critiques of science

[borderpolice]

I find the whole argument that "if you believe in rationality and empiricism it's actually the same as believing in God" to be smug, intentionally controversial and ultimately sophomoric.

It's an important part of religious rhetoric: it works like this: there are basically two forms of religion, call them religion for the smart (RSm) and religion for the stupid (RSt) for the sake of generating controversy.

RSm is very abstract and boils down to some variant of pantheism spiced up with a moral feel-good factor: "the universe exists, and we should all be nice to each other and if believing in god helps with this, then who could be against it?"

RSt is what priests teach in church: the content of the bible, the koran, what have you: "Homosexuality is bad, women should only have few sexual partners ...!". It is very concrete. It is very objectionable.

It is important to see that there is no connection between RSt and RSm, but most people confuse them. This is why adherents of religion often come out victorious from discussions with atheists. In discussion, defenders of religion essentially always argue for RSm, and then everyone cannot but agree with them, for who would say the universe doesn't exist. However when they go back to their churches, temples, mosques, they then argue for RSt, althought they themselves often don't really believe in the concrete teachings (the father of a friend of mine was a catholic archbishop -- and no I wont tell you which). But the prestige of having (semi-)successfully defened religion in discussion with atheists, with famous scientists carries over, because most people don't realise that the high-minded discussion was only about RSm, not about RSt.

In other words, this rhetorical technique is clever and parasitic: it uses the esteem of science in the defense of RSt. It's a clever technique: time and again atheists fall for it.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Hmm. I've not seen it put like that before, although that makes a certain amount of sense. I would certainly defend a person's right to believe in and worship whatever god(s) s/he chooses to, as long as it doesn't infringe anyone else's basic rights - but I get along just fine without any god at all, as do most of the people I know.

What upsets me is when people explicitly or implicitly describe science as a 'religion' (as HMLT seems to be doing), as an 'ideology' (as one of the writers zhao alluded to called it), as a 'superstition' or some related terms. It is none of these things. Sure, sometimes it's not as objective as it likes to think it is, but it at least tries to be objective, which is more than can be said of any religion or ideology.

 

[hundredmillionlifetimes]

Yes Matt b, quite right. Interesting how the empiricists here never mention Feyerabend.

This is confused and not well expressed

It is NOT. Rather, it is your failure to properly distinguish between knowledge [the scientific drive towards what is useful] and truth [the ultimate, the thing-in-itself, and so on, which is always the re-introduction of God] that is the source of your confusion.

The rest of your post is simple (Big Other) dogma, an empty appeal to Authority - viz science is aleays right because Science says so.

BTW, an interesting piece that examines the difference between knowledge and truth is Zizek's DESIRE: DRIVE = TRUTH: KNOWLEDGE, but not sufficiently empirical for your demands, predictably.

Would you care to explain to me exactly how I've "radically misunderstood" the texts? Stenger in particular seems to think physicists lie awake at night tortured by apparent paradoxes or contradictions that were put to bed long ago. Anyone who considers 'creationism' to be science is fundamentally wrong, for the reasons I have stated; if postmodernists want to support it just to piss off scientists, well, that's up to them I guess.

You attribute positions to Stenger and Rollins, quoted above, which are completely contrary to what they have very explicitly stated. They nowhere claim that creationism is science (but bad science); it is creationists/IDers who claim this - that is the problem, that is what pisses off scientists, they've "stolen" their precious Method!!

Regarding your other claims about Truth etc, can we take it that you completely reject Nietzsche's Parable of the Madman? God may not exist, but he has not yet died for you ...

treat the scientific method itself a bit like a scientific theory, in that we shall continue to use it for as long as it is useful.

Except that it isn't just "theory"; its an ontological dogma.

 

[matt b]

here's an interesting article about one of feyerabend's key arguments:
http://www.galilean-library.org/feyerabend.html

 

[Mr. Tea]

You attribute positions to Stenger and Rollins, quoted above, which are completely contrary to what they have very explicitly stated. They nowhere claim that creationism is science (but bad science); it is creationists/IDers who claim this - that is the problem, that is what pisses off scientists, they've "stolen" their precious Method!!

Dude, for fuck's sake, Rollins' piece is titled "CREATIONISM IS SCIENTIFIC!" How could that be any more explicit? It's in block caps, bold face AND it's red! He goes on to say "...I have to say that I side more with the Fundamentalists in their claim that they follow scientific procedures..." and then gives reasons why he thinks this.
Stengers, on the other hand, claims physicists "can’t accept that total, deterministic knowledge is an impossibility" and that they "dismiss the apparent irreversibility of time". I can tell you, in a professional capacity, these claims are categorically false.

However, I should know better by now that to expect you to demonstrate an iota of consistency or intellectual honesty whenever you paste vast swathes of other people's writing in the belief it proves a point and then tell people they're wrong when they make comments on it.

Except that it isn't just "theory"; its an ontological dogma.

From Wiktionary:

Dogma (the plural is either dogmata or dogmas, Greek δόγμα, plural δόγματα) is the established belief or doctrine held by a religion, ideology or any kind of organization, thought to be authoritative and not to be disputed or doubted.

Science is NOT dogma. Dogma sets itself up as beyond question: the reason the scientific method has not been seriously challenged as the best method for gathering and organising information about the world is that no better method has ever been discovered.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Oh, and will you please stop wibbling on about God? This is meant to be a thread about science and the scientific method, and it's getting tiresome.

 

[hundredmillionlifetimes]

In a post some months ago, I stated that I would not be responding to any more of Mr Tea's abusive, paranoid ravings directed at myself, partly in the vain hope that he would come to his senses. But his deranged response here, no different in form to that of a crazed Christian fundamentalist, to my mistake of breaking my rule and engaging with him in a post above now further, and sadly, confirms the impossibility of such an outcome.

Is this the future of these science "professionals"?

Evidently.

[Claiming that Rollins and Spenger literally view creationism as "scientific" is like claiming that Jonathan Swift was (literally) advocating cannibalism in A Modest Proposal. But that's what empirical fascism leads to ...]

 

[hundredmillionlifetimes]

Oh, and though needless to add for some here, it is the empiricists who keep (re)introducing God into this discussion, by rigidly insisting that the Scientific Method is The Truth, is The Ultimate Reality, cluelessly substituting a science god for a supernatural one, which was the reason for citing Nietzsche's Parable of the Madman, completly lost on these ostensibly scientific "atheists".

But I think the problem has been well articulated and sumarised on Dissensus in the past, as this K-punk post demonstrates:

Few human beings have managed to be atheists.

Nietzsche's parable of the 'Death of God', it should be remembered, was aimed not at the theists, but at 'those who did not believe in God.' It is they who mock the madman for proclaiming God's death... why is this important? Why is the madman concerned with something that is of no consequence, that every educated person takes for granted?

But Nietzsche very well knew that these 'educated people', these advocates of 'modern ideas' were very far from having processed the implications of the most important event in human history. The erasure of God meant the evacuation of every existing human value, it meant thinking of human beings, as Nietzsche tried to, as dying animals on a doomed planet, as a cosmic accident of no more significance or meaning than bacteria growing on a toilet bowl.

Who could live (with) that thought? Not Nietzsche himself, whose breakdown was surely precipitated by his failure to rise to the challenge of being a 'positive nihilist', to create a new human entity capable of living in and with this terrible vacancy. Living in it --- and still affirming life.

One of Nietzsche's keenest readers was H. P. Lovecraft. The genius of Lovecraft was to have constructed a fictional system which, however fantastic, was utterly devoid of supernaturalism and which was unstinting in its rejection of the Aristolean-theistic-vitalistic conception that life, and particularly human life, is of special value. Like the Freud of Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Lovecraft retreats from Nietzsche's priapic vitalism (what, as John Gray says, is Nietzsche's hymning to the efflorescent creativty of life if not Christianity in another form?) to Schopenhauer's withering pessimism.

I would urge everyone to read the translation of Houllbecq's Contre le Monde, Contre le Vie, at Undercurrent. The following section is particularly noteworthy for our purposes:

'Lovecraft knows there’s nothing to this world. And he plays the role of the loser every time. In theory as in practice. He has lost his childhood, he has equally lost his faith. The world disgusts him, and he sees no reason to suppose that things could be presented otherwise, by looking on the bright side. He considers all religions equally compromised by their ‘saccharine illusions’, rendered obsolete by the progress of scientific knowledge. In his periods of exceptional good humour, he will speak of an ‘enchanted circle’ of religious belief; but this is a circle from which he feels, in every way, banished.
Very few will have been at this point of saturation, penetrated right to the marrow by the absolute void of every human aspiration. The universe is merely a chance arrangement of elementary particles. A transitory image in the midst of chaos. Which will end with the inevitable: The human race will disappear. Other races will appear, and disappear in turn. The heavens are cold and empty, traversed by the faint light of half-dead stars. Which, also, will disappear. Everything disappears. And human actions are just as random and senseless as the movements of elementary particles. Good, evil, morality, fine sentiments? Pure “victorian fictions”. There is only egotism. Cold, undiluted and dazzling.
Lovecraft is well aware of the depressing nature of these conclusions. As he wrote in 1918, “all rationalism tends to minimize the value and importance of life, and to diminish the total quantity of human happiness. In some cases the truth could cause suicide, or at least precipitate a near-suicidal depression.”

His atheistic and materialist convictions would not change at all. They were reprised in letter after letter, with an almost masochistic delectation.

Of course, life has no meaning. But neither does death. And this is one of the things that chills the blood when one discovers Lovecraft’s universe. The death of his heroes has no meaning. It brings no relief. It doesn’t bring the story to a conclusion, not at all. Implacably, HPL destroys his characters without suggesting more than the dismemberment of a puppet. Indifferent to their wretched comings and goings, the cosmic fear continues to grow. It expands and articulates itself. The Great Cthulhu arises from his slumber.

What is the Great Cthulhu? An arrangement of electrons, like ourselves. The terror of Lovecraft is rigorously materialist. But it is strongly possible, from the free play of cosmic forces, that the Great Cthulhu has at his disposal a force and a power of action considerably superior to ours. Which is not, a priori, anything especially reassuring.'

Yes, yes.. this is atheism.​

 

[tryptych]

Been reading more about Kuhn and Popper over the weekend....
I have yet to read Kuhn's "Structure" but I mean to.

For now, all I was attacking was his description of how new paradigms are arrived at - ie. he claims hypotheses are arrived at by induction. I wanted to show how scientific knowledge can move forward without resorting to induction as a means of selecting between hypotheses or generating them. I think some of what Popper wrote on this subject helped to find a way out of the induction problem.

I was interested in discussing epistemology more than "Kuhn vs Popper" -the famous debate in regard to how scienctists behave within academia, the more "sociological" or human aspects of scientific practise. It seems to have been blown out of all proportion in retrospect but I need to read more....

But I do want to read "Structure" because it seems to me that Kuhn is not what he is made out to be by his admirers... need to read the source and make up my own mind.

Reading about the Kuhn/Popper debate has made me think more about the way science is done in the real world, who decided what gets done, who are the important voices in the "peer group" that reveiews each others' work etc.
So I have more sympathy now to Zhao's initial point.

Edward - very sorry if you felt my tone was aggressive, it wasn't meant to be at all!

Ok.. where to begin. The problem with Popper and falsification is that it doesn't get round induction at all. To re-present my claim that falsification is "reverse" induction, let me use your phrasing:

The problem of induction:
just because an experiment gave a result 100 times in a row, we have no right to assume it will be the same on the 101st attempt. so we should not use this method to create theories.

Notice how we can swap "induction" with "falsification" and "create" with "falsify" - if an experimental result goes against a theory (thereby falsifying it), 100 times in a row, we have no right to assume it will be the same on the 101st attempt.

I think this quote from the wikipedia Popper entry which ties in with what IdleRich and Edward have worked towards in their debate:

Among his contributions to philosophy is his attempt to answer the philosophical problem of induction. The problem, in basic terms, can be understood by example: just because the sun has risen every day for as long as anyone can remember, doesn't mean that there is any rational reason to believe it will rise tomorrow. There is no rational way to prove that a pattern will continue in the future just because it has in the past. Popper's reply is characteristic, and ties in with his criterion of falsifiability. He states that while there is no way to prove that the sun will come up, we can theorise that it will. If it does not come up, then it will be disproven, but since right now it seems to be consistent with our theory, the theory is not disproven.

While this may be a true description of the pragmatic approach to theorizing adopted by the scientific method, it does not actually address the philosophical problem. As Stephen Hawking explains, "No matter how many times the results of experiments agree with some theory, you can never be sure that the next time the result will not contradict the theory."[6] While it may be pragmatically useful to accept a theory until it is falsified, this does not solve the philosophical problem of induction. As Bertrand Russell put it, "the general principles of science . . . are believed because mankind have found innumerable instances of their truth and no instances of their falsehood. But this affords no evidence for their truth in the future, unless the inductive principle is assumed."[7] In essence, Popper addressed justification for belief that the sun will rise tomorrow, not justification for the fact that it will, which is the crux of the philosophical problem. Said another way, Popper addressed the psychological causes of our belief in the validity of induction, not the logical reasons for it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Popper#Problem_of_Induction

Given the above, the problem of induction still exists. Which takes us back to Kuhn - I didn't originally invoke Kuhn because of his position on induction, but because of his alternative view of science as being close to Zhao's original point.

I don't think it's your reading of Popper that's wrong - it's your reading of Kuhn. Looking back now you seem to have been arguing that Kuhn was arguing for induction as if it was "good" way to do science, and Popper was trying to find an alternative method instead (now I can see why you thought Lakatos was supporting Popper against Kuhn... which confused me when you wrote it!)

The point about different paradigms is that science doesn't move forward in any meaningful sense - there is no absolute truth vs Popper's claim of "there is a truth, and although we can never reach it we are getting closer and closer". If you feel some sympathy to what Zhao and Lyotard say, then you will have sympathy with Kuhn too (for the record I do think Kuhn was a relativist, certainly in Structure.. despite his later denial of it).

Along with The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, if you want to get a bit deeper into the debate it's worth reading Kuhn's The Essential Tension which is various essays that flesh things out, and if i recall the Lakatos & Musgrave edited Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge is worth a look too - various people writing on Kuhn.

Given that Popper's work has somewhat fallen out of favour among philosophers of science, and they've not all switched to the Kuhnian/social epistemology/relativist side of the debate, 3rd way... which is scientific realism and it's appeal to "inference to the best explanation" or abduction rather than induction as the way in which science progresses, which you might be interested in, Edward.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_realism

Happy hunting!

I still the the problem is not with Science (capital S) but with science (ie Tryptych's definition of science) ad I am coming to appreciate his point of view that you can't have one without the other (if that's what he was saying).

What I was saying is that there is no such think as Science - there is only science, in those terms. Science (with a capital S) is an abstract ideal, that scientists like to think they are doing, when they are doing science. There's still good and bad science - bad science is just even further away from Science than good science is. Does that make sense...?

In terms of Zhao's original post, Science is the "beyond narrative" ideal that actual (narrative) science pretends to be.

 

[tryptych]

Interesting how many here talk of "the one best current explanation" of phenomenon X, forgetting that in most cases contradictory theories of phenomenon X can very comfortably now co-exist: "While Kuhn's paradigm shifts are a consequence of a series of conscious decisions made by scientists to pursue a neglected set of questions, Foucault's epistemes are something like the 'epistemological unconscious' of an era; the configuration of knowledge in a particular episteme is based on a set of fundamental assumptions that are so basic to that episteme so as to be invisible to people operating within it. Moreover, Kuhn's concept seems to correspond to what Foucault calls theme or theory of a science, but Foucault analysed how opposing theories and themes could co-exist within a science. Kuhn doesn't search for the conditions of possibility of opposing discourses within a science, but simply for the (relatively) invariant dominant paradigm governing scientific research (supposing that one paradigm always is pervading, except under paradigmatic transition)."

Where's this quote from...?

My reading of Kuhn would not be that paradigm shifts are a consequence series of conscious decisions made by scientists. The critical thing for Kuhn is that what paradigm is accepted and appropriate at a certain time in history is due to how well it answers the (often unspoken) questions posed at that time by society - which I would call the "epistemological unconscious" (IIRC Kuhn talks about earlier scientific paradigms having to include assumptions about the existence of God as an example of this - paradigms without such not being acceptable). Basically, I think it's a rather unkind reading - it's fair to say that he isn't searching out those conditions of possibility of discourse, but he is definately aware of them, althought doesn't frame it in those terms.

Minor point, I know...

 

[IdleRich]

I think this quote from the wikipedia Popper entry which ties in with what IdleRich and Edward have worked towards in their debate:

You put it much better, thanks.

 

[borderpolice]

It is NOT. Rather, it is your failure to properly distinguish between knowledge [the scientific drive towards what is useful] and truth [the ultimate, the thing-in-itself, and so on, which is always the re-introduction of God] that is the source of your confusion.

The rest of your post is simple (Big Other) dogma, an empty appeal to Authority - viz science is aleays right because Science says so.

Simple dogma? Appeal to authority? An empty one even? Hahaha! Quite some dismissal! All the more impressive and forceful as it comes from a man who goes "Zizek this", "Badiou that" in just about every sentence. Anyway, enough of these trivial matters.

Where do you get the idea from that "science is aleays right because Science says so"? Surely not from what I wrote, because I hold the opposite prosition, namely that science so far has always been partially wrong. Why? Because if science had already been right, there would be no need for scientific progress, but science evolves over time, as we can easily observe, hence science has always found problems with itself. it's quite simple really. The interesting bit is the self-referentiality of this: science finds itself wanting, according to its own criteria. So science works like the ship in the famous metaphor: it rebuilds itself while sailing on the ocean, using its own parts, and bits it finds floating in the water.

Moreover, why do you assume that there is a thing in itself? This is far from clear. I accept that the assumption of things in themselve is a ubiquitous simplification, that helps structuring one's though, but that's not a warrant for identification of truth with thing in itself. Finally, "useful" is itself socially constructed, and in more complicated cases usefulness can often only be conceived with reference to scientfic results (e.g. belief in the usefulness of reducing carbon emissions is itself based upon the correctness of causal claims about the connection between climate change, its dangers and carbon emissions, which are highly dependent upon the scientific method, in particular empirical studies). Concepts like thruth, knowledge, observation, scientific methods and so on are based upon each other in a circular way.

Finally, exactly what value does it have to identify the thing in itself with god? For a start the latter seems to have a beard!

DESIRE: DRIVE = TRUTH: KNOWLEDGE

I don't see where this piece makes a any sustained and serious investigation into the matter of truth versus knowledge. Could you be so kind as to flesh out for me how, for example, Zizek's discussion specialises, to the well-known and often discussed problems of truth/knowledge in the narrow (hence more easily circumscribed) areas of (1) axiomatic foundations of mathematics or (2) quantum mechanics, or, if you are more ambitious (3) sociology? I would find that very helpful for my understanding of your position since I'm much more familiar with these fields than with Lacanian psychoanalysis.

 

[Mr. Tea]

But his deranged response here, no different in form to that of a crazed Christian fundamentalist...

OK, OK, I get it: my belief/faith in science/'Absolute Truth' (allegedly) is so spookily akin to the belief of a religious person in God (to the extent that I am a 'fundamentalist'!) that, to me, scientific Truth somehow *is* God. Right? Is that your position? Well I shan't wait for a response because you're obviously going to tell me I've got it wrong, but it seems to me to be a fairly reasonable summary of your position.

Now, who else would agree with your above definition of 'God'? Almost certainly not anyone whose job it is to know about God (a vicar, priest, mullah, guru, rabbi, the Pope, you name it) and certainly no-one whose job it is to know about science (e.g. me). So just you, then.

I should make it clear that most scientists do not really regard their profession as being principally about seeking 'Absolute Truth' - that's more the realm of mathematicians. My position is that the Universe operates according laws which are, in principle, discoverable to intelligent beings regardless of what sort of culture they may come from, and that although they may express those laws in very different ways, their interpretations of them would nonetheless be equivalent. That is to say, on some other planet where a species has reached the same level of development as ours, there will have been an alien Galileo, an alien Newton, an Einstein, a Heisenberg and so on. So you could call that the discovery of Truths. Whether it is possible ever to atain 'absolute' truth (in science), I don't know: in fact, I would be rather doubtful of that.

[Claiming that Rollins and Spenger literally view creationism as "scientific" is like claiming that Jonathan Swift was (literally) advocating cannibalism in A Modest Proposal. But that's what empirical fascism leads to ...]

Ahh, here we go again..."They're not actualy saying that, you imbecile! They're just saying it!"
Silly old fascist me. *slaps forehead*

Edit: is it just me or does HMLT like to use the word 'fascist' as a sort of meaningless catch-all insult? A bit like the way a five-year-old might call someone a 'poo-poo-head'. Just a thought...

Edit edit: just seen this on another messageboard - slight simplification, but I quite like it: http://www.wellingtongrey.net/miscellanea/archive/2007-01-15 -- science vs faith.png

 

[hundredmillionlifetimes]

Simple dogma? Appeal to authority? An empty one even? Hahaha! Quite some dismissal! All the more impressive and forceful as it comes from a man who goes "Zizek this", "Badiou that" in just about every sentence.

But it is an appeal to empty authority, and a transcendent one to boot: Science as Ultimate Truth. Again, science as God.

But science, the scientific drive, is indifferent to such notions: it does not concern itself with truth, but with necessary fictions (knowledge).

Quoting such philosophers here is far from making such an appeal to empty authority, or to a Subject Supposed To Know, but a serious engagement with their reasoning.

Where do you get the idea from that "science is always right because Science says so"? Surely not from what I wrote, because I hold the opposite prosition, namely that science so far has always been partially wrong. Why? Because if science had already been right, there would be no need for scientific progress, but science evolves over time, as we can easily observe, hence science has always found problems with itself. it's quite simple really.

It isn't at all simple, and that "science is always right because Science says so " is precisely what you believe; you even repeat it again in the above paragraph: even when science is "wrong", its ... right!!

Evolution as progress? Very ninteenth century, borderpolice, that fanciful notion that evolution is a progress towards something, progress according to some inexorable "law of nature" (there are no laws of nature, borderpolice), some unstopable historical development guaranteeing a Final, ultimate reality. That's not science, that's belief in a transcendent God (scientific humanism).

Moreover, why do you assume that there is a thing in itself?

I don't, you do: you believe that there is not only an ultimate truth, an ultimate reality, but that it can be, eventually will be (thanks to "progress"), directly accessed, thanks to "scientific progress" and its imagined engine, scientific empiricism.

Finally, exactly what value does it have to identify the thing in itself with god? For a start the latter seems to have a beard!

???????????? Because the "thing-in-itself", truth, objectivity, final reality, structure and order, IS God, is ALWAYS God. And this, despite the fact that many (ostensible) atheists believe in truth, objectivity, etc.

Your difficulty is that your idea of God is narrowly restricted to the supernatural, to the personal or transcendent, anthropomorphic God in the cool hippy beard [and the related belief, that those who reject such a God are ipso facto scientific empiricists]. What you are rejecting here is theism: a theistic God is such a transcendent God; and you are then, as with others here, both defining as an atheist anyone who does not believe in a theistic God and (implicitly) anything not empirical as supernatural. What then, of all those religious (eg those for whom God = Immanence) who reject such a notion of God, are they "atheists" too? They are indeed!!

I don't see where this piece makes any sustained and serious investigation into the matter of truth versus knowledge.

You don't?

Of course, the concrete organization of the scientific apparatus, up to its most abstract conceptual schemas, is socially "mediated," but the whole game of discerning a patriarchal, Eurocentric, mechanistic, nature-exploiting bias to modern science does not really concern science, the drive which effectuates itself in the operation of the scientific machine. Heidegger's position seems here utterly ambiguous; perhaps, it is all too easy to dismiss him as the most sophisticated proponent of the thesis that science a priori misses the dimension of truth. Didn't he claim that "science doesn't think," i.e. that it is by definition unable to reflect its own philosophical foundation, the hermeneutic horizon of its functioning, and, furthermore, that this incapacity, far from playing the role of an impediment, is a positive condition of possibility of its smooth functioning? His crucial point is rather that modern science, as such, cannot be reduced to some limited, ontical, "socially conditioned" option (expressing the interests of a certain social group, etc.), but is rather the real of our historical moment, that which "remains the same" in all possible ("progressive" and "reactionary," "technocratic" and "ecological," "patriarchal" and "feminist") symbolic universes. Heidegger is thus well aware that all fashionable "critiques of science" according to which science is a tool of Western capitalist domination, of patriarchal oppression, etc., fall short and thus leave unquestioned the "hard kernel" of the scientific drive. Lacan obliges us to add that science is perhaps "real" in an even more radical sense: it is the first (and probably unique) case of a discourse that is strictly nonhistorical even in the Heideggerian sense of the historicity of the epochs of Being, i.e. epochs whose functioning is inherently indifferent to the historically determined horizons of the disclosure of Being. Precisely insofar as science "doesn't think," it knows, ignoring the dimension of truth, and is as such drive at its purest. Lacan's supplement to Heidegger would thus be: why should this utter "forgetting of Being" at work in modern science be perceived only as the greatest "danger? Does it not contain also a "liberating" dimension? Is not the suspension of ontological Truth in the unfettered functioning of science already a kind of "passing through" and "getting over" the metaphysical closure?​

 

[Mr. Tea]

But it is an appeal to empty authority, and a transcendent one to boot: Science as Ultimate Truth. Again, science as God.

Where the hell do you get this idea? Science is not 'Ultimate Truth'. It is an attempt to elucidate the ways in which the natural world operates. Call these 'Truths' if you like. The phrase 'Ultimate Truth' implies a discovery which, once made, would make all subsequent discoveries redundant. I seriously doubt any real scientist expects this will ever happen. You're building up science to be much more than it really is simply in order to attack it - you're "al-Qa'ida-ising" it.

It isn't at all simple, and that "science is always right because Science says so " is precisely what you believe; you even repeat it again in the above paragraph: even when science is "wrong", its ... right!!

So by that criterion, any piece of science that doesn't uncover "Ultimate Truth" is "bad" or "wrong" science? Phew, that's quite a tall order! Let me put it this way: Newton's laws of motion are "wrong" in the sense that they take into account neither quantum mechanics nor relativity. But they're still science par excellence because under a specific set of circumstances - objects composed of many particles moving at much less than the speed of light - they are absolutely correct. At some fundamental level, they embody a Truth (all the moreso since they were derived from mathematical reasoning more than empiral/inductive observation).

Evolution as progress?

Ahh, that fashionable po-mo disdain for 'progress'!

(there are no laws of nature, borderpolice)

Would you therefore care to explain to me why the universe is amenable to rational understanding at all?
Why a ball thrown up in the air will follow a trajectory that can be precisely predicted using Newton's Laws, and doesn't simply move around however it pleases, disappear or turn into a butterfly?
If you want to say "all laws of nature are human constructs", I'd be happy with that, as long as we admit that there is some concrete link between them and the real, physical, tangible universe. After all, religion, philosophy and society are all human constructs, and they most definitely exist.

 

[Tactics]

Lol

Umm...whut? Care to be a little more specific?

Nice to see a good level of rationality being displayed in this thread!

trust me you can laugh but...I'll rather laugh at modern science! all the arguing in this thread won't achieve anything

but still...it sorta reminds me of the point of modern science...lol!

look...the suns out...I'm off to activate some vitamin D and stimulate my pineal...an actual activity with a point

enjoy yourself

p.s you did actually smack it on that pie though...I can't lie

 

[borderpolice]

But it is an appeal to empty authority, and a transcendent one to boot: Science as Ultimate Truth. Again, science as God.

But science, the scientific drive, is indifferent to such notions: it does not concern itself with truth, but with necessary fictions (knowledge).

I can't work out if this is supposed to represent my position, caricature it, or a statement of your's.

Quoting such philosophers here is far from making such an appeal to empty authority, or to a Subject Supposed To Know, but a serious engagement with their reasoning.

How about conducting this exchange under the friendly assumption that I am also seriously engaged with science and its status?

It isn't at all simple, and that "science is always right because Science says so " is precisely what you believe; you even repeat it again in the above paragraph: even when science is "wrong", its ... right!!

I am unable to recognize my position here. Maybe you confuse my position with somebody else's?

Evolution as progress? Very ninteenth century, borderpolice, that fanciful notion that evolution is a progress towards something, progress according to some inexorable "law of nature" (there are no laws of nature, borderpolice), some unstopable historical development guaranteeing a Final, ultimate reality. That's not science, that's belief in a transcendent God (scientific humanism).

I am unable to recognize my position here. Maybe you confuse my position with somebody else's?

I don't, you do: you believe that there is not only an ultimate truth, an ultimate reality, but that it can be, eventually will be (thanks to "progress"), directly accessed, thanks to "scientific progress" and its imagined engine, scientific empiricism.

I am unable to recognize my position here. Maybe you confuse my position with somebody else's?

???????????? Because the "thing-in-itself", truth, objectivity, final reality, structure and order, IS God, is ALWAYS God. And this, despite the fact that many (ostensible) atheists believe in truth, objectivity, etc.

No it is not, unless you equate god and the thing in itself. But then your claims are semantic trivialities. I am well aware of the pantheistic position but reject it, because i don't see the cognitive benefit of this semantic equivocation. Hence my question, which, incidentally, you have not answered. So let me ask again: Exactly what value does it have to identify the thing in itself with god?

Your difficulty is that your idea of God is narrowly restricted to the supernatural, to the personal or transcendent, anthropomorphic God in the cool hippy beard [and the related belief, that those who reject such a God are ipso facto scientific empiricists].

What you are rejecting here is theism: a theistic God is such a transcendent God; and you are then, as with others here, both defining as an atheist anyone who does not believe in a theistic God and (implicitly) anything not empirical as supernatural. What then, of all those religious (eg those for whom God = Immanence) who reject such a notion of God, are they "atheists" too? They are indeed!!

This is not at all my position. Let me sketch it.

1. I believe that there is no coherent concept of god. Believers use that term in many different ways, that cannot be abstracted into a simple concept encompassing all of this.
   
2. This lack of consensus about what gods are is not accidental, but a direct consequence of the evolution of religion over the millenia, and directly related to its social function.
   
3. Nevertheless one can discern some degree of similarity in a significant part of religious discourse. Current theorising of religion summerises this bit as "the re-entry of the distinction between immanence and transcendence into immanence". This is fairly abstract and presumably a little hard to comprehend for the uninitiated, so let me simplify it for a lay audience: gods are paradoxica/incomprehensible things about which we cannot in principle say anything, but we talk about them anyway. Defusiing this foundational paradox is an important task in the reproduction of religion and achieved in various ways, like for example rituals.
   
4. It is empirically undeniable that pantheists are considered atheists by most religions. Hence those that have the best authority to decide on what gods may be (the believers) reject your equivocation. This puts your equivocation in a pretty weak position, hence my question: exactly what are the cognitive benefits of equating god and thing in itself/immanence/the universe. Why not equate god and love (as is quite fashionable now), of god and potatoes?
   
5. Let me elaborate on the previous point: you claim that my position (which you don't understand) is unable to account for non-theistic religions; counterquestion: how does your pantheisitic position account for the majority of world religions that stipulate personal, supernatural gods?

You don't?

No, not at all. You might see why if you try and explain to me "how, for example, Zizek's discussion specialises, to the well-known and often discussed problems of truth/knowledge in the narrow (hence more easily circumscribed) areas of (1) axiomatic foundations of mathematics or (2) quantum mechanics, or, if you are more ambitious (3) sociology? I would find that very helpful for my understanding of your position since I'm much more familiar with these fields than with Lacanian psychoanalysis."

Let me close this post by requestion to talk less about gods and more about science.

 

[tryptych]

This puts your equivocation in a pretty weak position, hence my question: exactly what are the cognitive benefits of equating god and thing in itself/immanence/the universe. Why not equate god and love (as is quite fashionable now), of god and potatoes?

thing-in-itself is transcendent, not immanent...?

No, not at all. You might see why if you try and explain to me "how, for example, Zizek's discussion specialises, to the well-known and often discussed problems of truth/knowledge in the narrow (hence more easily circumscribed) areas of (1) axiomatic foundations of mathematics or (2) quantum mechanics, or, if you are more ambitious (3) sociology? I would find that very helpful for my understanding of your position since I'm much more familiar with these fields than with Lacanian psychoanalysis."

I imagine HMLT's relutance to engage with that has something to do with the fact that any definitions or concepts of truth/knowledge produced within such admittedly narrow areas are not necessarily (and possibly never) applicable outside those areas.

I'm guessing that Lacanian's are interested in some more universal, and ontological (as opposed to ontic). Although I could be wrong, as it's not my field either...

Back to the science - I'm sort of interested, and it might help clafiry the debate if I knew what position borderpolice and Mr Tea take on science - HMLT assumes your empiricists, but I'm guessing some form of scientific realism is closer...

 

[Mr. Tea]

Let me close this post by requestion to talk less about gods and more about science.

Blimey, there's a hell of an echo in here...

 

[Mr. Tea]

Back to the science - I'm sort of interested, and it might help clafiry the debate if I knew what position borderpolice and Mr Tea take on science - HMLT assumes your empiricists, but I'm guessing some form of scientific realism is closer...

That's a perfectly reasonable question and one I hope to answer, although it might be tricky for me to do so in the terms being discussed here because I am a scientist and not a philosopher of science, so there are terms that I'm bound to misunderstand, or use in a different jargon to you and others.
Aaaanyway, I would say my position is that empiricism is very useful in science, since induction, which is based on empirical observations, is the basis of a scientific outlook - the most basic kind of science consists of noticing patterns in nature, and then formulating 'laws' which can then be used to make predictions. A more mature kind of science relies on deduction as well, in the form of logical (and especially mathematical) reasoning used (usually in conjuction with empirical data as well) to formulate laws. Both kinds of law - those based more on induction, and those based more on a priori logical/mathematical reasoning - are then subjected to empirical verification. So without empiricism, science is nothing, I think - although there's far more to science than *just* empiricism.

As regards the idea of 'ultimate reality' or 'ultimate Truth', I'd have to say I think the universe works perfectly well in the absence of any human attempts to observe or understand it, and that to assert otherwise is anthropocentric in the extreme (as embodied in the way the 'Copenahagen interpretation' of quantum mechanics has basically been discared by all serious thinkers in the field, and cosmological models are routinely attacked for being 'anthropic'). As I said before, I have no problem with the idea of laws of nature being human constructs per se on the basis that a) there is some concrete connection between these 'laws' and the thing-in-itself, the real live functioning Universe of objects and energy and phenomena; and b) that plenty of things that are undoubtably human constructs nonetheless exist. I feel perfectly happy saying this because although I'm obviously a scientist through-and-through, I'm not a reductionist, e.g. I think you'd have a hard time deriving Darwinian evolution from the laws of physics. Furthermore, for HMLT to constantly assert that I believe in 'God' simply because I believe there is an objective universe and that science can have at least some (probably never total or ultimate, as I keep re-iterating) success accessing this through empirical observation and rational analysis is laughable and, as borderpolice says, in contradiction to the idea the vast majority of people in the world have of 'God'. God, by definition, is supernatural - or at the very least 'trans-natural', i.e. occurring in a conceptual realm outside or beyond that of natural phenomena - while science is attempt to understand the natural world by natural means.

Does this make any sense? I'm sort of pouring my brain out on the keyboard here, sorry if it's not too coherent.