Robert, if you can, it would be best to obtain the book, as to some extent I am probably putting words into Burton's mouth. I don't think he used the phrase "complex reality," for example. What I meant by it is more like "worldview," I think, and yes, I think different worldviews, whether they are most influenced by religion or science, will always characterize the human race.Robert Tulip wrote: your comments here indicate the frustrating ambivalence about the status of knowledge in Burton's viewpoint. It seems frankly ridiculous to say there is not a complex reality that we can agree on, even though it is true that there are very many people who hold adamantly to falsehoods. The slipperiness here is not about the meaning of truth, rather it is the way people can elide and glide around a debate about the nature of objectivity. Richard Dawkins has an excellent comment on these issues in his book River out of Eden:
Burton attempts to stay away from philosophy, so he is not concerned with the status of knowledge. He tries to make his whole argument rest on how the brain works. It is from his belief that our brains incline us to find out the meaning and purpose of our lives, that he comes to his stance that there will inevitably be a great variety of expressions of the sense of meaning and purpose. Richard Dawkins is also an example of this variety. If some religious beliefs are unscientific, there is no harm. (He says, regarding how we treat others' religious beliefs, "Above all, do no harm".) And if a scientific worldview might lead to a view of the universe as random and meaningless, then it is no wonder that many take refuge in unscientific beliefs.
Richard Dawkins, and others, have made it their mission to crusade against "falsehoods", as you call them. That leaves me a little cold, but it is certainly thier right to do so.
Burton advocates admitting our uncertainty. He says there is a difference between absolute and "99.99% certainty." Since the findings of science are provisional, we are never absolutely certain and should say, for example, "I believe that the evidence for evolution is overwhelming."
I can't help thinking you have a slightly skewed view of what Burton is trying to say in the book. Empirical testing, for example, is not something he throws in to "weasel out" of an all-knowledge-is-relative view. It is the important factor that separates claims that rest only on a personal "feeling of knowing", from those that have been substantiated. He is promoting rationalism and science when he describes this. It is just that science is not all the world for him, in sharp contrast to someone like Dawkins.
DWill