Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[John Jones]

Is science having us on? More so than in centuries gone by, yes.

Science cannot explain things. It can, however, explain how many things physically get on with each other. But knowledge of the things themselves always comes down to common-sense everyday experience.

Gravity, and the electron, for example, are not explanations or things. They are oblique references to pages in instruction manuals and to laboratory practices, which tell us how to get things done to our satisfaction. These references are made more real by being tagged to our simple knowledge of fallng objects, and small objects.

There are other myths of science that have no basis in fact, but only arise from an abuse of grammar, broken metaphors, or from anthropomorphisms. These travesties of truth include Time, space-time, mental illness, disorder, the brain, the universe, life, natural selection, evolution, quantum probability, data, information, robot, the mind, autism, aspergers...

The list of factual abuses falling under the banner of "science" is seemingly endless, and is growing day by day into a new, well-organised mythology for idiots.

[Keith Russell]

There are other myths of science that have no basis in fact, but only arise from an abuse of grammar, broken metaphors, or from anthropomorphisms. These travesties of truth include...the brain, the universe, life...

The universe, life, and the brain are "travesties of science"?

I've held brains in my hands. They exist. They are real.

As for the rest, give me a break. Psychology is not "science", though it tries very hard to appear as such. The rest of your examples (other than "the universe", "life", and "the brain") fall in the realm of theoretical physics.

Theoretical.

'Nuff said.

"Science" is far broader than theoretical physics. Your computer, your cell phone, your car, and your cable TV work because science is able to provide factual, practical, information about "the universe" that we "living" beings can--by using our "brains"--utilize to adapt the world to better suit our needs.

Do you know anyone who has survived cancer? Is living with diabetes or a thyroid disorder? Have you ever been on a plane, or had surgery, or done any farming?

Science as a "travesty of truth"? (And you posted this on an Internet forum, using a computer?)

LOL...

[NameRemoved]

Is science having us on? More so than in centuries gone by, yes.

John in a lot of ways ..YES it is..I believe Science has a place..until it plays God that is..until scientists use science against people..I feel the same way about politicians..and others

Keith Russell asserts

I've held brains in my hands

you have not held my thoughts in your hands or my mind spirit or heart..the physical brain is not the only qualifier of a mind..have a read I posted this a while ago..ie what scientists say#

http://onlinephilosophyclub.com/forums/ ... php?t=3302

Keith Russell asked

Do you know anyone who has survived cancer?

Yes I do, and it was without the aid of science..
have a read on DR Moritz findings before judging out of hand..
http://onlinephilosophyclub.com/forums/ ... php?t=3268

if anything chemotherapy speeds death up in cancer patients

[DeathByThought]

The list of factual abuses falling under the banner of "science" is seemingly endless, and is growing day by day into a new, well-organised mythology for idiots.

Don't worry, whatever goes in science. The unneeded will fade and whatever is needed, will be made.

And just by you saying that the things you mentioned are travesties means that there are sciences which hold these as travesties and try to prove sth different from them. What seems to be under discussion here is the methods and different approaches of science.

[Keith Russell]

Keith Russell asserts

I've held brains in my hands

you have not held my thoughts in your hands or my mind spirit or heart...

I never said that I had. The initial post asserted that "brain" was one of the things-in-question, as regards science.

I disagree, and I stated one of my reasons why.

the physical brain is not the only qualifier of a mind...

Of course not. (And, again, I never said otherwise.)

Keith Russell asked, "Do you know anyone who has survived cancer?"

Yes I do, and it was without the aid of science..
have a read on DR Moritz findings before judging out of hand...

I'm not judging out of hand, but I feel fairly confident that there are more cancer survivors alive on earth right now thanks to science, than thanks to Dr. Moritz.

if anything chemotherapy speeds death up in cancer patients

It is possible that chemotherapy does hasten death--for those patients that don't have their cancer go into remission.

I'd rather roll the scientific dice, and have my cancer either kill me quickly or go into remission, than the othr option of having my death prolonged...

[pjkeeley]

Stop personifying science. Science is a method, not a person.

If you have a problem with scientists, say so. If you have a problem with doctors, say so. If you have a problem with those who advocate technological advancement, say so.

[Meleagar]

I think the problem that we have is that scientific investigation for the last hundred years or so has significantly influenced by a particular ideology: materialism, which leads not only to practical problems, but also ethical and moral problems as well.

Suffice it to say that without a proper moral and ethical foundation, any institution - including "mainstream science" can run off its tracks and become so corrupt that it is nothing more than a tool the powerful use to manipulate and control. This can happen in business, religion, politics, and we see it now occurring in science.

This is one of the reasons that metaphysical materialism cannot be a successful foundation for the institution of science to operate from; it offers no meaningful guide for the moral and ethical pursuit of truthful statements about the universe, whether such statements advance that scientist's personal agenda, reputation and financial fortune or not.

And so we have the head of the IPCC who doesn't even consider it wrong to advance convenient, non-scientific stories as "settled science" when it advances an agenda he considers to be "good". Why should he consider it wrong, when materialism, the new ideology of science, offers no sound basis for determining proper ethical behavior?

[Santini]

Yes, you're quite correct, John, science is having us on. We'd be much better off going with the certainties of religion that provided such a wonderful lifestyle for all those who lived in the middle ages and earlier. Who needs TV, the internet, cell phones, modern medicine, cars, trains, and planes, etc.? I think we'd be just fine walking or riding horses to get around and communicating by carrier pidgeon or pony express rather than by email. I've long thought that shaman, faithhealers, and voodoo practitioners do a much better job than medical doctors do of healing the injured and curing the diseased. I really don't know why anyone else might believe anything different. Guess they've all bought into the myth of science.

[John Jones]

There are other myths of science that have no basis in fact, but only arise from an abuse of grammar, broken metaphors, or from anthropomorphisms. These travesties of truth include...the brain, the universe, life...

The universe, life, and the brain are "travesties of science"?

I've held brains in my hands. They exist. They are real.

As for the rest, give me a break. Psychology is not "science", though it tries very hard to appear as such. The rest of your examples (other than "the universe", "life", and "the brain") fall in the realm of theoretical physics.

Theoretical.

'Nuff said.

"Science" is far broader than theoretical physics. Your computer, your cell phone, your car, and your cable TV work because science is able to provide factual, practical, information about "the universe" that we "living" beings can--by using our "brains"--utilize to adapt the world to better suit our needs.

Do you know anyone who has survived cancer? Is living with diabetes or a thyroid disorder? Have you ever been on a plane, or had surgery, or done any farming?

Science as a "travesty of truth"? (And you posted this on an Internet forum, using a computer?)

LOL...

No, in fact.

[Belinda]

The list of factual abuses falling under the banner of "science" is seemingly endless, and is growing day by day into a new, well-organised mythology for idiots.

In that case we are and always have been , idiots. There has always been a world view of what constitutes reality. The world view used to be medieval and religious. The present world view is scientific, which is partly why the Christians are currently trying to sneak on to the science train.
This is what I think, although opinions like that of Santini#8, in support of Enlightenment science, do shake my post modern stance.

[Meleagar]

The present world view is scientific, which is partly why the Christians are currently trying to sneak on to the science train.

Well, considering they basically invented and engineered the train and built the track it runs on, and operated it for hundreds of years before the materialists "snuck on" and started running it outside of its specifications, I think that the Christians "sneaking" back on the train is a good thing. We don't want the train run into ruin because the materialist barbarians don't know anything about how to keep the train or track maintained.

[boagie]

I vote that this chinese story of creation be taught as the science of creation in our schools to put that silly evolutionary theory in its place. There are after all many more chinese than north Americans in the world. I MEAN GENESIS, DUH! THIS IS THE WAY IT REALLY HAPPENED!!


Chinese
In the beginning , the heavens and earth were still one and all was chaos. The universe was like a big black egg, carrying Pan Gu inside itself. After 18 thousand years Pan Gu woke from a long sleep. He felt suffocated, so he took up a broadax and wielded it with all his might to crack open the egg. The light, clear part of it floated up and formed the heavens, the cold, turbid matter stayed below to form earth. Pan Gu stood in the middle, his head touching the sky, his feet planted on the earth. The heavens and the earth began to grow at a rate of ten feet per day, and Pan Gu grew along with them. After another 18 thousand years, the sky was higher, the earth thicker, and Pan Gu stood between them like a pillar 9 million li in height so that they would never join again.

When Pan Gu died, his breath became the wind and clouds, his voice the rolling thunder. One eye became the sun and on the moon. His body and limbs turned to five big mountains and his blood formed the roaring water. His veins became far-stretching roads and his muscles fertile land. The innumerable stars in the sky came from his hair and beard, and flowers and trees from his skin and the fine hairs on his body. His marrow turned to jade and pearls. His sweat flowed like the good rain and sweet dew that nurtured all things on earth. According to some versions of the Pan Gu legend, his tears flowed to make rivers and radiance of his eyes turned into thunder and lighting. When he was happy the sun shone, but when he was angry black clouds gathered in the sky. One version of the legend has it that the fleas and lice on his body became the ancestors of mankind.

Pan Gu works in mysterious ways--------lol!!
It is said, Pan Gu was born of a virgin
He said, I am the one, yes the one, the one they call, the seventh son!
My daddy was a pistol I am a son of a gun!

I MEAN REALLY, CAN 1,335,760,000 CHINESE PEOPLE BE WRONG?

[Isidorus]

it's not the scientists we have to worry about, it's the politichiens, or corporate sheep,- take your pick.

[rayback]

Is science having us on?

Of course it is having us on.

It can only tell us small insignificant things.

Science is incapable of tackling really big questions.

Just look the replies from its top exponents.

.

[Mirabiliamania]

I would like to reply on this. The evolutionary establishment (Darwinism) has abandoned all resemblances to a scientific method in favor of an hypothesis which they have assumed to be untestable. But some of us know that Darwinism is the most tested and failed in the history of science.

Mira