What do you believe about science?

geo · Posted: Wed Oct 01, 2008 3:09 pm Post subject:

The question seems to want to turn science—a mere methodology—into a belief system. There seems to be a lot of that going around lately.

Suffice it to say that without science, we'd be helpless against disease, more prone to malnutrition, have shorter life spans. Intellectual achievements which we take for granted today would have never come to fruition which would engender a basic lack of understanding of the world around us.

Dissident Heart · Posted: Wed Oct 01, 2008 3:32 pm Post subject:

geo: The question seems to want to turn science—a mere methodology—into a belief system. There seems to be a lot of that going around lately.

I don't think science can avoid belief systems, at least as long as scientists are going to be involved.

geo: Suffice it to say that without science, we'd be helpless against disease, more prone to malnutrition, have shorter life spans. Intellectual achievements which we take for granted today would have never come to fruition which would engender a basic lack of understanding of the world around us.

I think a more sufficient discourse would include the 10,000 plus nuclear warheads that are buried beneath the earth's surface, on the ocean, travelling over our highways, and awaiting orders high in space...all of which would not, could not, exist without science...or the multitude of weapons of not so massive destruction with their varied technological aptitudes for devastation...or the mountains of chemical and toxic goo that permeate our landfills and pour regularly into our waterways, lakes, seas and oceans...again, made available through the same scientific method that brought us the great fruits you refer to.

ZachSylvanus · Posted: Wed Oct 01, 2008 5:23 pm Post subject:

I disagree with it being a matter of belief, Dissident. I don't hold any particular belief when I use a hammer to put a nail in, or if I were to use it to try and put a screw in a wall.

It's a tool, and as such it's neutral. The use of the tool may reflect certain conditions and mentalities within the people who use them, but that's not reflected in any belief about science so much as it is about other things. In your torture example, the knowledge of science is certainly going to help, and it would be a tool to do such a thing, but the beliefs in question lie more with someone's moral compass and how they view what is right with respect to extracting information and weighing those means against the end.

If anything, the only point I would go so far as to say I "believe" about Science is that it's a useful tool, and the best tool in our bag for investigating questions about the universe around us. How you use that tool, as I said, depends entirely on other things. Use of a tool does not immediately grant wisdom in how to use that tool; that is entirely in the hands of the person wielding it. Just as you have exceptional carpenters or sculptors who can make marvelous things, so too you have the bottom of the handyman barrel who are fortunate to be able to construct a sawhorse or manage to not fracture a block of marble into a myriad of random stones. To blame or praise the tool for the results of the labor is folly.

Grim · Posted: Wed Oct 01, 2008 6:39 pm Post subject:

It seems too easy for advocates of a particular religion to forget how hard science has to fight against that particular ideological system. I don't believe that the discussion of religous belief has a place in this thread. The topic has to do with science not religion, the room is also about science & technology not belief.

Science is the least personal method of expression and yet it is always influenced by human bias. People who have science are more able to survive than those who rely on traditional methods of survival.

The greatest thing about science is that it shifts your perspective and allows you to see the true nature of the world around you. Emotional bias may prevent the full comprehension of this measurable truth however it is no less real than any measured or prove attribute.

geo · Posted: Wed Oct 01, 2008 7:07 pm Post subject:

DWill · Posted: Wed Oct 01, 2008 7:11 pm Post subject:

It seems to me that the wording of the proposition makes the choice uncontroversial (choice 1). Is there any doubt that science is the tool with which we find the causes of natural phenomena? What other means would we possibly use? True, the particular explanation science arrives at must be considered provisional even if in practice we can't help but treat it as final, but any later revision to the explanation also is the work of science. If MadArchitect had omitted the word "natural" from the proposition, why then there would be some cause for argument!

Dissident Heart · Posted: Wed Oct 01, 2008 8:47 pm Post subject:

Zach: I don't hold any particular belief when I use a hammer to put a nail in, or if I were to use it to try and put a screw in a wall. It's a tool, and as such it's neutral. The use of the tool may reflect certain conditions and mentalities within the people who use them, but that's not reflected in any belief about science so much as it is about other things.

So, what exactly is the tool in your example: the hammer, the nail, the screw or science? Tools, as far as I can tell, are usually the result of specific needs met by ingenuity and trial and error. Is science a tool or a way we approach tools? If science is not a tool, then does it still carry the neutrality which you assert resides in tools?

As I see it, there is no "as such" in these equations, such as "as such it is neutral". Tools are only used by humans (in the context of our discussion) and it is in their usage that they matter. In other words, it doesnt matter that they are neutral apart from humans: that is irrelevant as I see it. What is relevant is that they make their impression, leave an imprint, change the situation, begin to matter when used. When they matter, they are no longer neutral. Nothing that matters is neutral.

There is no meaningful space for tools apart from human usage: apart from use, tools are meaningless. They become meaningful when they are used: there is a why that precedes the how in tool use. And in each why we can discover trajectories of belief: choices, selections and agendas that all supercede the using of a particular tool...and those choices, agendas, etc are all reflections of varieties of beliefs.

Zach: To blame or praise the tool for the results of the labor is folly.

I agree. I would also say it is folly to expect anything from the tool apart from labor: the tool is really nothing without the labor.

geo: Blaming 10,000 nuclear warheads on science is like blaming someone's murder on the gun used in the crime.

I don't think the analogy holds. A nuclear warhead is not the same kind of tool as a gun: it is intentionally and purposefully indiscriminate in its destructiveness...practically obliterating a substantial portion of an entire ecosystem or potentially destroying the entire biosphere: knowingly engaging in this, with full understanding of the consequences...I think is qualitatively different from pointing a gun and shooting someone, even a number of someones. The first reflects a collosal disregard for life, a kind of psychopathic genocidal disgust and irresponsibility; shooting a gun, on the other hand, is not always a psychopathic act of genocidal murder...it can be many things, some of which involving murder, as you state, but not always.

Still, as I've stated to Zach, the gun is never neutral when it is in someone's hands: and it only matters when it is.

DWill: Is there any doubt that science is the tool with which we find the causes of natural phenomena?

I guess the point I am trying to make is that science is not simply a matter of finding causes ... it is also a matter of building, constructing and destroying the world around us. But I still think my point matters in the sense of finding causes, in that the choice for which cause to find: the decision to seek here and not there, for this and not that, this searching begins with something more than science: it begins with a whole mess of beliefs, agendas, etc. Again, the why for that we are searching is at some point something beyond science.

DWill · Posted: Wed Oct 01, 2008 9:09 pm Post subject:

Grim · Posted: Wed Oct 01, 2008 9:23 pm Post subject:

I think that the very notion of believing in science is an oxymoron.

I mean when you talk about a belief system you are really implying religion, or a deeply held conviction, but when you begin to talk about science you are not really talking about anything that is truly influenced by anything metaphysically human. There can be no true belief in science because in a pure sense the two are beyond comparison.

Science cannot even prove the existence of thought; thought becomes so muddled in trying to purify science that it cannot comprehend its own conclusions.

The distinction between thought(a belief system) and science(not a belief) should be apparent.

Looking at your belief of science is as similar to me as looking at how when a whale swims it seems as though it can fly. Science is the whale swimming and belief is thinking you can make science into something it isn't. And by the way the whale continues to swim weather you think about it or not.

In this way the term science is a distraction because it masks the truths and physical laws around us in a human bondage so tight that we have trouble believing that anything true about the world can be had without rigorus process of human convention. We are bending the steel rod of science into a pleasing shape losing sight of the purity in the bar that gave us the product.

If you where to ask what role belief plays in the execution of science, then you would have platform to debate to use of the tool. The tool is in no way science.

My belief in science has no influence on what science really is it is meerly a personal expression of conjecture that probably varies so significantly from sstatus quo that I would much sooner talk about what the common notion of the meaning is than what my own beliefs in science are (in this particular thread).

geo · Posted: Wed Oct 01, 2008 9:51 pm Post subject:

ZachSylvanus · Posted: Wed Oct 01, 2008 10:44 pm Post subject:

Dissident Heart · Posted: Thu Oct 02, 2008 12:15 am Post subject:

Zach: You seem to be arguing that because a chisel can be used to kill, it is a flawed tool, and a negative one.

No, I'm making the case that a chisel isnt a chisel until it is used and it is always used for a purpose and that purpose reflects a particular configuration of beliefs. There is no "tool in itself"...there is only "tool in use". The choice of how to use the tool is not neutral: and there is no tool without choice. Tools are meaningless matter until they are used: which is a matter of choice. People use a particular tool because it matters, will make a difference, will help to acheive a desired goal or objective. This doesn't mean the tool is flawed or negative. It does mean there is no such thing a pristine location where tools simply exist apart from our human, all-too human ambitions.

Zach: Science is a tool. It's the way we approach examining the universe around us.

When I think of "the way we approach" I think of rules of the road: agreed upon laws that keep traffic orderly and relatively free of accidents, moving along so that people can reach their destinations. A "way" implies a trek or journey, a movement from one location to another. It also implies a destination: an endpoint and goal...on the way to...I think the destination of science is not a scientific product: it is a belief that guides the scientific effort...a map to help keep the scientist on track and expecting, perhaps with anticipation, even hope, maybe even dread, of where the journey will end up...reminding the scientist why the trip matters.

Zach: How we apply it is engineering, and that often reflects biases in the human condition.

This is an important distinction Zach. I wasn't aware of such a sharp delineation that removes engineering from the realm of science. So science applied is not really science?

Zach: Such as your nuclear weapons you're so fond of.

Actually, I think I've identified them as psychopathic genocidal lunacy...criminal and repulsive and, as I see it, a dark reminder of how dangerously destructive science, and science applied, can be....really, living in the dark shadow of these terrible monstrosities should fill us with deep, deep sadness and a genuine sense of shame: we should be ashamed of such terror...and science has played an integral role in this.

ZachSylvanus · Posted: Thu Oct 02, 2008 12:32 am Post subject:

I see that I'll have to avoid literary devices, because apparently you are set on taking me literally.

Science applied is in fact different from science alone.

Look at Ecology, for example. Using the scientific method alone, I can tell you several factors about various populations, ecosystems, etc. Only when I apply it can I (mis?)manage a system. Generally applied science (via engineering) yields to us technology.

For example, to continue the nuclear weapon case study. All science did was let us know that when you split the atom, a considerable amount of energy is released. Technology (through engineering) harnesses this knowledge to create both nuclear power, and atomic weapons. All science does is elucidate knowledge.

In fact, if you look at the very root of science, the latin word scientia means "knowing" or "knowledge". By itself, knowledge is useful only in and of itself. Engineering takes that knowledge and provides outlets for it through technology; once you apply something, you are channeling it through your own biases.

Grim · Posted: Thu Oct 02, 2008 8:58 am Post subject:

In my mind pure science relys on no tool. Science is the results you get from the experiment, it is not the experiment. Your new flashy iPhone is not science. Science was used to create it, it is not what went into it's conception. A value in high technology brought about the cellular phone, science made it possible. I see the tool and science as the same in so far as the tool furthers the understanding of science.

Of course for all the talk of purity, science as I put it in this is alway held in the understanding mind of the observer. To further the development of science is to further the understanding.

I believe that science is pure yet human intention and design is not. How easy it is for us to confuse science or use it to serve only convenience, promoting the "darker" sides of these developments, forgetting the natural systems that brought about the beautiful systems we are only starting to understand in purely scientific sense. These values rather than values of learning or observing make science practical yet in doing so they take the science a step away from itself.

Belief and science are incomparable, science in purity dissolves belief, belief in purity deny's the purity of science with human convention.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/09/photogalleries/2008-be st-science-photos/index.html


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