RE: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] Is science a religion?

["Spurling, Shannon" <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

I think you can take this one step further to examine the behavior of
those "rabid" believers that you see around all the time. These people
range all the way from religious fanatics to scientific bigots. If you
think about it, a fundamental commonality on the face of all of these
people is a belief that they are right and any one who differs with
their way of thinking must be wrong. Comments like "any one with half a
brain" and other similar statements are common in their writing and
speech. I am not saying that every one is right and there is no truth or
fact, or even that truth depends on the individual. That is absolutely
not true. What I am trying to say is that many people who are rabid in
their beliefs many times have dropped the practice of self examination. 
What Mike says is along the lines of "we evaluated the facts in the
first place, and it said this so it must be true". That is a very
admirable way of looking at things, except many times dogmatic thinking
takes over from there. You examined it once with the information at hand
and then more information comes in later that may change the possible
outcome, do you reexamine what you believe? The fact of the matter is
that you never have all the information, so what you see as truth is a
veiled interpretation of that. Scientific or not. That does not mean
truth does not exist or that it's relative. It means you have to listen
and evaluate things in a well reasoned and even headed manner. It's all
a means to understand the universe and the world around us in some way.
A means to seeking enlightenment. Isn't that what makes it a religion?

 

Shannon Spurling
WAN Engineer -Specialist

MOREnet, Network Services, Core Network
3212 LeMone Industrial Blvd.
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-----Original Message-----
From: EMAIL:PROTECTED
[mailto:EMAIL:PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Stephen
Montgomery-Smith
Sent: Tuesday, May 04, 2004 11:57 AM
To: MLUG Off-Topic Discussion
Subject: Re: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] Is science a religion?

Michael wrote:
> 
>> Religion involves *mystical* belief.
>>
> Exactly why all of science, not just the quacks, is a religion. All
the 
> posits of science, like any religion, rests on recursive faith in 
> itself. Logic is the right way to evaluate the world because that's 
> science. Science is the right way to evaluate the world because that 
> relies on logic. It's full of just as many conceptual loops as any
other 
> religion. We make fun of religious groups for their tendency to back
up 
> why their religion is right by looking to their religion but that is 
> exactly what science does. It's all mystical. It's all faith. I happen

> to think my religion, science, is better than others but that again is

> based merely on faith in my own religion.

I think that this exchange really illustrates Polanyi's points rather
well. 
Mike Miller definitely believes in science, to a point where it seems to
be so 
self evident to him that it frankly does not require explanation.
(Sorry to put 
words in Mikes mouth - I know I am probably overstating his case, but I
think 
that I have the right direction.)

In his essay, Polanyi says that he also believes in science, but argues
that 
scientists should realise that their belief is not self evident, that is
does 
require explaning, and ultimately, that scientists need to recognise
that their 
beliefs really are beliefs.  In his essay, he doesn't just look at the
behavior 
of "quacks" but also looks at the behavior of successful scientists.
And indeed 
the best science (and mathematics for that matter) seems to result not
from a 
careful process, but from following strong hunches.

I heard a speaker about him the other day, and they said that Polanyi
was a 
Hungarian chemist, who first worked in Germany, and then moved to
England as a 
result of persecution in Germany.  After the second world war, he
noticed a 
strong socialist movement to tell scientists what they should be
discovering. 
(This was a much stronger movement in Europe than in the USA.)  He felt
that 
this would essentially kill science, and looked to western philosophy to
justify 
current scientific practices, but came up empty.  As a result he wrote
his book 
"Personal Knowledge" in which he attempted to describe how science and
discovery 
really takes place.

Christians such as Lesslie Newbigin, and Esther Meek (the latter is the
speaker 
I heard last week - she is from St Louis) have realised that his view of

estimology (the study of how we know) seems to work much better with
religion 
than does the more traditional western philosophies.

I only know a little about Polanyi's ideas.  It first it seems quite
contrary to 
current western thinking, but after a while it comes across to me as
extremely 
profound.  Certainly as a philosophy to live by, it seems better than
most 
anything else I have tried.

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