Science is limited

[livingwordlabels]

Science, by definition, can only accept something which can be proven or tested in some way. It is therefore limited to making conclusions about physical things.
I'm not saying this limitation undermines science as a valid and extremely useful source of knowledge. However, what does undermine its reliability is when people use it to make assumptions and conclusions without acknowledging this limitation.

For example, when people try to use their scientific way of thinking to decide whether God exists or not. God is spiritual, not physical - a concept completely alien to science.

Also when people use only what they can observe to explain how mankind was created. This inevitably fails, as they have to limit life to something physical and we get the absurd idea of life evolving out of matter. The Bible offers us a more plausible explanation - that God created man from the dust of the ground and breathed into him the breath of life. If we believe the Bible, we can see that humans are spiritual as well as physical.

My conclusion? If you want to understand God, how we were made, our purpose for living, our relationship with God and even our future, then you need something more than science.

[otseng]

Surely you understand this Goose? Or are you new to debate?

Goose has been on this forum since 2006 (or 2007) and if I remember correctly he had accumulated around 1500 posts, I've been on this forum since 2010 and have accumulated over 3000 posts. Both Goose and I are not new to this debate forum UNLIKE YOU and we do not have to resort to making up stuff and insulting our opponents 'reasoning skills' UNLIKE YOU.

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[JohnA]

I read your full post. I see you trying to be fair, but I also see bias. You can't help it. You are human and this is how you have learned to think. You clearly did not read the my full post, all you did was continue to criticize yourself. How is that logical?

Honestly, do you even have any clue what you're talking about? You aren't even addressing the topic, you're just going on these incoherent rants that don't make sense. And you're trying to make this a personal debate about my beliefs. If you're so interested in my beliefs you can ask me a question in the question subforum, this thread and this subforum is not the appropriate place.

Am glad you agree with me that the definition of Faith. But then you go on and say again that an assumption that is un provable is called Faith. This is pure wishful thinking. How is that logical? Have your cake and eat it?

I said that accepting an assumption without any evidence is known as faith. Faith is simply believing in something in the absence of evidence. Why can't you understand this?

According to you, walking over the street and is called faith, anything with any future implication is faith regardless of predictability being there or historical evidence existing or not. That my friend is just a fatal epistemological error on your part, pure wishful thinking.

Faith is believing something to be true without any evidence. Your street analogy is nonsense. A better analogy would be if I believed that the sun would implode tomorrow. There is no evidence that proves this yet I still believe it will happen. This is called faith.

The point of philosophy IS NOT to impose un provable assumptions on science. Science is based upon un provable assumption and philosophers take notice of this.

Am glad you agree that the link that you provided was wrong then.

Yea, I'm pretty much done with you. You keep dishonestly putting words in my mouth and you're not even addressing the topic.

You provided a link from Philosophy of Science. That is now another error on your part that you admitted to.

I never said my source was flawed, stop making stuff up. There is another thread about how dishonesty should be against the rules and here is a prime example of why it should. You are dishonestly putting words in my mouth.

Can you correct this error and provide us the link where SCIENCE (this non existing entity) makes these un provable assumptions on scientific knowledge?

I listed two links with authoritative analysis from scientists such as Gould, Polanyi and Berlinski. For whatever reason you refuse to accept these sources and I really don't care. What I care about is the quality of your posts, and they are pretty subpar. You aren't addressing the topic, you keep dishonestly putting words in my mouth, and you keep going on these incoherent rants about MY faith and MY religious beliefs.

I never said ANYTHING about science being an authority or an institution or an ideology or a sect or a cult.

That is interesting. Am glad you agree.

And here you are dishonestly saying I agree with you when I don't.

LOL am I supposed to care about a little bogus critique written by some random over the internet?

Thank you for admitting that your reject your link http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/24/opini ... d=all&_r=0.

I never said I rejected my link. What I said was that I don't find any merit or credibility in your poorly written critique. Stop making stuff up.

Dear WinePusher,
You merely continued to criticized yourself. You went further and contradicted yourself and admitted that your sources were wrong and you rejected at least one of them and the other one supports my point not yours. I suspect this is just a lack of understanding on your part.

I'm intrigued nevertheless, it seems to me that you employed wishful thinking in an attempt to drag me down to his level of comprehension of irrational faith based belief resting on your empty claims. Being open minded means being open to new ideas; it doesn't mean pontificating empty claims without using the filter of reason. "Am what I am being asked to believe really based on solid reasoning and evidence'? I've NEVER seen this in your posts, they're ALWAYS flawed in some basic critical respect. For example, your unwillingness to accept the outcome of scientific knowledge is to me a fatally flawed as this is the very method of reasoning you claim to use, except, it seems, when it does not agree with your belief. Incidentally, it is not uncommon for theists to deny scientific knowledge when it goes against their beliefs. But this ought to give you pause for serious thought if you are serious about the foundations of your beliefs.

Face up to facts dear WinePusher. You are a faith based believer. As such by definition, your filters have been so long installed you can't even see them, however much you may want to kid yourself that you are open minded and logical. And my evidence for this claim? Your posts, this irrational response thinking it is reality.

The tragic part here is that with a few clicks of the mouse, you can look this stuff up for yourself. The question is why don't you? That is for you to answer. I suspect that deep down you don't want to find what you faith based belief has no rational foundation. Your mistake is your reasoning that being rational makes you less of a person. It doesn't. You can be rational too, but I don't think you'll ever relinquish your faith based belief. It is too precious to you, which is why debate is pointless because you adopted some authority's faith.

Am looking forward to your response. Am guessing you would do a full circle and end up being more thoughtful. Am not hopeful that you would fix your reason filter because you need a new one. If you ever get a new reason filter, you will come to realise that: Religion just declares truth based on faith (wishful thinking, no evidence). Science attempts to establish knowledge & predictability only based on testable observable evidence. That is the difference, the process of how to get to understand reality. The rest is just your reason filter that is grounded to only display faith based wishful thinking by default.

Yea, I don't even know what you're saying half the time because your writing style is incomprehensible. This thread isn't about MY beliefs. It's about the limits of science. I stated at the very beginning that science is based on an un proven axiomatic assumption. This assumption is that the universe is lawful, rational and uniform. Therefore, science is based on faith because at it's very core science is based upon a belief that is not proven. And you really haven't addressed this at all. All you've done is dishonestly put words in my mouth and whine and complain about my sources.

What is wrong with believing something on faith?
Surely, your belief in your god is based on faith.
Are you admitting that faith is irrational and illogical?
Or are you saying it is only irrational and illogical when this fictitious enterprise called 'science' has faith? If the latter, then what is the difference between your faith and the faith of this fictitious enterprise called 'science'?

And yes, this has to do with your beliefs.

[otseng]

You make up stuff because you are losing the debate, and you put words in my mouth and try to make it seem as if I said something when I actually didn't.

Yep, the way I see it I can trust the Socrates quote:
“When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser.�

But at least it does seem like I called the cognitive dissonance out correct!

How on earth can anyone pontificate this drivel is absolutely beyond comprehension.

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[JohnA]

You make up stuff because you are losing the debate, and you put words in my mouth and try to make it seem as if I said something when I actually didn't.

Yep, the way I see it I can trust the Socrates quote:
“When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser.�

But at least it does seem like I called the cognitive dissonance out correct!

How on earth can anyone pontificate this drivel is absolutely beyond comprehension.

Moderator Comment

Please do not make any personal comments. Again, if someone violates the rules, report it and do not comment on it.

Please review the Rules.


______________

Moderator comments do not count as a strike against any posters. They only serve as an acknowledgment that a post report has been received, but has not been judged to warrant a moderator warning against a particular poster. Any challenges or replies to moderator postings should be made via Private Message to avoid derailing topics.

I fail to see what is wrong with my post here.
But his post (where he inferred I was dishonest, saying I make stuff up) was reported, but some mod approved it as ok. And now I get a warning/comment for that? How is that fair?

[keithprosser3]

How is that fair?

Fair is subjective.

[bluethread]

Yes, I was just trying to determine the basis for your assertions. As I suspected, it is statistical analysis. Evangelicals and enviromentalists use doomsday scenerios gain converts. As you said there are many things that could do so. Admittedly, the likelihood of a meteor or comet hitting us or Yellowstone blowing up are relatively unlikely. However, given that we have a society that runs on "fossil fuels", what is likely is that any significant decrease in their use would cause serious economic consequences. Also, the only ones being restrained are Europe and North America. There are trainloads of coal coming through here from Montana to China multiple times a day. So, is coal burned in China have any less effect on the environment than coal burned in these United States. As alternative forms of energy become cost effective, they will be used. However, currently science has not developed the technology to even come close in most places.

It is interesting that we are discussing in the Christianity and Apologetics forum.

Are you denying that humans are responsible for the climate change and that it is harming the planet?

Are you denying that the planet is made up of multiple self correcting systems? A great may things are responsible for climate change; sunspots, magnetic polar shifts, plate tectonics, occasional meteors, the tilt on the axis and yes, the activities of the various life forms. Framing the other persons argument as denial, presumes one's own position to have been established as correct. That is bad form.

Even if we are irreparably changing the climate, there are other factors related that human life that need to be taken into consideration, ie that ability to change human behavior on a global scale, the nature of our economy and the practicality of the alternatives. These are my points, there are too many factors both environmental and political for science to provide the answers in cases like this.

[EduChris]

...My conclusion? If you want to understand God, how we were made, our purpose for living, our relationship with God and even our future, then you need something more than science.

Science deals strictly with the natural, physical world (whatever that might be). But most persons want and need (and operate on the basis of) more than mere "factual knowledge of the physical world." We also employ logic, which is the realm of philosophy. We employ emotions, which are the realm of art, music, and literature. And most of us yearn for the immortal, the non-contingent, the sacred.

So I agree that science is limited; it is but one prism through which we interpret our existence and our perceptions. Science cannot deal with that which is non-contingent, non-material, and lovingly relational; it cannot deal with that which is most important to most people.

[JohnA]

Yes, I was just trying to determine the basis for your assertions. As I suspected, it is statistical analysis. Evangelicals and enviromentalists use doomsday scenerios gain converts. As you said there are many things that could do so. Admittedly, the likelihood of a meteor or comet hitting us or Yellowstone blowing up are relatively unlikely. However, given that we have a society that runs on "fossil fuels", what is likely is that any significant decrease in their use would cause serious economic consequences. Also, the only ones being restrained are Europe and North America. There are trainloads of coal coming through here from Montana to China multiple times a day. So, is coal burned in China have any less effect on the environment than coal burned in these United States. As alternative forms of energy become cost effective, they will be used. However, currently science has not developed the technology to even come close in most places.

It is interesting that we are discussing in the Christianity and Apologetics forum.

Are you denying that humans are responsible for the climate change and that it is harming the planet?

Are you denying that the planet is made up of multiple self correcting systems? A great may things are responsible for climate change; sunspots, magnetic polar shifts, plate tectonics, occasional meteors, the tilt on the axis and yes, the activities of the various life forms. Framing the other persons argument as denial, presumes one's own position to have been established as correct. That is bad form.

Even if we are irreparably changing the climate, there are other factors related that human life that need to be taken into consideration, ie that ability to change human behavior on a global scale, the nature of our economy and the practicality of the alternatives. These are my points, there are too many factors both environmental and political for science to provide the answers in cases like this.

You have not answered my question.

Are you denying that humans are responsible for the climate change and that it is harming the planet?

As a suggestion, your answer could take the format of:
Yes, humans are not causing climate change. or
No, humans are causing climate change.
You do not know, but you reject the evidence that says humans are causing climate change.


Thank you.

[JohnA]

...My conclusion? If you want to understand God, how we were made, our purpose for living, our relationship with God and even our future, then you need something more than science.

Science deals strictly with the natural, physical world (whatever that might be). But most persons want and need (and operate on the basis of) more than mere "factual knowledge of the physical world." We also employ logic, which is the realm of philosophy. We employ emotions, which are the realm of art, music, and literature. And most of us yearn for the immortal, the non-contingent, the sacred.

So I agree that science is limited; it is but one prism through which we interpret our existence and our perceptions. Science cannot deal with that which is non-contingent, non-material, and lovingly relational; it cannot deal with that which is most important to most people.

That is you claim.
Now, can you back this up please - evidence please?

[EduChris]

...My conclusion? If you want to understand God, how we were made, our purpose for living, our relationship with God and even our future, then you need something more than science.

Science deals strictly with the natural, physical world (whatever that might be). But most persons want and need (and operate on the basis of) more than mere "factual knowledge of the physical world." We also employ logic, which is the realm of philosophy. We employ emotions, which are the realm of art, music, and literature. And most of us yearn for the immortal, the non-contingent, the sacred.

So I agree that science is limited; it is but one prism through which we interpret our existence and our perceptions. Science cannot deal with that which is non-contingent, non-material, and lovingly relational; it cannot deal with that which is most important to most people.

That is you claim.
Now, can you back this up please - evidence please?

Evidence for what? Which of my statements do you disagree with? Do you think that science deals with something other than the natural, physical world?