wooly spiritual thinking: Two examples of remarks made thoughtfully and with due respect from non-religious sources:W.E.H. Lecky History of European Morals (vol. II. 9):, "It was reserved for Christianity to present to the world an ideal character, which through all the changes of eighteen centuries has inspired the hearts of men with an impassioned love; has shown itself capable of acting on all ages, nations, temperaments, and conditions; has been not only the highest pattern of virtue, but the strongest incentive to its practice, and has exercised so deep an influence that it may be truly said that the simple record of three short years of active life has done more to regenerate and to soften mankind than all the disquisitions of philosophers and all the exhortations of moralists. This has, indeed, been the wellspring of whatever is best and purest in Christian life. Amid all the sins and failings, amid all the priestcraft and persecution and fanaticism that have defaced the Church, it has preserved, in the character and example of its Founder, an enduring principle of regeneration." To this we may add the testimony of the atheistic philosopher, John Stuart Mill from his essay on Theism, written shortly before his death (1873), and published, 1874, in Three Essays on Religion. (Am. ed., p. 253): "Above all, the most valuable part of the effect on the character which Christianity has produced, by holding up in a divine person a standard of excellence and a model for imitation, is available even to the absolute unbeliever, and can never more be lost to humanity. For it is Christ rather than God whom Christianity has held up to believers as the pattern of perfection for humanity. It is the God incarnate more than the God of the Jews, or of nature, who, being idealized, has taken so great and salutary a hold on the modem mind. And whatever else may be taken away from us by rational criticism, Christ is still left; a unique figure, not more unlike all his precursors than all his followers, even those who had the direct benefit of his personal teaching. It is of no use to say that Christ, as exhibited in the Gospels, is not historical, and that we know not how much of what is admirable has been super-added by the tradition of his followers. The tradition of followers suffices to insert any number of marvels, and may have inserted all the miracles which he is reputed to have wrought. But who among his disciples, or among their proselytes, was capable of inventing the sayings ascribed to Jesus, or of imagining the life and character revealed in the Gospels? Certainly not the fishermen of Galilee; as certainly not St. Paul, whose character and idiosyncrasies were of a totally different sort; still less the early Christian writers, in whom nothing is more evident than that the good which was in them was all derived, as they always professed that it was derived, from the higher source." Edited by Rob, : No reason given. Edited by Rob, : No reason given.
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ringo Member (Idle past 443 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Rob writes: Frog Crashes:If you say so, but honestly I'm not aware of any area where the basic idea of consensus observation wouldn't work. Maybe you have something in mind? Yes! Nazi Germany? Joseph Mengala? Mengele chose who lived and who died on his own personal whims. That's about as far from "consensus observation" as it's possible to get.
Rob writes: Frog Crashes:And I put my trust in those who get results. The results of science are manifest. The results of wooly, spiritual thinking? Bupkis. Adolf Hitler and Joseph Mengala got results... Hitler was the ultimate example of wooly thinking. Help scientific research in your spare time. No cost. No obligation. Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC
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kuresu Member (Idle past 2544 days) Posts: 2544 From: boulder, colorado Joined: |
I find it quite typical that whenever we say stuff along crash's line, that the creationists (and others, no doubt) throw out Hitler and other despots who killed a lot of people, because they were supposedly "being" "objective", and "scientific". If Hitler was so damn smart then why didn't he allow "judenpysic" (or whatever it's spelled).
All a man's knowledge comes from his experiences
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nator Member (Idle past 2200 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
I thought it was all about evangelising myself. quote: ROTFLMAO!!!
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nator Member (Idle past 2200 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
science seeks truth but understands that it is unachievable quote: Because, if we work very hard and are very patient, we can get very, very, very close to the truth. And also because the "best current explanations" of natural phenomena that science has given us has done some hugely wonderful things for humanity.
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Rob  Suspended Member (Idle past 5879 days) Posts: 2297 Joined: |
Hitler was the ultimate example of wooly thinking. Hey Cowboy! I don't like the way your lookin at me... Actually, Hitler did what was perfectly natural and up to date scientifically at the time. Which is why the times standard is so dangerous. 'True' morality is 'timeless' because it is 'real' and 'absolute', but I digress... Hitler and his ilk, took Nietzche's philosophy of the superman and combined it with Darwin's naturalistic theory of survival of the fittest (totally compatable sciences) and what evolved was the idea that man was nothing more than blood and soil. And if evolution is true, then I must agree with him... why not kill off the weaker and troublesome among us for the betterment of the greater good. It is a huge logical moral dilemma for the naturalist. That is the danger of science in the hands of a Godless state... As Viktor Frankl so personally saw from his perspective as a prisoner and survivor of the gas chambers and death camps of Germany "The gas chambers of Auschwitz were the ultimate consequence of the theory that man is nothing but the product of heredity and environment--or, as the Nazi liked to say, of "Blood and Soil." I am absolutely convinced that the gas chambers of Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Maidanek were ultimately prepared not in some Ministry or other in Berlin, but rather at the desks and in the lecture halls of nihilistic scientists and philosophers." Ps.. true, eternal, timeless, absolute, real, perfect, righteous, Godly, and life are all synonomous terms... just as Christ, savior, redeemer, Jesus are synonomous. If you don't believe me, just plug any of them into the following statements:I am seeking ____ morality. I am seeking ____ meaning. I am seeking ____ understanding, wisdom etc... Try plugging the word scientific into those statements. Science can give us none of those things, unless man is a mere thing, with no purpose other than to serve his own pleasure and ambition at his time of choosing; at which point in time therafter, he may change his mind... What I offer here as a truth, will always be truth... Edited by Rob, : No reason given.
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Rob  Suspended Member (Idle past 5879 days) Posts: 2297 Joined: |
Because, if we work very hard and are very patient, we can get very, very, very close to the truth. How will you ever know that that's true? Edited by Rob, : No reason given.
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1498 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
How will you ever know that that's true? Wrong theories don't get much work done.
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nator Member (Idle past 2200 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
Because, if we work very hard and are very patient, we can get very, very, very close to the truth. quote: We won't ever have perfect knowledge of anything, but we can know with a good degree of confidence when we are on the right track. Perhaps we should stop using the word "truth" and start using the word "accurate" instead. Science strives to create models (aka theories) of natural phenomena which have greater and greater accuracy. A particularly accurate theory will survive many tests, and it will have great predictive and explanatory power. It will also often give rise to entire new fields of scientific study.
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ringo Member (Idle past 443 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Rob writes: Actually, Hitler did what was perfectly natural and up to date scientifically at the time. You miss the point completely. In Message 62, you claimed Hitler and Mengele as examples of "consensus observation". That's completely false. Hitler and Mengele may have gotten results, but the results they aimed for came from their wooly thinking - nothing scientific about it. Help scientific research in your spare time. No cost. No obligation. Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1498 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
Adolf Hitler and Joseph Mengele got results... No, they didn't. And to portray the Holocaust as some kind of atheistic, scientistic investigation carried out with no regard to human sensibilities is absurd, and displays an ignorance of history. The Holocaust was a sectarian conflict between German Christians and Jews, just about any way you look at it. Mengele wasn't a scientist; he was a sadist in a lab coat. A torturer, not an experimenter. And I don't find the testimony of two dead white guys that the culture they grew up in and lived all their lives in was better than everybody else's very compelling. Everybody says that about their own culture. Norman Borlaug used science to save 1.5 billion lives. That's "billion" with a "b." Your religion had absolutely no power to do the same. If not for science, they would have starved to death.
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Rob  Suspended Member (Idle past 5879 days) Posts: 2297 Joined: |
Wrong theories don't get much work done. We agree! Oh my God! What does that mean? But they do waste an enormous amount of life... I.E Naturalism!
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Rob  Suspended Member (Idle past 5879 days) Posts: 2297 Joined: |
We won't ever have perfect knowledge of anything, but we can know with a good degree of confidence when we are on the right track. Confidence is your weakness... Jesus said plainly, "You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.' And Schraf, it's not that that is not true, it is the most profoundly true thing you will ever hear. Stunning in it's boldness and impossibleness... UNLESS! that guy really was who He said He was. And the only reason you can't accept the possibility is??? Edited by Rob, : No reason given.
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1498 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
We agree! Oh my God! What does that mean? That you, apparently, have a really weird definition of "work." Apparently, you look back over the scientific, medical, and technological achievements of the last 600 years - extending life, conquering diseases and famines, exploring the world of the atom and the far reaches of the solar system - and don't see anything particularly interesting or significant.
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