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Author | Topic: Does science ask and answer "why" questions? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Panda Member (Idle past 3742 days) Posts: 2688 From: UK Joined: |
jar writes: Which aspect of the hammer do you think is not able to be scientifically studied and explained? Sure we can study how a hammer is made, but the process is not the hammer. Edited by Panda, : No reason given.If I were you And I wish that I were you All the things I'd do To make myself turn blue
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jar Member (Idle past 424 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
I'm suggesting that the causes are not the preference.
Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!
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jar Member (Idle past 424 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
I'm saying that no matter how much you study the hammer it is still not the hammer itself.
Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!
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Panda Member (Idle past 3742 days) Posts: 2688 From: UK Joined: |
jar writes: Perhaps you could clearly identify which aspect of the object (that we will call 'hammer') is unable to be investigated by science? I'm saying that no matter how much you study the hammer it is still not the hammer itself. Edited by Panda, : No reason given. Edited by Panda, : No reason given.If I were you And I wish that I were you All the things I'd do To make myself turn blue
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jar Member (Idle past 424 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
Too funny.
You can investigate all you want but it will still not be the preference itself. You can investigate the hammer all you want but it will still never be the hammer itself. You can investigate love all you want but it will never be the experience itself. ...Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!
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bluegenes Member (Idle past 2507 days) Posts: 3119 From: U.K. Joined: |
jar writes: You can investigate all you want but it will still not be the preference itself. You can investigate the hammer all you want but it will still never be the hammer itself. You can investigate love all you want but it will never be the experience itself. You mean that you're enlightening us with the wisdom that an investigation itself is not the object or phenomenon being investigated? Thanks. BTW, was anyone implying anything else?
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Panda Member (Idle past 3742 days) Posts: 2688 From: UK Joined: |
jar writes: Science can investigate all (which by definition includes your preference) but it can't investigate your preference...
You can investigate all you want but it will still not be the preference itself. jar writes: Science can investigate the hammer, but it can't investigate the hammer...
You can investigate the hammer all you want but it will still never be the hammer itself. jar writes: Science can investigate love (which by definition includes the experience of love) but it can't investigate the experience of love... You can investigate love all you want but it will never be the experience itself. Each explanation you have provided contradicts each itself.Perhaps you could clearly identify which aspect of any of your examples is unable to be investigated by science? If I were you And I wish that I were you All the things I'd do To make myself turn blue
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Straggler Member (Idle past 95 days) Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined: |
jar writes: I'm suggesting that the causes are not the preference. OK. But why does that preclude science from investigating why it is you hold that preference?
jar writes: Why I like a blue sky is personal to me and the moment. OK. But are you suggesting that this personal preference is causeless? Or are you suggesting that there is a reason or cause for this personal preference that cannot be investigated scientifically?
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bluegenes Member (Idle past 2507 days) Posts: 3119 From: U.K. Joined: |
jar writes: I'm suggesting that the causes are not the preference. I agree. Was someone else suggesting that causes are their effects?
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member
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But is it an accurate statement? It can be stated accurately.
As both science and religion will certainly claim to answer both how and why questions of various kinds, what is the point of it? I think the point is to exemplify the differences in the kinds of answers that science and religion can provide you. Science can investigate damn-near everything, but this doesn't include a certain kind of why-questions (I'd call how a subset of why). With science, you need to be able to control an experiment. Some things can't be nailed down enough for scientific controls. Other things are too broad to be defined well enough for a proper scientific investigation. -why did Grandma X choose that tea?-why are we here? You don't have multiple Grandma X's to set-up a controlled experinment with."Being here" doesn't necessarily imply some purpose with which to answer the question "why". Whether or not they're proper questions, and whether or not the answers that religions provides can measured for any accuracy, are irrelevant to the fact that religion does provide answers to some of these questions. Science's only honest answer to the questions would be "I don't know", because it doesn't have the necessary components to provide the kind of answers that science does. They're not the kinds of questions that science asks. How does a person choose a particular tea?How did humans emerge on this planet? Those are more along the lines of scientific questions.
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
And science is perfectly comfortable giving that answer too. The teapot is boiling because a human labelled Grandma has put it on the stove is an empirical claim perfectly amenable to confirmation by science. A scientist might ask Grandma, why is the teapot boiling. A scientist may observe Grandma's actions to see if they are consistent with her statements. A scientist may even go so far as to MRI that old lady to learn more about her desires for tea. A future scientist may even be able to assess whether grandma truly believes that the teapot boiling is a precursor to satisfying thirst. But you're not going to get a scientific answer to why that particular Grandma made her decision. There's empirical evidence for why, but an anecdote from her isn't scientific. You can generalize why people make those decisions, but that doesn't address this specific individual.
Science can succesfully answer purpose questions, where purpose exists. It cannot answer purpose questions where there is no evidence of any purpose. Right, there you go. I think that's a great way to phrase it. Now, this fact doesn't stop religion from handing you an answer
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member
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Questions to be discussed by theology and philosophy, sure. But never answered. If an answer is required, only personal faith will provide that, with all its inherent subjectivity. So to claim that science can answer the "how" but it takes religion/theology/philosophy to *answer* the "why" is disingenous at best. In Message 126, Dr. Adequste wrote:
quote: Religion does "provide an answer". Answering the question "what is 2 + 2?" with "5", is still answering the question I think that part of what the statement is saying is that religion answers the questions that science doesn't try to; that there's some questions out there that aren't necessarily answerable in the sense that you're talking (i.e. real answers).
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jar Member (Idle past 424 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
I think it is an important difference that should be noted.
Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!
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jar Member (Idle past 424 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined:
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Yes, I am saying that the personal preference can be studied by science until the cows come home and still be unable to tell me any reason why I hold that preference.
Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
I don't think the statement in question is necessarily talking about some limit to empirical investigation, or establishing that there is something outside of that.
Science, though, is limited by its methodology and some questions of purpose aren't defined well enough, nor do they allow for the scientific controls for an adequate experiment, for science to properly answer them. There might not even be correct answers to some of the questions of purpose, but still, even some of those have answers that religions provide, regardless of whether or not they can be determined to have any accuracy.
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