The problem with science II

That's a teensy bit patronising, don't you think?Faith's central point is that when it comes to understanding human nature, then our own experience of it has primacy. We should be extremely skeptical of any "scientific" explanation of human nature that contradicts what it actually feels like to be human. That seems like a very sensible approach to me.I don't have any truck with any of her religious arguments, or with the notion that science should be barred from certain fields of investigation, but on her central point this atheistic, materialistic, former chemist is in total agreement.

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'I can't even fit all my wife's clothes into a suitcase for travelling. So you want me to believe we're going to put all of the planets and stars and everything into a sandwich bag?' - q3psycho on the Big Bang

Yes, that's a useful term here, I think, rr.

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'I can't even fit all my wife's clothes into a suitcase for travelling. So you want me to believe we're going to put all of the planets and stars and everything into a sandwich bag?' - q3psycho on the Big Bang

Hmm. It's not just scientists that produce reductionist explanations.

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'I can't even fit all my wife's clothes into a suitcase for travelling. So you want me to believe we're going to put all of the planets and stars and everything into a sandwich bag?' - q3psycho on the Big Bang

Yet it was you who referenced Adam's fall in a post to me earltier when I asked about your views! Please make up your OWN mind!Religion here represents the proverbial "elephant in the room"! If you do not object to certain types of science on religious grounds then on what rational basis DO you object to them? Percy hits the nail on the head with this.

Who says science is out to contradict anything? Might not science want to explain why, as humans, we "feel"?Darwin certainly didn't set out to contradict God or the Bible, he just attempted to explain what he saw around him. It just so happened that his observations (and those of thousands of others) built a picture that contradicted creation myth.Edited by RickJB, : No reason given.

Well, that's why we're taking baby steps. You complain that no one is getting it, then when someone tries to get it, you beg off. Not exactly a formula for success. In fact, it seems guaranteed to perpetuate that no one will ever get it just so you can keep complaining.So let me change it up just a little. You said back in Message 141: Okay, it's laughable. Now, can you explain why it is laughable, and put it in the context of science not properly following scientific methodology, which I assume is what you meant by "they make a reductionistic falsified trivialized mess of it"?In other words, are you criticizing science because of some failure of science or procedure? Or is it just that you don't like the conclusions?--Percy

And I see that point coming right out of a view that's very common among the community that she refers to - the idea that scientists don't actually know all that much more than regular folks, or your mother.But it's not true. Scientists become experts in their fields. I don't see why. Just because I feel something one way doesn't mean that it is that way. People with amputations "feel" like they still possess that limb. The "human experience" conclusion from that is "people have a soul, and when the body's arm is removed, the soul's arm remains." The scientific conclusion is that proprioception is a function of specialized-by-region structures in the brain that remain even when the limb that they model is removed. All of which contradicts the "feeling" that we have a soul, or whatever.To the extent that anything is observable, it is amenable to scientific investigation. And the idea that a common person can know as much about a field as a scientist who is an expert in that field is so counter-obvious that it "feels" like a smart thing to say, like it's the product of wisdom and experience; but that's not true, either. It's counter-obvious because it's obviously wrong.

I was adopting a neutral stance for the sake of trying to clarify the issue.

Well put! However, I would say that this would explain in part why we have the feeling rather than contradict it. It is my belief that many of our feelings are induced by the complex interactions between biological systems like proprioceptors. Only if we had a sense of disorientation resulting from proprioception would it be contradictory, so I have a question: What kind of "scientific" explanation of human nature contradicts what it actually feels like to be human? If proprioceptors are said to induce disorientation, I think I would be a little skeptical too.

There is the idea that the aura of incorporeality that we carry around with us, which we call our "minds," is caused by the fact that the brain has no feelers--or something.

Well, for instance, the sort of speculative scientistic explanation that Robin encountered some time back that he reported on this thread, about men's attraction to particular qualities in women "really" being about their suitability for breeding. Sure doesn't FEEL that way. Nor for a woman's attraction to particular qualities in men I might add.Or the famous sociobiology idea that self-sacrificial love for a child is really based on an altruism gene or something like that and is intended to further the genetic package of the family. Sure doesn't feel like that.

Sigh. Baby steps in the wrong direction aren't going to get us anywhere. I don't understand the difficulty here, except that it's an example of the very divide I'm trying to talk about, and I don't have a way to solve it. No, the baby steps bit isn't going to do it. It's in the wrong direction. Afraid not. The idea makes me extremely tired. Who knows, maybe some time I'll get a new perspective on it and try it again. I don't know. I don't think I'm criticizing science. I think I'm criticizing a certain mentality that grows out of science, and yes, does get applied as science where it just makes up stuff. Like sociobiology. Like Robin's example. But if you don't get it after all my attempts to talk about it so far, I should just give up.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

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Well, for instance, the sort of speculative scientistic explanation that Robin encountered some time back that he reported on this thread, about men's attraction to particular qualities in women "really" being about their suitability for breeding. Sure doesn't FEEL that way. Nor for a woman's attraction to particular qualities in men I might add.

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Or the famous sociobiology idea that self-sacrificial love for a child is really based on an altruism gene or something like that and is intended to further the genetic package of the family. Sure doesn't feel like that.

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Neither of these are especially silly ideas, and I really don't understand the reasoning behind the objection. Since both examples refer to behaviour that is essentially instinctive I find it hard to see why it should "feel" any different than it does.In the first case it should be simple attraction (probably sexual attraction) but there doesn't need to be any understanding of the reasons behind it because it is not something consciously decided on. It is an example of the sort of preferences that underly our consciosu decisions and that is what it "should" feel like.In the second case we should expect to see a tendency to help close relatives over strangers. And we know that is true. And, again, it shouldn't be something conscious or undersood. It should feel like a stronger urge to help when it is a relative in trouble as opposed to a stranger.

What can I say. Spoken like someone from the Science side of the divide. End of subject for you, apparently, but for us on the other side of the divide it elicits pain, groans, eyerolling and cynical snickers.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

No, it's not the end of the subject. I'm trying to discuss the issues. If you can't answer my points and your only real objection is that you don't like the idea then say so, and there's nothing more to discuss.If your objections are more than personal distaste and you can explain them then there's absolutely no reason to call a halt.a